Quotes of the Day

It's been a strange republican primary season.

John McCain was the early front runner, but conservatives didn't like his positions on immigration and global warming. So Rudy Giuliani became the favorite, but conservatives didn't like his positions on guns and abortion. They liked all Mitt Romney's positions, until they learned that he used to have totally different positions. They got excited about Fred Thompson's candidacy, until they realized that he wasn't. And then Mike Huckabee had his moment in Iowa. But now Super Tuesday has confirmed McCain as the front runner again — didn't the pundits tell you Republicans always pick early front runners? — even though conservative icons like Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity and James Dobson are still trashing him as a closet liberal.

The dominant narrative for the rest of the Republican race could be McCain's uneasy relationship with the right. Though the Arizona Senator has solidified his claim to the GOP nomination, he still finds himself in a struggle to win over the party's skeptical conservatives without turning off the swing voters he'll need to win the White House. He was the big winner of Super Tuesday delegates, but he captured only nine states, including six blue ones, while Romney and Huckabee combined to win 12 states, including 10 red ones. McCain has owned independents and moderates, but Huckabee thumped him in the Bible Belt, and McCain even trailed Romney among self-described conservatives in his home state of Arizona. He's lucky that Romney and Huckabee have both tried to run as the true conservative, splitting the base. "The conservatives do have a choice, because the conservatives have a voice!" Huckabee declared after sweeping the Deep South.

The thing is, McCain is also trying to run as a true conservative. He opposed President George W. Bush's tax cuts, but now he vows to make them permanent. He fought to give illegal immigrants a path to citizenship, but now he says his top priority is securing the border. That's been the strangest thing about the GOP race: For all the conservatives' complaints about the candidates, they've taken conservative positions on most issues. Conservatism can be in the eye of the beholder, but with the notable exceptions of Ron Paul's opposition to the Iraq war and some of Huckabee's populist economic rhetoric, the candidates haven't said much on the campaign trail to cross social conservatives, military conservatives, tax-cut conservatives or fiscal conservatives. "I promise you," McCain assured conservatives in his victory speech, "if I am so fortunate to win your nomination, I will work hard to ensure that the conservative philosophy and principles of our great party ... will again win the votes of a majority of the American people."

After years of cultivating his reputation as a maverick, McCain still sounds like an outsider when he woos the party's base — "your nomination" was a telling choice of words — but that's probably not as important as the fact of his wooing. The remarkable turnout of the Republican base in 2004 carried President Bush to re-election, a lesson that clearly resonates with the Republican candidates of 2008. Bush's approval ratings are now awful, but none of the candidates have tried too hard to distance themselves from him, except to portray themselves as hard-liners on immigration and spending. That could cause real problems in the general election. And while McCain polls much better among swing voters than Huckabee or Romney does, he would have to do more to energize the base if he were the nominee, which could alienate more of the centrist voters who are already fed up with Bush and the Republican Party.

With a comfortable lead in the delegate count, McCain is now less concerned with the other candidates than the talk-radio hosts, evangelical preachers, war bloggers, party activists and corporate financiers who are needed to fire up Republican voters. They're still divided and disgruntled. Limbaugh has warned that nominating McCain or Huckabee would destroy the party, and while Romney has emphasized his appeal to neocons, theocons and econocons — the Reaganite three-legged stool — YouTube has made him look like a flip-flopping pseudocon. The conservative direct-mail activist Richard Viguerie has called for a new candidate to unify the right. "Grass-roots conservatives are justifiably wary of the present contenders," he wrote.

That hints at a damaging internecine fight ahead, one that could doom the party's hopes of holding on to the White House. But Democrats can't count on a conservative crackup. It may be tempting to view the Republican race as a battle for the party's conservative identity, pitting antiabortion vs. antiterrorism vs. antitax, Huckabee the evangelical pastor vs. McCain the war hero vs. Romney the venture capitalist. But Super Tuesday's exit polls suggest that McCain did best among Republicans who care most about the economy, while Romney scored best on immigration. Many conservative leaders will never trust McCain, partly because he's taken them on with such glee on issues like campaign finance, and partly because he's a liberal media darling. But conservative voters don't always fit neatly into Main Street or Wall Street, theocon or neocon boxes. Some vote with their gut — emoticons? — and McCain's warrior biography and tough-guy persona may trump his voting record.

The larger point is that there's little evidence the McCain surge represents a Republican rejection of Bush or any of the various strands of conservatism. Primary season is always a branding process, a way for political parties to hash out their identities, and throughout this campaign Republicans have embraced conservatism as consistently as Democrats have embraced change. And even many disgruntled conservatives believe there's one presidential candidate who can still motivate their disappointed base. She's not a Republican.

• Michael Grunwald
• McCain has strengthened his claim to the GOP nomination. But attacks from conservatives may hurt him in November