Slowly but surely, John McCain has been racking up endorsements from Religious Right leaders. Aside from scoring big with the likes of John Hagee and Rod Parsely, McCain has also been securing endorsements from figures like Gary Bauer and even Janet Folger.
At the same time, he is busy conducting outreach to many others, addressing the Council for National Policy and having some surrogates drop hints that he’d love the opportunity meet with James Dobson while sending out others to try and win over people like Tony Perkins.
And while the efforts appear to be paying off, it seems as if McCain still has a lot of work ahead of him:
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) must work hard to reach out to evangelical voters to get them “excited” about his candidacy, a leading social conservative figure said Wednesday.
Family Research Council President Tony Perkins said a number of the presumptive GOP presidential nominee’s policies and actions in the Senate have rubbed socially conservative evangelical voters the wrong way, and he will need them and their “enthusiasm” to win the White House.
“It’s not automatic,” Perkins said.
…
Perkins suggested several approaches McCain can take to woo a crowd that might feel dissatisfied after supporting former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and watching him drop out of the race.
McCain should “hold the Bush line” on banning federal funding for stem cell research, announce that he will appoint a “family czar” to show his commitment to families and be more vocal about his lifelong record opposing abortion rights, Perkins said.
“He’s never led on those issues, and he’s never seemed comfortable talking about those issues,” Perkins said.
But Perkins said McCain has a solid voting record on issues that are dear to socially conservative evangelical voters, and he can use that record as a “foundation” to reach out to them.
“I don’t think that that’s too big a stretch for him, but he’s going to have to work at it,” Perkins said.
Undaunted by the task head, the McCain campaign appears ready to ramp up its effort and fully intends to spend a lot of time wooing them in the months ahead:
Sen. John McCain will be spending a lot of face time in the coming months with top conservative leaders, in an effort to win them over one-by-one, top McCain strategist Charlie Black tells Newsmax.
“You have to go get the conservative leaders who have a following one at a time. [McCain] has been doing for several months, and has some very prominent conservatives on board now… We’re taking them one at a time,” Black told Newsmax this week.
