Huckabee's gains show McCain has work ahead

BY TOM BRUNE | tom.brune@newsday.com

February 10, 2008

WASHINGTON - When John McCain's campaign shifts gears for the November election, the GOP's all-but-assured nominee will be on a tightrope, balancing his new role as party leader against his longtime role as party insurgent.

But to compete and win against the eventual Democratic nominee, McCain will need both roles, say political analysts, and his campaign acknowledges it's a balancing act that he must master.

Last night's results showed just how much McCain has to do to make it work, especially to win over GOP conservatives who harbor years of anger at him for his self-proclaimed maverick ways.

Conservative and former Baptist minister Mike Huckabee, who swept the South last Tuesday, yesterday won nearly 60 percent of the vote in Kansas caucuses - picking up all 36 delegates at stake - to McCain's 24 percent.

While the caucuses in Washington state and the presidential preference primary in Louisiana remained too close to call at 10:30 p.m. EST, Huckabee led McCain in both states.

McCain appears to be in little danger of losing his status as the presumptive nominee - chief rival Mitt Romney has dropped out and Ron Paul yesterday said he is trimming back his presidential campaign to focus on his congressional seat.

Huckabee acknowledges he's too far behind in delegates to pose a serious challenge, and some argue by staying in the race he keeps McCain in the national conversation, which otherwise would be focused totally on the Democratic fight.

Still, McCain must learn to juggle two key elements: embracing and distancing himself from President George W. Bush, and energizing his conservative base while retaining his appeal to independents.

The bridge, McCain has signaled, will be national security - embodied by his personal story as a Vietnam War hero, his early criticism of the Iraq War bungling and his hawkish approach to terrorism.

Recent polls show McCain leads Hillary Rodham Clinton and remains competitive, if slightly behind, Barack Obama in head-to-head comparisons, but those surveys come long before the two sides take each other on.

"It's a very fine line to walk," said Dan Schnur, McCain's national communications director from his 2000 campaign.

"One of his great strengths has always been an ability to reach out across party lines for support. That's a huge benefit for this election," Schnur said.

"But he really does have a challenge in terms of bringing in the Republican conservative base," he added. "The nice thing for McCain is that the Clinton-Obama fight is going to give him a lot more time to reach out to conservatives."

McCain campaign spokeswoman Brooke Buchanan said it's just too early to talk about exactly how McCain will take on either Clinton or Obama.

"We are still running our campaign like it's a contested primary," Buchanan said. But she also indicated McCain's general election strategy will follow predictable lines.

"There are stark differences between John McCain and Senator Clinton and Senator Obama," she said. "At the end of the day, Senator McCain is a conservative Republican and they are liberal Democrats."

Buchanan said McCain wants to cut taxes and the Democrats want to raise taxes, for example. She added that McCain wants to make sure military leaders make the decisions in Iraq, and the two Democrats want to "raise the white flag and get out of Iraq."

And she said McCain has the military background and experience to provide leadership in the most important issue of all - the war on the United States by Islamic radical terrorists.

But some political analysts say those issues cut both ways.

"His attractiveness is based entirely on his biography and authenticity," said Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institution about McCain.

"The big question is whether McCain can maintain his support among independents and Democrats once his positions on Iraq and taxes are directly engaged by the Democratic nominee," Mann said. "He is the strongest Republican candidate but hardly represents the post-Bush change for which Americans clamor."

Already the Clinton and the Democratic National Committee have indicated they will challenge his "Straight Talk Express" by pointing out "flip-flops" on various issues, while at the same time trying to tie McCain directly to the unpopular Bush, whose ratings in opinion polls are mired in the 30 percent range.

"A vote for John McCain," said DNC spokesman Damien LaVera this week, "is a vote for a third Bush term."