McCain Seeks to Lock Down Conservative Support After Romney Exits
Thursday: John McCain gestures while giving a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington after rival Mitt Romney dropped out of the race. (AP Photo)
John McCain immediately began locking down the support of his party’s conservative base Thursday after Mitt Romney dropped out of the Republican presidential primary race with an entreaty to conservatives to let bygones be bygones and to help McCain defeat the Democratic nominee in November.
With a gaping lead in the delegate count, McCain is unquestionably the leader for the GOP nomination but is eager to mute the scathing criticism he’s faced from the far right wing of the party for being too moderate, and convince staunch conservatives to not just resign themselves to his nomination, but embrace it.
In an early and promising sign of McCain’s ability to do so, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, who has in the past gone head-to-head with McCain over campaign finance reform, joined a chorus of other Senate members Thursday in saying he would support the Arizona senator.
“I think the Republican nomination is essentially over. I think there’s widespread pride among Republican conference members that one of our members is going to be the nominee for president of the United States,” McConnell said of McCain. “He’s certainly going to be our nominee. And I’m happy to support him. What he’s achieved is a remarkable accomplishment.”
Texas Sen. John Cornyn, who clashed with McCain over immigration reform, also endorsed him ahead of his state’s primary in early March as did former Romney supporter Sen. Thad Cochran, who just recently told reporters, “The thought of (McCain) being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper, and he worries me.”
On his way to a vote, the Mississippi senator said he’s now on board: “Oh yes, I support John now.”
Romney formally suspended his campaign before a stunned audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington early Thursday afternoon, saying he didn’t want to hurt the party by continuing his uphill battle and dragging it out to the convention in September.
McCain’s first test following Romney’s decision was to address the same audience a few hours later — and he got a mostly cordial reception as he assured the audience of his conservative beliefs, on fiscal responsibility, national security, abortion and other issues.
He also asked for their “pardon” for skipping the conference last year, and said, “I am acutely aware that I cannot succeed in (the race for president), nor can our party prevail over the challenge we will face from either Senator Clinton or Senator Obama, without the support of dedicated conservatives.”
FOX News contributor Michael Steele, former lieutenant governor of Maryland, said after the speech that McCain had to “eat a little humble pie,” but succeeded in showing conservatives that he is one of them.
“He began, I think, to link conservatives to his vision and his cause … and help them understand how his conservatism and theirs kind of meld together,” Steele said. “I think that he really did a great job today of kind of sealing that for the GOP.”
One of the few moments of backlash at CPAC, however, came when he discussed illegal immigration, a sign that his work to forge a comprehensive immigration plan with Democrats is still considered amnesty by many conservatives. McCain said he pursued that legislation knowing it would “imperil” his campaign, but that border security is among his highest priorities. The audience applauded that.
McCain has been blasted for his position on illegal immigration, global warming, campaign finance and tax cuts by several prominent right-wing figureheads and pundits, including Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, and Focus on the Family founder James Dobson.
In a snub to McCain, radio show host Laura Ingraham called Romney the only conservative running for president at CPAC.
Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay told FOX News McCain still has a lot of work to do with conservatives, and that he only got some positive reception Thursday because the audience was “salted” with his supporters.
“The room was not overwhelmingly warm to him,” he said from the event site. “We’ll see if McCain really wants to build a relationship with the conservative movement. … It’s really incumbent on the next nominee, if it is McCain, to reach out to conservatives. He cannot rely just on some Democrats and independents … he has got to have a base.”
But Nation editor and FOX News contributor David Corn said of the audience reception: “If he can do this with one speech, it shows … that the conservative ideologues are real pushovers.”
Meanwhile, Mike Huckabee is pledging to stay in the race, despite trailing McCain in the delegate count by a numerical canyon, 707-195.
“I still believe that this thing is a long way from being settled and now that the field is down to two, our chances have substantially improved,” the former Arkansas governor said in New York, claiming he could unite conservatives.
