I've been communicating with top GOP strategist Ralph Reed this morning and I want to share with you some comments he gave me regarding John McCain. I should point out that Reed says he will support John McCain if he becomes the nominee.
Read his comments below:
"Intensity in politics matters, and at a time when the liberal base of the Democratic party is running on pure adrenalin, John McCain, assuming he wins the nomination, must move swiftly to unite the Republican party and energize the conservative grassroots. He began that process with a very good speech at CPAC. But my sense is that he did not close the sale, and the speech was the first step, not the last step, in a long journey of reconciliation with conservatives.
There is still much work to do for McCain to win conservative hearts and minds. I talked to two nationally prominent social conservative leaders over the weekend who told me that right now they do not plan to vote for McCain. In Louisiana on Saturday, Mike Huckabee won self-identified evangelical voters 57-33 percent and won very conservative primary voters 55-32 percent. Remarkably, this is after McCain had achieved the status of the presumptive GOP nominee, suggesting deep and latent ambivalence among conservative and faith-based voters.
What can McCain do? First, he should choose a running mate with strong conservative credentials, both on social issues and economic issues. Then he should adopt a conservative platform at the convention, and run a general election campaign that sounds conservative themes on taxes, terrorism, and values. If he does those things, he should be able to unite the party. If not, it will be difficult to rally the grassroots and win a highly competitive, close race in November."
Ralph Reed is like E.F. Hutton. Remember that commercial in the 1980s when the announcer said, "When E.F. Hutton talks, people listen."
It's true. Reed has been around the block a few times and has a good handle on where social conservatives may be headed on McCain.