Carl Leubsdorf of the Dallas Morning News wrote a column recently calling John McCain "the man to beat" for the Republican Presidential nomination in 2008. I am not sure that’s the case. From my vantage point, Sen. McCain has a lot of hurdles to overcome in his quest to be the next Republican nominee for President.

The McCain campaign didn’t get off to a good start at a gathering of Southern Republicans in Memphis, Tennessee recently when they urged writing-in George W. Bush’s name in its straw poll instead of voting for McCain, or for any of the other prospective Republican candidates for President in 2008.

That gesture came across as a sign of weakness from the McCain camp rather than as a show of support for the beleaguered President. It suggests that the McCain campaign didn’t expect to do all that well in the straw poll anyway and wanted to minimize its political impact. Instead, the political ploy wound up backfiring by drawing more attention to the results than would have occurred otherwise.

Sen. Bill Frist of Tennessee came in first with 37% of the vote, which is not surprising since the event was held in his home state. But, Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts did better than expected, garnering 14% of the vote in this "beauty contest". McCain finished in fifth place with 5% of the vote.

McCain’s poor showing in the Tennessee straw poll reinforced the perception in the eyes of many Republican observers that the Senator has not yet won over the conservative activists who are the backbone of the Republican Party. Part of his difficulties stem from a bitter primary battle against George W. Bush in 2004 in which Sen. McCain unnecessarily alienated some social conservative leaders after losing to Bush in the hard fought South Carolina primary. Moreover, many conservatives have expressed concern about Sen. McCain’s apparent movement away from those conservative principles he articulated when he first ran for Congress in the 1980s.

Finally, national interest conservatives (who have reservations about the neo-conservative strategy of "imposing democracy" by military force in the Middle East through regime change in Iraq, Iran and Syria) have concerns about Sen. McCain’s close ties to the neo-conservative architects of the war in Iraq and his general support of their foreign policy agenda.

Conservatives do appreciate Sen. McCain’s opposition to "earmarked legislation" and his leadership in trying to get spending under control in Congress.

McCain is trying to move back to the right politically as he positions himself for his next Presidential campaign. It is too early to tell if he will be successful in wooing substantial conservative support, but Carl Leubsdorf of the News is definitely premature in calling Sen. John McCain the "GOP’s main man" in 2008.

Article originally appeared on DallasBlog.com (http://dallasblog.com/).

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