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Some On GOP's Right Wing Trying To Accept McCain

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By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK, The New York Times

Published: February 1, 2008

WASHINGTON - Sen. John McCain has long aroused almost unanimous opposition from the leaders of the right. Angry over crimes against conservative orthodoxy such as voting against a big tax cut and opposing a federal ban on same-sex marriage, conservative activists have agitated for months to thwart his Republican presidential campaign.

That, however, was before he emerged this week as the party's front-runner.

Since his victory in the Florida primary, the growing possibility that McCain may carry the Republican banner in November is causing anguish to the right. Some, including James Dobson and Rush Limbaugh, say it is far too late for forgiveness.

But others, faced with the prospect of either a Democrat sitting in the White House or a Republican elected without them, are beginning to look at McCain's record in a new light.

"He has moved in the right direction strongly and forcefully on taxes," said Grover Norquist, an anti-tax organizer who had been the informal leader of conservatives against a McCain nomination, adding that he had been talking to McCain's "tax guys" for more than a year.

Tony Perkins, a prominent Christian conservative who has often denounced McCain, is warming up to him, too. "I have no residual issue with John McCain," Perkins said, adding that the senator needed "to better communicate" his convictions on social issues.

Critic Should 'Talk To Real People'

Richard Land, an official of the Southern Baptist Convention and a longtime critic of McCain's, agreed, saying, "He is strongly pro-life."

"When I hear Rush Limbaugh say that a McCain nomination would destroy the Republican Party," Land added, "what I want to say to Rush is, 'You need to get out of the studio more and talk to real people.'"

How firmly conservatives reject or embrace McCain may be a pivotal variable, both in the home stretch of the Republican primary campaign, when Mitt Romney is hoping to rally conservatives to his side, and in the general election, when too much grumbling from the right in a close race could cost McCain the White House.

The McCain campaign, for its part, is trying to make amends. On the day after the Florida primary, it announced that McCain would speak next week at the Conservative Political Action Conference, a major gathering held each year in Washington.

Last year, he drew barbs from the conservative news media for skipping the event while his Republican rivals all attended. His advisers now consider that a big mistake.

"We recognize that conservatives will be instrumental to our victory in November, and we are reaching out and taking their advice," said Jill Hazelbaker, a McCain spokeswoman.

Right Wing Wants Explanations

Many on the right, though, say McCain has a lot of explaining to do.

His transgressions, in their eyes, are almost too many to mention. Not only did he vote against President Bush's tax cuts and a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, but he also supported embryonic stem cell research that Christian conservatives consider murderous and stricter environmental regulation that business conservatives consider devastating.

McCain championed campaign finance rules that many conservatives consider a restriction of free speech. He fought for looser immigration rules that outraged grass-roots activists. And he made a deal with Democrats to break a deadlock on judicial nominations that many on the right considered near treasonous.

Anger over that deal flared up again this week when a Wall Street Journal columnist, John Fund, reported that McCain privately had criticized Bush's Supreme Court nominee, Justice Samuel Alito, because "he wore his conservatism on his sleeve."

The McCain campaign quickly denied he held such a view, noting that the senator voted for Alito's confirmation and routinely praises his selection on the stump. But conservative activists say the charges nonetheless reminded them of their doubts.

"Conservatives need to act now, before it is too late!" Mark R. Levin, a movement veteran, wrote on the Web site of National Review, urging a "rally for Romney."

The publication was host to an online debate Wednesday on the question: "A Republican future with McCain?"

A spokesman for Dobson, the influential evangelical Christian founder of Focus on the Family, said he stood by the position he staked out more than a year ago that as a matter of conscience, he could never vote for McCain.

Nor has the small-government wing of the movement swung to his side.

"I have yet to see McCain make any attempts to reach out to free-market conservatives," said Pat Toomey, president of the anti-tax fundraising group Club for Growth, warning that "if you have a big problem with a big part of your base, you really should be mending fences."

In his broadcast Thursday, Limbaugh escalated his attacks on McCain as an imposter in the party.

"McCain is in a lot of these places not actually the Republican candidate. He is the candidate of enough Republicans, but independents and moderates and probably even some liberals," Limbaugh argued, contending that such voters were deciding Republican primaries because other candidates had divided the conservative vote.

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