BOSTON (CNN) — Former Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole on Monday wrote conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh defending John McCain as a "mainstream conservative" who had supported the party on critical votes during Dole's time as the Senate Republican leader.
The letter, obtained by CNN from a Republican source close to Dole, includes a voting comparison that suggests McCain's voting record compares favorably to that of the longtime conservative icon Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina.
Dole in the letter said he remains neutral in the GOP contest and spoke kindly of all three remaining leading GOP candidates. But the letter comes at a time Limbaugh is trying to rally grassroots conservative support against McCain.
"Whoever wins the Republican nomination will need your enthusiastic support," Dole wrote in the letter. "Two terms for the Clintons are enough."
The full text of the letter can be found here.
Now The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza has an interesting take on this latest in-fighting:
Dole's letter won't change Limbaugh's mind about McCain but that's not the goal. Instead, the aim of a letter like this one is to lower the volume of rhetoric in hopes that the two warring factions can find some common ground at some point.
If McCain winds up with a clear win in tomorrow's Super Tuesday voting -- as looks increasingly likely if you examine the polling both nationally and in Feb. 5 states -- Dole (and other party graybeards) are hoping that the much-discussed schism within the party can be healed by uniting around a common enemy: the Clintons. (No word on what the party would do if Clinton was not the Democratic nominee.)
Establishment Republicans are mindful of the dangers of a fracture between the moderate and conservative wings of the party. They need look no further than Kansas -- where Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (D) has been elected and re-elected thanks to a fracture within the base of the GOP -- to see the deleterious effects of an inability to find common ground.
Make no mistake: Rush Limbaugh (and Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham etc.) are a very powerful voice within the Republican party. Conservatives watch and listen to them daily and often take their marching orders directly from the mouths of these hosts.
McCain is well aware of the power and peril that an ongoing feud with Limbaugh et al. represents.The Dole letter -- coupled with McCain's latest ad -- may be the first of a number of outreach attempts to heal any wounds within the party as quickly as possible.
Cillizza has a point here. There certainly is a fracture between the moderate and conservative wings of the Republican Party. The moderate graybeards of Bob Dole are worried that such a fracture within the GOP would allow a Democrat to win the White House in 2008. Are we seeing a fracture within the GOP-elites, where moderate graybeards like Bob Dole want to muzzle the hard-lined conservative media pundits attacks against McCain? While at the same time, the hard-lined media pundits of Coulter and Limbaugh are attacking McCain as a means to rile up their base to march out and vote for Romney? Are Coulter and Limbaugh taking their orders from big media execs, who may prefer Romney over that of McCain? This is just another strange mix in this in-fighting taking place within the Republican Party.
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