Romney had 294 when he dropped his bid, and Texas Rep. Ron Paul has 14. A candidate needs only to reach 1,191 to clinch the nomination, and McCain is just a few hundred away.
Even Hillary Clinton said McCain is the presumed Democratic rival.
“It appears as though Senator McCain will be the Republican nominee, and I have the greatest respect for my friend and colleague Senator McCain,” she said in Virginia. “But I believe he offers more of the same. More of the same economic policies. More of the same military policies in Iraq.”
McCain stressed to CPAC Thursday that he would not allow defeat in Iraq, blasting Democrats for calls to withdraw prematurely. National security was the principal issue Romney cited when discussing the common ground he shares with McCain.
“Senator Clinton and Senator Obama will withdraw our forces from Iraq based on an arbitrary timetable designed for the sake of political expediency, and which recklessly ignores the profound human calamity and dire threats to our security that would ensue,” McCain said, asking the audience to look past their disagreements with him.
“You have heard me say before that for all my reputation as a maverick, I have only found true happiness in serving a cause greater than my self-interest. For me, that cause has always been our country, and the ideals that have made us great,” he concluded.
FOX News Serafin Gomez and Trish Turner and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
To Republican no more at 5:53PM Friday
This thread may be dead but I just wanted to say that I agree with you 100%. IMO, I feel the majority of the electorate merely regurgitate the bias that they are fed. For some reason they won’t do a little research to see if what is said about a candidate is true. Is this from laziness or lack of intelligence, I don’t know. I’m from MA and everything you said is true and can be backed up. We lost the chance for a great President with Mitt Romney because of back room Washington politics and two candidates with nothing more than a thug mentality.
I was a born & bred JFK liberal and as the Democratic Party became more radical I changed my party affiliation - I’m conservative both socially & fiscally. I think it’s time for a third party. I see a local talk show host admit that she’s a Democrat but because of 911 and run away entitlement programs she voted for McCain. Fine, that’s her right but now she’s threatening that McCain had better not go conservative on her. McCain is not good for the Republican Party.
Mitt Romney’s speech the other day was amazing and I believe he will be back so don’t give up. We can only pray that the bias, bigotry and lies are gone.
Can’t wait to get my “Don’t Blame Me I Voted For Mitt” sticker.
I will be voting for the most honest, fair, and none-judgmental candidate that remains in this election. I am a republican, but he is not.
“Republican No More”
Please Read;
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=60022
“Mitt Romney pushed through same-sex marriage all by himself, in the absence of any authority or requirement to do so, having a complete misunderstanding of his role as governor and of the significance of the court’s opinion,” said Keyes.
“The court never ordered him to act, nor did he have the right to act, since the legislature never changed the law. Romney claimed he had no other choice, but that’s completely untrue.”
Romney said;
“I promised that if elected, I’d call a truce - a moratorium, if you will…I vowed to veto any legislation that sought to change the existing rules…I fully respect and will fully protect a woman’s right to choose.”
(Taken form http://www.perrspectives.com).
To Mike at 1:41 -
Romney NEVER voted for Abortion. Romney NEVER voted for Gay Marriage. You can’t find one peice of documentation where he did. When faced with the obligation of a vote, he DID the right thing. He VOTED against Adult Stem Cell Research. He VOTED against Gay/Lesbian Marriage. He SUED his state over the Gay Marriage Law. If you would take the Huckabee Blinders off you would see his RECORD of conservatism.
How do you think you are the expert on conservatism? I, for one, did exhaustive research on each candidate. I looked up EVERYTHING. Your allegations on Romney are as false as they come.
I have been a conservative democrat all my life. I switched my party to vote for Romney because I have never in my life time seen such a qualified candidate. I am now switching back after experiencing all the intolerant, bigotted, slanderous, lies about a remarkable man and his religion. Democrats aren’t perfect but they are a hell of a lot better than you Republicans.
