2008 & Counting

McCain and RNC reach for political aspirin

Sen. John McCain, the GOP’s presidential candidate, has a headache that threatens to turn into a convention migraine.

Even though the Arizona senator secured enough delegates to claim the nomination in early March, Rep. Ron Paul’s (R-Texas) vocal and zealous supporters have given no indication they or their champion are ceding ground.

{mosads}At that time, Robert “Mike” Duncan, chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC), reached out to the two remaining candidates, Paul and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, to let them know the RNC intended to recognize McCain as the party’s nominee.

But since then Paul supporters have disrupted and shut down state conventions, and McCain has struggled to win the primaries in a convincing manner reflecting the fact that the race is over.

In both the Indiana and North Carolina primaries Tuesday night, McCain lost nearly a quarter of Republican voters to another candidate. And in Pennsylvania, McCain secured only 73 percent of Republican primary votes.

An RNC official confirmed that in the last two weeks Duncan again reached out to Paul for a “private meeting,” but the source declined to discuss the conversation.

Charlie Black, a senior McCain adviser, explained the primary results by pointing out that McCain had not campaigned in those contests. He insisted the Republican Party is coming together behind McCain.

“John McCain can and has unified the Republican Party,” Black said last week.

But that might not be easy to do at this summer’s convention, especially after 2004 Democratic nominee Sen. John Kerry (Mass.) made a show of unity by inviting all of his vanquished foes to speak at the party’s Boston convention.

Paul told The Hill he has not been asked to speak at the convention, but was sure that his supporters — some of the most rowdy of the 2008 primary campaigns — would welcome the recognition.

“Of course it would be very beneficial for me to speak, but from the view of the party and what they want to do, it would not be,” he said, adding that he hadn’t been to many conventions in the past.

“You think Tom Tancredo will be asked?” he inquired.

No. Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) was not.

“No, but I think it would be great,” Tancredo said, laughing. “I think we should be as open-minded [as the Democrats in 2004].”

Tancredo acknowledged that his vehement opposition to McCain’s immigration plan likely knocked him off the short list of speakers.

“I think the reasons are fairly obvious,” he said. “People don’t want to hear a dissenting voice.”

Tancredo will attend the August convention in Minneapolis and joked that he could be penciled in at the last minute.

“When I’m there, you never know — they could say, ‘We’ve got five minutes,’ ” he said.

One Republican official downplayed the effect Paul might continue to have on McCain.

“At the end of the day, John McCain is going to be the next president, not Ron Paul,” the official said. “The Republican Party is focused on electing Sen. McCain in November.”

— Sam Youngman and Jackie Kucinich

Republican group questions Obama’s appeal to Jewish voters

The Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC), a group that has been highly critical of Democratic front-runner Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.), highlighted results of a recent Gallup poll to question Obama’s ability to win with Jewish voters.

The poll, which was conducted through the month of April, shows Obama getting “only” 61 percent of the Jewish vote against presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), who received 32 percent.

The RJC compared those numbers to the 75 percent of Jewish support 2004 Democratic nominee Sen. John Kerry (Mass.) received.

“These results show that the American Jewish community is troubled by what they know of Barack Obama, his views and his positions,” Matt Brooks, RJC’s executive director, said in a statement. “The RJC remains confident that John McCain will continue the trend of the GOP making inroads among Jewish voters.”

The Obama campaign, however, regarded the numbers as a positive indicator.

“I think the poll shows that after an admitted rough patch in the campaign, Sen. Obama is still beating Sen. McCain among Jewish voters nearly 2-to-1,” Tommy Vietor, an Obama spokesman, said. “This before the general election campaign has even started. It’s clear that voters across the country want a candidate [who is] going to end the war in Iraq and bring real change to this country.”

— S.Y.

She’s, uh … He’s, uh … They’re back

Obama Girl is back.

Her latest video features an entreaty from former Democratic presidential candidate and new Libertarian Party member former Sen. Mike Gravel.

In the video, which is available on YouTube, the former candidate asks Obama Girl, also known as Amber Lee Ettinger, to switch allegiances to him.

“You should drop your crush on Obama,” Gravel, um, sings. He even does a dance.

Even though Ettinger says that because Gravel is “6-foot-2 from Alaska, I could give that a shot,” she notes at the end of the video that she’ll “think about it.”

— S.Y.