Conservatives and McCain
Sunday, April 20, 2008 at 10:04AM Politico.com has a must-read piece this morning about McCain and his efforts to win over rank-and-file conservatives.
Their conclusion: McCain is fairing as well or better with conservatives than the last three Republican nominees at the same point in their candidacies. As evidence they site a new CBS News/New York Times poll, which shows that only 18 percent of conservatives have an unfavorable view of McCain, which is roughly the same as George W. Bush in 2000, and better than Dole and George H.W. Bush in 1996 and 1988 respectively.
McCain still has a few prominent conservative detractors, most notably James Dobson and Ann Coulter, but he seems to have won over most of the holdouts. The real question will be: how enthusiastic will conservatives be come November. As Karl Rove proved, elections have become an exercise in identifying and turning out the base. It's one thing for conservatives to find McCain "acceptable"; it's quite another for them to actually rally around him. The latter is yet to be seen.
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