To Lisa MD -
I couldn’t have said it better.
We sing hymns of praise for Ronald Reagan as our Party’s hero, but he would be eaten alive by Coulter, Limbaugh, Hannity, and other frothing-at-the-mouth demagogues if he were running today. Reagan was willing to compromise when he saw that it would lead to a greater good, and this included working with the Democrats in Congress … just like John McCain does. But nowadays, Pres. Reagan himself would be pilloried as a Liberal by these knee-jerk talking-head extremists.
We are strong if we can bend a little in order to get most of our policies accepted. But if we are narrow and rigid and blindly ideological, we will break. And this is exactly what is happening to our G.O.P. today. The backstabbing and recriminations that we are engaging in is a sign of our current weakness.
Mitt Romney transformed his image from Eastern Liberal to Core Conservative for the purpose of this campaign, and if he wasn’t so much of a shape-shifter, I think he would have done better in the primaries so far. If he could get elected, his chameleon qualities might make him be a pragmatic, reach-across-the-aisle leader in the Reagan mold. But despite waves of dishonest propaganda from Fox News, the electorate wasn’t in the mood for someone as slippery as Mitt, and so now, we have to make do with someone else.
Between McCain and Huckabee, who would be the more pragmatic, get-things-done leader? For all his faults, I say it’s McCain.
People like Ann Coulter who would prefer that a Democrat ruin our country for four years just to give the G.O.P. better chance in 2012 are showing their true colors. She and her compatriots are so ideological and hate-filled, that they’d prefer sending our country to h*ll than for us to make a few compromises here and there in order to solve some of our problems and make some improvements. She and her ilk are taking the “let’s kill the patient in order to save him” approach, which is not only stupid, but dangerous.
John McCain is not ideal, but if we rally behind him and give him our support, we at least have a fighting chance to do some good over the next four years, and also, to heal our own wounds and pull the G.O.P. together again.
We have lots of challenges ahead, both as a Party and as a country. Let’s not squander them by shooting ourselves (and the U.S.) in the foot.
C’mon people. Stop blaming Mike Huckabee for Mitt Romney’s demise. He lost on his own, fair and square.
Fox News threw every bit of unfair and unbalanced spin that it could muster into a major effort to cover up the fact that Mitt is just a repackaged Eastern Liberal, but the majority of the voters didn’t buy it. Yes, Mitt is a decent, hardworking, successful businessman who has good family values, but he knew that this isn’t enough on its own to get the Republican Party to choose him as the 2008 candidate, so he did an about face on many of the left-wing positions he took in Massachusetts and he put on a “Conservative” costume for the Presidential election.
All the talk about the political shenanigans that McCain and Huckabee have engaged in recently is a joke when you look at Mitt’s record of telling the electorate anything that he thinks that they want to hear, as long as he can get elected. He presented himself as a Liberal when running for Senator and Governor in Massachusetts, and now he has been presenting himself as a Conservative in the Presidential race.
If Fox News wasn’t outputting a constant stream of pro-Mitt propaganda, he would have lost by an even greater margin, because more people would have found out about his Liberal positions and policies in Massachusetts and about how much he was misrepresenting himself as a Conservative just to get the Republican Presidential nomination.
After George W. Bush, most Republicans are sick of phonies.
Following up on my previous post, specifically the point I started to make about Ann Coulter’s remark and McCain’s ability to work with Democrats…
I think we need a Republican who is able to work with Congress (whether it be Democratic or Republican, my preference being the latter). Otherwise, how would we accomplish anything? Rather than have Democratic Congress pass through all of their liberal mumbo-jumbo and get vetoed, why not have a President who can say, “Look, I’m not going to be able to sign your bill like this. However, here’s some middle ground we can both agree on.” This way, the business of the country gets taken care of, but hopefully, it won’t be too far the the left or right. Maybe that doesn’t make sense to some people.
