GOP Still Adjusting to McCain

Yet there are clearly aspects of McCain's approach to issues that make him controversial within the GOP. One is his willingness to do business with Democrats and independents, including Sens. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) and Joseph I. Lieberman. (I-Conn.). He has warned his party to expect more of that.

In the interview, McCain said that "Democrats have to play a much larger role" if he becomes president: "They are going to be the majority, and Americans want us to work together." In his town hall meetings, with largely Republican audiences, "people stand and cheer when I say Americans want us to sit down -- Democrats and Republicans -- and fix these problems."

But some who know McCain will dispute that he is faithless to the GOP. Former senator Alan Simpson of Wyoming said that when he was Republican whip, "I could always count on McCain. When he gave his word, he'd stick until his backbone got pushed right through the wall."

But Simpson said he agrees that personal relations matter most to McCain, along with the desire to get things done. He called those typically Western traits, though McCain became an Arizonan only with his second marriage.

Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), perhaps McCain's closest friend in the Senate, said: "He will be a very aggressive president, and a challenging one for both parties. Whether it's climate change or Social Security or earmarks, he'd push our party to be a party of solutions, where the tendency now is to give comfort to small groups of supporters."

Other Republicans see McCain as an interesting blend of the traditional and the novel.

To one McCain ally, former Iowa governor Robert D. Ray (R), his choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as a running mate demonstrates another quality he would exhibit as president. "It shows he's willing to think outside the box."

GOP strategist Vin Weber, a former congressman from Minnesota, said he views McCain as someone who reasserts "a very traditional conservative Republicanism, with some important differences. He cares first and foremost about national security and in an almost Goldwater-esque sense, limiting the size and cost of government. I would expect to see him devote huge amounts of time to national security and to have lots of battles with Congress on budget and spending issues."

John Pitney, a scholar at Claremont-McKenna College and student of Republican history, said: "I'm not sure he represents a revolution. He'd be a bit of a departure from the recent years under the Bushes, but in a longer-term perspective, he's comparable to other Republicans like Richard Nixon. He too does not fit into any organized faction but is broadly acceptable to all of them."

Former congressman Jack Kemp (R-N.Y.) also sees McCain as a throwback -- not to Nixon but to Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-Ariz.) and, beyond him, Teddy Roosevelt. Like both of them, Kemp said, McCain has the ability to inspire and attract new people to the Republican cause, fueling Kemp's hope for a more diverse and inclusive GOP coalition if the candidate becomes president.

But Gingrich sees McCain as a source of continuing tension within the Republican Party. "On any given morning," he said, "you never know whether he'd choose to have breakfast with Ted Kennedy or Tom Coburn," respectively symbols of liberalism and conservatism in the Senate.

As for McCain ever submitting himself to the discipline of party conformity, Gingrich said, "The North Vietnamese couldn't break him, and the Republican caucus sure as hell can't."

Staff researcher Alice Crites contributed to this report.