Conservatives rally around enemy-turned-ally McCain

ST. PAUL — Conservatives who have long clashed with John McCain are now fully embracing the Arizona senator’s campaign for president.

One recent convert is fiercely conservative former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), who decided to support McCain’s candidacy after it was clear he would win the nomination and would face Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), one of the most liberal senators.

{mosads}Santorum said McCain’s decision to reverse his position and support offshore drilling, his “exemplary” performance at a religious forum last month and the addition of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to the GOP ticket has got him “jazzed.”

“There really is only one big decision a candidate makes that really tells you something about maybe how he’ll govern, and VP is it,” said Santorum, who as recently as January complained in a radio interview that a McCain presidency would be “very, very dangerous.”

Santorum had also questioned the Arizonan’s commitment to social-conservative causes, like outlawing abortion, and ruled out supporting McCain in the primary season.

In an interview Monday, Santorum sang a different tune: “It’s now a campaign I’m excited to be involved in,” he said. McCain “hasn’t done anything that I was afraid he was going to do, which is sort of to decide, ‘OK, I’ve got to be a liberal again and run to the left.’ ”

Santorum is far from alone. By naming Palin as his running mate, reversing his positions on some key issues, professing his values at last moth’s religious forum and allowing conservatives full control to write the party’s platform, McCain has gained trust from leaders of the party’s right wing. Those changes, along with fear of an Obama presidency, have occasioned far more support among conservatives than McCain has ever enjoyed before.

The changing mood has helped the campaign reap a financial windfall, pulling in nearly $50 million in August, campaign officials said Monday.

His detractors also recognize that McCain has a solid chance of winning in November, despite the sour national mood in the Republican Party.

Tom DeLay, the former House majority leader who clashed with McCain on immigration, campaign-finance reform, energy policy and tax cuts, is now a full-throated supporter of McCain. DeLay (Texas), like Santorum, fears what an Obama presidency would mean for the conservative movement.

{mospagebreak}But as recently as January, DeLay issued a blistering critique of McCain at a closed-door meeting of Republicans, accusing the senator of “betraying” the conservative movement. If McCain won the primary, DeLay warned that he might sit out this election.

“I think McCain has done more to hurt the Republican Party than any elected official I know of,” DeLay said in January on Fox News.

McCain has long had a cold relationship with some House Republicans, including Dennis Hastert (Ill.), who served as House Speaker when DeLay was majority leader. In January, Hastert called McCain an “undependable vote” who was “allied with Democrats.”

Now Hastert also is holding events this week in the Twin Cities, celebrating the McCain candidacy. Ron Bonjean, a GOP consultant and former aide to Hastert, said the senator and former Speaker have had “a couple of disagreements, but everyone knows Denny always does what’s best for the team and will do everything he can for Sen. McCain.”

{mosads}Grover Norquist, head of the conservative Americans for Tax Reform, applauded McCain’s reversal to support Bush’s tax cuts and called McCain’s campaign-finance law “spilled milk.”

Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), a top appropriator who has sparred with McCain over earmarks and said this year that the thought of a hot-headed McCain as president sent a “cold chill” down his spine, is now an “enthusiastic” supporter, according to Cochran’s spokesman, Adam Telle.

David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, spent last week here drafting the party’s platform. Keene, who is also a columnist for The Hill, said conservatives were nervous about McCain when he ran for president in 2000 because he was attempting a “hostile takeover of the party.”

Now, Keene says, McCain has won trust by taking a hands-off approach to the GOP platform, which breaks from the presumptive nominee on a range of issues, including stem-cell research, climate change and immigration.

“That gave some comfort to conservatives,” Keene said.

Unlike President Bush, McCain does not emphasize the role of his religion, and he alienated religious conservatives in 2000 when dubbing religious leaders Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson as “agents of intolerance.”

Before Falwell’s death last year, McCain made peace with the prominent evangelist, giving a commencement address at Falwell’s Liberty University.

Robertson, however, may still harbor ill will. He’s a no-show at this week’s convention and has yet to endorse a presidential candidate.

“Evangelicals I don’t think will ever forgive him for McCain-Feingold,” Richard Land, head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s ethics and religious liberty commission, said Monday of the campaign-finance law conservatives see as a massive government intrusion.

He said the choice of Palin, a strong opponent of abortion and supporter of gun rights, is energizing conservatives. Similarly, religious leader James Dobson said last year he could not support McCain “under any circumstances,” but he said last week that selecting Palin is a “very encouraging sign.”

In July, conservative activist Richard Viguerie equated the mood of some conservatives to a “fatally ill patient.” In an interview Monday, Viguerie was upbeat because of the Palin pick, saying the Republican Party will now move “in a whole new direction.”

Former Rep. Charlie Bass (R-Pa.), head of the centrist Republican Main Street Partnership, said Monday he has no concerns that the middle of his party would be alienated as McCain appeals to the right.

“I never doubted that the Republicans would be on board,” Bass said.