Look Ahead to 2008: McCain's Balancing Act

Feb. 20, 2006 — -- The last time many Americans thought about Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., in presidential terms was in 2000 when the senator slugged it out with then-Gov. George W. Bush for the GOP's presidential nomination. Afer upsetting Bush by 19 points in New Hampshire's open primary on the strength of his performance with independents, Bush battled back by rallying the GOP's conservative base in South Carolina.

As McCain prepares to head to New Hampshire (home of the Republican Party's first primary) on April 7 and to Iowa (home of the GOP's first caucus) on April 13, the conventional wisdom is that he would be unstoppable in a general election but doomed in the GOP primaries.

But with many in the Republican Party irked by the growth of federal spending and concerned about a public growing weary of war, some conservative insiders are beginning to warm to "Mr. Outsider." McCain says he will not make a final decision about 2008 until after the midterm elections. But he is already taking steps to win over the party's conservatives and he appears to have done so, at least so far, without alienating the self-described "radical centrists" who have always been his core supporters.

In recent months, McCain has taken several steps to court his party's base: he has endorsed teaching intelligent design alongside evolution; he has backed a ban on gay marriage in his home state of Arizona; he has met with the Rev. Jerry Falwell.

He has also described former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., as "the finest leader we've had" and questioned the commitment of media darling Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., to ethics reform. And to top it off, he recently said he wouldn't be bothered if Roe v. Wade were overturned since he's never supported it.

But far more important to McCain's conservative resurgence has been his opposition to what he calls wasteful spending and his commitment to persevering in Iraq.

During Michigan's 2000 presidential primary, the GOP activist Chuck Yob was not in McCain's corner. Yob was a Bush man; his second choice was Steve Forbes, the magazine publisher and flat-tax advocate. But in the six years since McCain's last presidential run, Yob has fallen under McCain's spell.