Warm Welcome for McCain in California

Hundreds of beaming supporters sardined themselves into an overheated, under-ventilated shiny silver tent here to welcome Sen. John McCain on Saturday--and by their numbers and glee hinted that the McCain campaign’s newfound vigor might well survive the trip from New Hampshire’s primary to California’s.

McCain’s appearance all but electrified the state Republican Convention, a gathering that had been noticeably subdued after Texas Gov. George W. Bush decided not to attend, instead spending the day at home.

“I understand that Gov. Bush is back in Austin writing a book: ‘A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to My Coronation,’ ” the Arizona Republican cracked.

McCain’s insurgent campaign has been on a high since his 18-point walloping of Bush in New Hampshire. And the good news continued to roll in Saturday, as did volunteers and independents, several of whom changed their party affiliation at the conference to vote for McCain in the California primary on March 7.

In the four days since New Hampshire, the McCain campaign has taken in $1.8 million in contributions via its Web site alone, according to staffers, about $300,000 more than the total tally in online contributions prior to the New Hampshire primary.

“The Internet is going to change the face of American politics,” McCain said at a news conference. “It has turned into quite an incredible part of our campaign.”

Meanwhile, McCain appears to have climbed out of a substantial 20-point deficit to Bush in conservative South Carolina, with the two now in a dead heat, according to a CNN/Time poll released Saturday. The poll, with a margin of error of 4.5 percentage points, showed 44% of likely Republican voters supporting McCain and 40% backing Bush.

It was the fourth poll of the week to show a major post-New Hampshire bounce in South Carolina for McCain. The South Carolina primary will be Feb. 19.

However, McCain warned a second, standing-room-only crowd of 1,000 Saturday that persuading California’s Republican establishment, which supports Bush, to change allegiances will prove difficult. “It’s going to get very rough, my dear friends. It’s going to get very rough,” McCain said.

As Shelley Turley snapped up a voter registration form so her husband, an independent, could switch affiliations and vote for McCain, the Los Altos Hills resident said she wasn’t too worried about the push for Bush from party leaders.

Actually, Turley’s husband didn’t need to change his party affiliation because, under California’s new “blanket” primary system, all candidates for all parties are listed on a single ballot, permitting voters to choose anyone they like, regardless of party registration.

But from the McCain camp’s perspective, it’s the thought that counts.

Despite McCain’s recent gains in money and support, Bush is likely to outspend him by millions of dollars before the California primary.

On Friday night, Bush’s brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, spoke to a dinner-time crowd of several hundred on behalf of his brother, saying his older sibling would lead the country with “solid, bedrock conservative principles.”

The younger Bush, however, spent a fair portion of his brief speech in a seemingly uncomfortable effort to downplay his brother’s absence. This was the second in a row of the twice-yearly conventions Bush has missed; last fall he decided to attend the Ryder Cup golf tournament instead.

And despite assurances from party leaders that his absence in no way signaled a lack of interest in California, it was a prime topic of convention-floor gossip.

“Between July and December, he visited 13 cities in California,” Jeb Bush noted, to moderate cheers. And, to a similar response: “My brother’s going to be here more than you can imagine.”

There was one sign Saturday that the Bush campaign was planning to step up its efforts in increasingly important South Carolina. His staff said Bush is likely to add a day of campaigning there this Friday and may decide against taking next weekend off, as planned.

The Democratic candidates took Saturday off, and publisher Steve Forbes was the only other Republican on the campaign trail, also making his way to the convention at the Hyatt Regency at San Francisco Airport for an early breakfast gathering before catching a plane to Maryland for more stumping.

Before a crowd of about 200--and a half-dozen empty tables--Forbes said McCain’s trouncing of Bush in New Hampshire had turned the foregone conclusion of a Bush nomination into a race, a race that included both McCain and himself.

“Now we have it open,” Forbes said cheerfully. “Now we have a genuine contest.”

As far as the presidential contest was concerned, the weekend belonged to McCain, even though he spent just a few hours with conventioneers before flying to Phoenix for his first day--or half-day, really--off since the beginning of the year.

“I was more excited about getting out of Hanoi” than with McCain’s recent rise in the polls, said Mel Moore, a former pilot who spent six years in North Vietnamese prisons, much of the time with McCain. “But this is very nice. I am absolutely convinced that this momentum will carry him to victory in South Carolina.”

Also Saturday, the McCain camp tried to have Bush’s campaign pull a new television ad that says a McCain aide supports Bush’s tax cut proposal. “The Bush campaign has stooped to a new low by twisting my words to mislead voters,” an economics advisor, Vin Weber, a former Republican congressman from Minnesota, said in a statement.

“No matter how you cut it, Vin Weber said he would vote for Gov. Bush’s plan,” Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer replied. “Vin Weber may want to take back his words, but no, we won’t take down this ad.”

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The Associated Press contributed to this story.