Five Key Questions About John McCain

WASHINGTON, Feb. 7, 2008— -- 1. Coming out of Super Tuesday with a big lead in delegates, what is John McCain's strategy for securing the Republican nomination?

Simply put: more of the same.

The Arizona senator will try to amass the 1,191 delegates he needs to become the GOP presidential nominee by winning primaries and caucuses while waiting for former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney to conclude that remaining in the race is expensively hopeless or hopelessly expensive.

McCain will engage in much friendlier competition with former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. The two are genuine friends and unlikely to launch the kind of harsh attacks on one another that McCain and Romney fired back and forth.

McCain can also survey the battlefield of remaining state contests and see that it favors him, not Huckabee. With the exception of Texas, most of the key primaries are in states where McCain can be expected to be strong, such as Ohio and Pennsylvania.

McCain is preparing for a war of attrition that he believes he cannot lose.

2. Can McCain make peace with those Republican conservatives who are suspicious of or just plain dislike him?

With some, yes.

They have or will likely come around if and when it becomes certain McCain will be the Republican nominee. Those are the pragmatists.

But there is a sizeable number of conservatives who will never accept him. An ABC News/Washington Post poll this week found that he has made significant gains with conservatives and evangelicals since December. But Super Tuesday revealed the depth of conservative resistance.

Romney did better among self-described conservative voters. It was revealing that even in his home state of Arizona, where immigration was the No. 1 issue with Republicans, Romney beat McCain. He has his work cut out for him.

That work begins in earnest today with a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference's annual meeting in Washington, D.C.

McCain's weakness with conservatives is his strength with moderates and independent voters, among whom he enjoys stronger appeal than any Republican presidential candidate in many years. Polls suggest he could put blue states into play: California, New Jersey, Pennsylvania.