While I was focused on the gay part of the comment, the base was getting all riled up about the hint of pro-life tolerance.
“It absolutely floored me,” said Phil Burress, head of the Ohio-based Citizens for Community Values. “It would doom him in Ohio.”
Burress e-mailed about a dozen “pro-family leaders” he knows outside Ohio and forwarded it to three McCain aides tasked with Christian conservative outreach.
“That choice will end his bid for the presidency and spell defeat for other Republican candidates,” Burress wrote in the message.
He and other Ohio conservatives met privately with McCain in June, and while the nominee didn’t promise them an anti-abortion rights running mate, his staff said they could “almost guarantee” that would be the case, Burress recalled. […]
James Muffett, head of Michigan’s Citizens for Traditional Values, met with McCain along with a handful of other Michigan-based social conservatives Wednesday night.
“A good portion of us were urging him to pick a pro-life running mate,” Muffett said, noting that they were doing so before even getting wind of the Standard story. “That choice would go a long way to solidify his credentials.” […]
McCain’s campaign sought to tamp down the uproar, suggesting the candidate had merely been overly expansive about a sensitive topic and hadn’t intended to float a trial balloon.
Memeorandum has lots of bloggger reaction.