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 News from Around the Americas | February 2008 
As Romney Exits, McCain Seeks Unity
 Elisabeth Bumiller & David D. Kirkpatrick - NYTimes
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| | Supporters of Mitt Romney made their feelings known Thursday after he dropped out of the race and Senator John McCain took the stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference. (Stephen Crowley/NYTimes) | | |
Washington — Senator John McCain all but captured the Republican presidential nomination on Thursday after Mitt Romney withdrew from the race, saying the war in Iraq and the terrorist threat made it imperative that the party unite.
In a dramatic announcement before a convention of stunned and largely unhappy conservatives, Mr. Romney said that he wanted to fight on but that taking his campaign all the way to the Republican convention in September would delay a national campaign against Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton or Senator Barack Obama, the two remaining Democratic contenders. Mr. Romney described both as weak on national security.
“They would retreat, declare defeat, and the consequences of that would be devastating,” Mr. Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts, told a crowd that broke into chants of “Mitt, Mitt, Mitt.”
Staying in the race, he said, “would make it easier for Senator Clinton or Obama to win.”
Mr. Romney, who spent tens of millions of dollars of his fortune on the race, added, “Frankly, in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign be a part of aiding the surrender to terror.”
Mr. McCain stepped forward two hours later before the same gathering to try to make peace with a group deeply skeptical of him, if not outright hostile. In a moment that will long be remembered by Republicans, he was greeted with jeers as well as cheers.
Mr. Romney did not explicitly endorse Mr. McCain in his address to the annual convention of the Conservative Political Action Conference, but for the first time in a campaign remarkable for its animosity between the two men, signaled a degree of support for him, saying he agreed with Mr. McCain on the war and on fighting terrorism.
“Now, I disagree with Senator McCain on a number of issues as you know,” Mr. Romney said, as the crowd booed at the mention of the name. “But I agree with him on doing whatever it takes to be successful in Iraq.”
When Mr. McCain took the stage, he reached out to conservatives in conciliatory remarks.
“Many of you have disagreed strongly with some positions I have taken in recent years,” Mr. McCain told the group in an enormous, overflowing hotel ballroom, where people were held back from entering by security guards who said the raucous crowd exceeded fire code violations. “I understand that. I might not agree with it, but I respect it for the principled position it is.”
Nonetheless, Mr. McCain said, “it is my sincere hope that even if you believe I have occasionally erred in my reasoning as a fellow conservative, you will still allow that I have, in many ways important to all of us, maintained the record of a conservative.”
President Bush is to speak to the group on Friday and will indirectly vouch for his old rival for the 2000 Republican nomination, according to a text of his remarks released by the White House. “Soon we will have a nominee who will carry the conservative banner into this election and beyond,” Mr. Bush is to say.
The mixed reception for Mr. McCain reflected the divisions within the party as it tries to chart a post-Bush ideological and political course in the face of a fired-up Democratic Party.
Although Mike Huckabee of Arkansas and Representative Ron Paul of Texas remain in the Republican race, Thursday’s events had the effect of placing Mr. McCain in an almost unassailable position, while Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton face the prospects of a long fight between themselves for their party’s nomination.
Mr. McCain’s speech to the convention was one he had hoped to deliver Tuesday night, after voting in more than 20 primaries and caucuses across the country gave him a commanding lead.
On Thursday, with Mr. Romney out, Mr. McCain, of Arizona, faced the task of generating enthusiasm for his candidacy among conservatives while at the same time beginning to reach out to independents and moderate voters who could tilt the balance in the general election.
Many at the gathering responded to Mr. McCain’s speech with a mixture of resistance and resignation, indicating the magnitude of the challenge he will face if he hopes to match the palpable energy of the Democrats. As soon as Mr. Romney announced that he was ending his campaign, a few activists appeared in the hotel lobby with handmade cardboard signs saying, “Republicans Against McCain.”
Paul Weyrich, chairman of the Free Congress Foundation and a founder of the conservative movement who had endorsed Mr. Romney, said he had watched Mr. McCain’s speech on television and doubted that he had convinced many on the right.
“It didn’t go far enough,” Mr. Weyrich said. “I am going to write in somebody.”
Others said they would vote for Mr. McCain with distaste. “I will hold my nose and pull the lever,” said Tom Lewis, a small-business owner from Saratoga Springs, N.Y., who was attending the conference.
Conservatives fault Mr. McCain for what they consider a long list of transgressions: voting against a big tax cut and a Constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, championing campaign finance laws that put advertising restrictions on independent organizations, pushing an immigration overhaul that many conservatives call amnesty for illegal immigrants, and once calling certain evangelical leaders “agents of intolerance.”
Mr. McCain’s plea for support reflected the Conservative Political Action Committee’s growing centrality to the Republican Party. It was founded decades ago by a small band of Barry Goldwater supporters who railed from the outside against the Republican Party of Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford.
But since the election of Ronald Reagan, the group has become an increasingly central focal point for party activists, a symbol of how much the lines have blurred between the conservative movement and the Republican Party. Mr. McCain was the only Republican primary contender to skip last year’s conference. His absence earned him barbs throughout the conservative media, and his advisers have since said his decision was a mistake.
In his noticeably conciliatory remarks, Mr. McCain cataloged his record, which he said included support for tax cuts, a near quarter-century opposition to abortion rights and enthusiasm for judges who “take as their sole responsibility the enforcement of laws made by the people’s elected representatives.” He reminded the group that he had defended Mr. Bush’s troop escalation in Iraq and vowed, if he became president, never to sign a bill that contains earmarks, the pet spending projects that lawmakers pursue in Congress.
He did not mention his bill to overhaul the nation’s campaign finance system, which conservatives regard as an assault on free speech, but he did address his efforts last year to pass legislation that would have loosened immigration laws. Mr. McCain has since said he would secure the nation’s borders before putting some illegal immigrants on a path to citizenship, but he has not changed his basic position.
“I stood my ground, aware that my position would imperil my campaign,” Mr. McCain said.
He added: “While I and other Republican supporters of the bill were genuine in our intention to restore control of our borders, we failed, for various and understandable reasons, to convince Americans that we were. I accept that.”
After Mr. McCain’s speech, Tom DeLay, the former Republican majority leader, said in an interview on “Hardball” on MSNBC, said he was not sure he would vote for him in the general election.
“If he continues down to be the same old John McCain that used to have disdain for the conservatives, then I’m not sure who’s the most dangerous to be in the White House,” Mr. DeLay said.
Mr. McCain learned from news media reports on Thursday morning that Mr. Romney was planning to drop out of the race, forcing Mr. McCain’s speechwriter, Mark Salter, to hastily rewrite the remarks he had planned for the conservative gathering.
In between Mr. Romney’s 12:30 p.m. speech and Mr. McCain’s 3 p.m. remarks, Mr. McCain telephoned Mr. Romney, a McCain adviser said, to express respect and talk about the need to unite the party.
Mr. McCain’s advisers are hoping for Mr. Romney’s endorsement in the coming days, as well as those from other party conservatives. |
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