McCain Campaign Coordinates Messages With GOP Senators

Fri. May 2, 2008


Senate Republican Conference Chairman Lamar Alexander of Tennessee said Thursday that GOP senators and aides for presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain of Arizona have started a series of weekly meetings that will continue until the November election.

Alexander said the meetings will help coordinate messaging so GOP senators can discuss the same issues in Washington that McCain will talk up on the campaign trail. He stressed the candidate and his Senate colleagues could coordinate only to a degree, given the turn-on-a-dime changes often necessary in the Senate and the campaign.

Alexander reiterated his belief that Republicans need to continue trying to find common ground with Democrats on some issues if they want to find success in the fall. The approach has led to staff grumblings in some of the more conservative corners of the GOP. He said it is necessary if Republicans hope to court moderate and Democratic voters. Alexander noted that Republican colleagues facing re-election are aware that only about one-third of registered voters are Republicans. "They can count," Alexander said.

He added that he will continue to advocate offering Democrats an olive branch in the name of bipartisanship, and that he will continue to push that stance after the election. "That's what the American people want," Alexander said.