Colleagues brush off hard feelings and embrace McCain

By Thomas Ferraro - Analysis

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - John McCain has cursed and bullied fellow Senate Republicans on a host of issues over the years. Yet McCain's colleagues are setting aside any hard feelings to embrace his White House bid -- for their own good.

In doing so, many are also distancing themselves from Republican President George W. Bush, widely derided for the unpopular Iraq war, ailing economy and soaring gas prices.

"We are going from rallying around one of the most disliked guys in the world, to a guy who is very well liked in America, but not so popular in the Senate," a Senate Republican leadership aide said. "We'll take that."

Republicans hope McCain, long popular among independents, will give them a boost and hold down anticipated Democratic gains in the November congressional elections.

A recent Wall Street Journal/NBC Poll found that Democrats enjoy a 19-percentage-point lead over Republicans, 52-33, when voters are asked which party they want to control Congress.

By contrast, polls show Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama holding, on average, about a 5-point lead over McCain.

"McCain is running well ahead of his party," said Andrew Kohut of the Pew Research Center, which conducts polls on the congressional and presidential contests.

While Bush's approval rating has dipped below 30 percent, a recent Pew poll found 48 percent of respondents have a favorable opinion of McCain, with about 45 percent unfavorable, despite his dogged support of the Iraq war.

"Republicans have a stake in McCain," said Stephen Hess, a congressional scholar at the Brookings Institution. "They hope he helps energize their party."

"COLD CHILL"

Sen. Thad Cochran, a Mississippi Republican who has had run-ins with a McCain, mostly over federal spending, experienced an election-year conversion.

"The thought of him (McCain) being president sends a cold chill down my spine," Cochran told The Boston Globe in January. "He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me."

Yet after former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney dropped out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination, Cochran, who had been a Romney supporter, backed McCain, now the party's presumptive nominee.

"He would be the best president," Cochran declared.

Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa says he and McCain stopped talking to each other for a "very long period of time" after a fiery 1992 exchange.