By IRNA
New York : Although he did not explicitly mention Senator John McCain, President George W. Bush has sought to unify the Republican Party behind its eventual nominee, describing the election of his successor as president as a stark ideological choice.
Bush delivered in an early-morning speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference to presage the role his aides said he would play all year: using the power of the presidency to shape the agenda and attack his Democratic critics, International Herald Tribune said.
“We have had good debates, and soon we will have a nominee who will carry the conservative banner into this election and beyond,” Bush said to a boisterous audience. “Listen, the stakes in November are high. This is an important election. Prosperity and peace are in the balance.”
Although deeply unpopular, with an approval rating at historic lows below 30 percent, Bush enjoys strong support among conservatives like those gathered in the hotel ballroom in Washington where he spoke Friday.
In his speech, Bush emphasized national security, devoting nearly a third of his address to the issue. Speaking of his decision a year ago in January to increase troop strength in Iraq, Bush said:
“We stood our ground – and we’re seeing results. A year after I ordered the surge of forces, high-profile terrorist attacks in Iraq are down, civilian deaths are down, sectarian killings are down.” In Norfolk, Virginia, McCain began his first full day as the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee talking about national security and the so-called threat posed by Iran.
McCain took part in a panel discussion Friday morning with not one but three former secretaries of the navy, pronouncing himself “pleased and humbled by the progress that our campaign has made” and spoke about what he often calls the transcendent challenge facing the nation in the form of Islamic terrorism.
After the discussion ended, McCain told reporters here that he hoped to meet soon with his former rival Mitt Romney to work to unite the party, and acknowledged that “we have a lot of work to do to unite the party.”
He said more than once that he considered Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, a “viable candidate.” “That’s why we’re moving forward with our campaigning,” he said.
McCain said that he appreciated Bush’s remarks to the conservative conference Friday morning, in which he spoke about rallying around a Republican candidate.
But when he was asked about whether it was an endorsement, he said, with a smile, “Unless he mentioned my name.”
He said he continues to worry about what he called “Iran’s ambitions which are as old as history: a Persian domination of the region.”
McCain said at the panel discussion on security in a cruise terminal next to a naval museum on the Norfolk waterfront.
Flanking him were three former navy secretaries: Senator John Warner of Virginia, John Lehman and William Ball, as well as Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas and former Governor Frank Keating of Oklahoma.
Ball said that he hoped that McCain would soon be “fleeting up” to a new job at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
With the Virginia primary coming up Tuesday, there were reminders about McCain’s roots in the region, and he recalled the “enormous economic contribution to the local economy” when he was based nearby at the Naval Air Station Oceana, and how he took advantage of what he called “the cultural advantages” that were “available to young navy pilots at Virginia Beach.”
Warner recalled being secretary of the navy when McCain was a prisoner of war in Hanoi, and visiting McCain’s parents, who were stationed in Hawaii.
At the conservative conference in Washington, the audience chanted “Four more years!” after Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, introduced Bush, and again during his speech.
It was a striking contrast to the reception McCain received from the same audience the day before, when he was jeered and booed by some.