I have come to the realization that people like Ann Coulter would not be happy even with a very conservative Congress and a very conservative President. Those types of people only thrive on animosity and fighting. So, why bother even listening to them. And, in case you’re wondering, I feel the same way about Democrats who listen to the junk spewed out by Al Franken, John Stewart, Michael Moore and all the the other liberal loonies. Really, all the talking heads are all the same. They just want to have a big fight. Maybe we could put the conservative and liberal talking heads in a big ‘ol arena and let them fight it out like gladiators. At least, there would be some good entertainment on tv since the writers are on strike
McCain a “liberal”? Umm…where’s your proof? Don’t quote some run of the mill talk radio pundit’s view—show me the proof! McCain isn’t my first choice either, but calling him a liberal and Romney a conservative…It just blows me away. I’ve seen people saying “his liberal voting record proves it.” What??? Are you kidding me?! I don’t support McCain’s position on campaign finance or immigration, but to call him a liberal because of a few positions it ludicrous.
Romney is not a conservative. For all of you calling him the conservative “savior,” why don’t you go and look into his actual record as governor and the positions he espoused while running for Senate against Teddy Kennedy. Maybe if you did a little homework and stopped listening to some of the talk radio long enough to do your homework, you would see the light like I did. Listening to the likes of Rush, I have for years despised McCain and his so-called “liberal” record. However, while trying to find a viable candidate to support, I did my own homework. I found that while McCain has ‘crossed the aisle’ and worked with Democrats on some issues, his overall record is conservative. If I could take Romney at his word, well then, I guess he does sound like a good conservative. However, there is a difference in what a person will say to get elected and what they truly believe in (that’s why I look at records).
McCain has voted against the tax cuts because he sees that the first thing we need to do is to cut back on spending. How can we raise spending while at the same time cut taxes? We can’t. Our first goal must be to get our budget in order. Then, if there’s extra money, work on the national debt. Then—and only then—can we reduce taxes. I definitely don’t want any new taxes, but I’m simply saying take what we already have and make it work. We can’t make it work, though, if we keep spending like we’re winning the lottery every day. I used to hate McCain for his votes against tax cuts, but now I’m hoping that he will be the one President who will be able to reign in Congress’s spending. Or at least, I’d like to have that dream.
So, McCain can work with Democrats. Good. We need a President who can work with Congress to get things done. I saw Ann Coulter give an interview this morning where she said she would rather have a Republican Congress that fights a Democratic President than have John McCain as president. If John McCain were truly a liberal (like Romney or Giuliani), then I would agree. However, again—based on his record of 30 years—McCain supports conservatives and Republicans more often than not.
As for why he has a disdain for the talk radio hosts and they feel the same towards him…Well, maybe he’s like me. He’s tired of so many of them (not all, but many) only looking out for their own self-interest (ratings & $$$) and leading their listeners astray. I have not felt this way towards the talk radio circuit until this election cycle, but the way they are able to diss McCain and build up Romney is the biggest crock I have ever heard of. I pretty much can’t stomach to hear them right now.
This is to all the Talkshow hosts, talking heads, political pundants and the Republican establishment itself… WE ARE NOT IDIOTS! We are not democrat rank and file types! The average Republican voter is more educated genrally speaking and is by far more in tune to politics and current events! You all are very insulting to our intelligence! and frankly, I feel that it is your fault that YOUR guy lost! he was NOT forced out. He bowed out! We are NOT going to go along with you just because you say so! you did NOT make us. We made you! We do not listen to you all to be told what to do or how to vote! We do not listen to you to learn how to think or what to think. We listen to you because you used to think the same way we do. When that changes, you are through….So walk gently, as you throw your slime around….You are all treading on thiin ice at this time in history! Don’t begrudge ANYONE for whom they vote. That is their franchise and their right! just report what we do. Don’t try to tell us WHAT to do! I truly feel that you all have cost us this whole thing!