From the 'Washington Post':President Bush plans to give an implicit endorsement of onetime rival John McCain's conservative bona fides tomorrow as the Arizona senator seeks to consolidate the party behind his candidacy.
In a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference in the morning, Bush plans to say that the nominee of the party will be a strong conservative, according to excerpts released by the White House tonight.
"We have had good debates and soon we will
have a nominee who will carry the conservative banner into this election and
beyond," Bush says in the excerpts. "The stakes in November are high. Prosperity
and peace are in the balance. So with confidence in our vision and faith in our
values, let us go forward, fight for victory and keep the White House in
2008."
Bush does not mention McCain by name, but the clear signal of his words to this particular audience is that the senator is a faithful conservative despite their doubts and that it is time to put aside internal disagreements and rally behind the apparent nominee-to-be. Bush has stayed out of the nomination fight, but with former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney's departure from the race today, he is preparing to help bring the party together to the extent that McCain wants his assistance.
His endorsement of McCain's conservative credentials carries some weight, since the two battled fiercely for the Republican nomination in 2000 and have quarreled in the seven years since over issues such as taxes, torture and the execution of the Iraq war. In particular, Romney sharply questioned McCain's conservative record in the waning days of his campaign by pointing out that the Arizona senator voted against Bush's tax cuts in 2001 and 2003. McCain now says he supports making those tax cuts permanent.
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