McCain Is Victor, But Others Still in the Ring

Feb. 6, 2008— -- Though Sen. John McCain's victories in states like New York and California make him the clear Republican front-runner, vote totals in the South indicate that none of the candidates are uniting the party.

McCain, R-Ariz., has a "conservative" problem. He lost voters, who identify themselves as "conservative," to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, by seven points yesterday. He even failed to win their support in his home state of Arizona.

On Thursday, McCain will speak to the Conservative Political Action Conference with the hope of healing any wounds.

"We all share common principles, common conservative principles, and we should coalesce around those issues in which we are in agreement, and, I hope, respectfully disagree on the few specifics [where] there is disagreement," McCain said on Wednesday.

"The conservative party may give its nomination to someone who does not carry, in any particular state, the conservative vote," noted Washington Post columnist and ABC News contributor George F. Will.

McCain's willingness to compromise with Democrats on issues, such as immigration, arouses conservative ire.

Talk radio personality Rush Limbaugh, for instance, today railed against the Arizona senator, after McCain said that President Reagan had reached out to Democrats.

"We know that he can work with Democrats," Limbaugh said. "The problem is, that he doesn't really want to work with Republicans. ... When did the measure of conservativism ... become reaching out to Democrats?"

This mistrust opened the door, to a degree, to former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's Super Tuesday southern sweep of his home state, plus Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama and West Virginia — boosted, in no small part, by Huckabee's fellow evangelicals.

"Mike Huckabee is the guy they feel like is part of the family," said former Bush senior adviser Matthew Dowd, "and it's the only place they feel like they can go."

But it's unclear that Huckabee can expand beyond his base. Though the former Arkansas governor won in southern states, he lagged a distant third in the rest of the country.