The new language instead offers guidelines for the next president to follow in selecting nominees. Conservatives want to avoid nominees, such as Miers, who do not have an extensive conservative record.
The guidelines also put greater pressure on Senate Republican leaders to treat confirmation of conservative nominees as a matter of urgency.
“Whether in the leadership of the majority or minority, Senate leadership must press for floor time debate and votes, and give judicial nominations their proper due,” a draft of the proposed platform language states.
Conservative activists believe the time is right to press McCain and other party leaders.
Although McCain became the party’s unofficial but certain candidate when former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney dropped out of the presidential race on Feb. 7, many conservatives have yet to rally to his campaign.
McCain won only 73 percent of the vote in Pennsylvania’s Republican primary despite widespread recognition he will serve as the party’s nominee. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a darling among social conservatives, won 11 percent of the vote even though he withdrew from the race in March.
McCain has problems with socially conservative Republicans in other pivotal states. Prominent social conservatives say McCain would lose Ohio if the vote were held now.
“He’s still got a long way to go,” said Phil Burress, chairman of Citizens for Community Values Action, an Ohio-based public policy group founded on Judeo-Christian principles. “He’s lost Ohio right now and he’s not going to win the election without Ohio.”
Conservative leaders say judicial nominees offer one of the few issues on which McCain can rally their support.
“It’s one of the most important things for him to talk about,” said Mort Blackwell, a conservative leader and Republican national committeeman. “I once had a group of 25 leaders of conservative organizations in a room. I asked how many of them felt that they would be adversely affected by a left-wing judiciary and every hand shot up.
“Conservatives are aware of the importance of having constitutionalist, original-intent judges appointed. It’s prudent and wise for McCain to stress.”
McCain will deliver his speech at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C.; the state will host its primary the same day. By addressing the importance of nominating conservative, strict-constructionist judges to the courts, McCain may hope to rally social conservatives and win a higher percentage of the vote than he did in Pennsylvania.
Republican National Committee officials have invited social conservative leaders based in and around Washington, D.C., to attend a meeting Tuesday morning where former Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.) will give them a preview of McCain’s remarks.
“That is the one issue where conservatives could hold their nose and get behind his candidacy,” said Connie Mackey, vice president of Family Research Council Action Fund, a group that advocates Christian values. “It is the main issue upon which conservatives rally for McCain.”
Conservatives still hold grudges against McCain for several slights. Burress cited McCain’s support of embryonic stem cell research and campaign finance legislation, as well as his opposition to a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.
They are also upset over his role in the bipartisan Gang of 14 senators who struck a deal in 2005 that was seen on the right to preserve Democrats’ power to filibuster judicial nominees.
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