McCain Courts Republican Governors

Last week Senator McCain made an early campaign stop at the Republican Governors Conference in FL. The NY Times reported that McCain spent time meeting and courting nine republican governors and held a reception. The interesting angle taken by the article was whether McCain was “invading Mr. Romney’s territory”. According to the article, Mitt is likely trying to use the governors conference as the springboard to his campaign just like President Bush did in 2000, and John’s visit complicated the issue. I think it is great. McCain built up a lot of capital campaigning across the country for other republicans, so no one should think that his visit is intruding on Mitt’s turf.

Patrick Hynes, on his website, points out that “some Republican Governors have already stated publicly that they will support McCain if he decides to run in 2008, including Jon Huntsman of Utah, Mitch Daniels of Indiana, and, according to one source, Haley Barbour of Mississippi.” Mitt should not assume that he can count on the same level of endorsements that Bush received in 2000.