McCain Prepares for '08 Bid With Appeal to Right

McCain advisers likened yesterday's speeches -- to the GOPAC political action committee and the Federalist Society -- to an address Reagan delivered in 1977 after the Democrats won the White House and GOP fortunes appeared to ebb.

Asked why McCain has joined the debate now, one of his top advisers, Rick Davis, said: "It didn't take a rocket scientist a month ago to say there's going to be a problem on Election Day, and we need to act quickly on that. Politics abhors a vacuum, and so do we. . . . Why not try to focus the party back on its core principles?"

McCain asserted before both conservative audiences that last week's elections were neither a setback for conservatism nor an affirmation of the Democratic Party's philosophy.

"I think they rejected us because they felt we had come to value our incumbency over our principles, and partisanship, from both parties, was no longer a contest of ideas but an even cruder and uncivil brawl over the spoils of power," he said. "I am convinced that a majority of Americans still consider themselves conservatives or right of center. They still prefer common-sense conservatism to the alternative."

McCain invoked President Theodore Roosevelt in calling on Republicans to take the lead in reforming the capital's spending and lobbying practices.

On lobbying, he said: "Let's ban all gifts from lobbyists to lawmakers and keep lobbyists off the floors of the House and Senate."

McCain said public frustration with the war contributed to the GOP's losses. "We're in one heck of a mess in Iraq," he said, "and the American people told us loud and clear last week that they are not happy with the course of this war. Neither am I. But let's be clear: That's the limit of what they told us about Iraq and the war on terrorism."

He said the United States has made "a great many mistakes in this war, and history will hold us to account for them just as the voters did last week." Defeat would be "a catastrophe," he said.

McCain has spent much of the year courting many of Bush's fundraisers and supporters and trying to reassure conservatives he is one of them, even if he has been at odds with them on some issues. He defended his participation in the bipartisan "Gang of 14" compromise in the Senate, saying that compromise helped ensure the confirmation of many of Bush's judicial nominees.