Senator John McCain, who is involved in a tight battle here with Mitt Romney to win the Florida Republican Primary on Tuesday, is struggling to demonstrate his conservative credentials. To wit: he must lead the Republican Party in a different way than his maverick, horse trading persona in the US Senate and demonstrate that conservatives can trust him. If McCain fails to do this before Tuesday, Romney could win here and vault to the nomination.

Conservative talk radio has been blasting McCain for weeks on issues such as campaign finance reform, “comprehensive” immigration legislation, grandstanding on torture, global climate change, non-support of Bush tax cuts and other issues. Today’s Ann Coulter column, which conservatives read with relish, blasts McCain for all this and more. To top it off, Bill Clinton is out today saying that McCain and Hillary are “good friends” who could make the 2008 election “the most civil in American history.” Translating still another Bill Clinton triangulation is easy. As an avid poll-watcher, the former president is terrified that John McCain will win the Republican nomination. He knows that praising Senator McCain will denigrate him in the eyes of conservatives and lessens McCain’s chance to win the nomination.

But if there is one thing conservatives will not tolerate, it would be the failure of the Republican nominee to take on the liberal and corrupt Senator Clinton. Senator McCain better get out in front of this truce-talk issue and before Tuesday to demolish any idea that the 2008 election will turn into a clubby Senate conversation among “friends,” much less colleagues. After all, the reason John McCain is leading is clear. He is playing St. George to Hillary’s dragon-lady. If McCain hesitates in his task, he can be replaced and quickly. Howard Dean’s candidacy ended with a scream. McCain’s could end with the “mutual admiration society” picture of him with Hillary.

McCain has billed his campaign bus as the “straight-talk” express. But conservatives want McCain off the bus and into the confessional. Straight talk with consequences, if you will. Where was he wrong in the past? How have his views changed? Will he follow the party platform closely as he governs? If Hillary tearing up in New Hampshire helped her, McCain humbling himself with conservatives will help him in Florida. Will McCain sit down with the high-priest of conservatism, Rush Limbaugh, in Palm Beach on Monday? Don’t bet against it. It can only help McCain to offer to smoke a peace-cigar, whether or not Rush accepts his invitation to talk.

There is good reason Republicans have not sent a US Senator to the White House since Warren G. Harding. Senate “conversations” with “friends” don’t translate easily into leadership. Yet conservatives might still embrace McCain in his stop-Hillary role. But not until he moves toward them. I believe he must do it aggressively before Tuesday’s Florida primary, which is a dead heat between Romney and McCain today.. If McCain fails in this, he might just give Mitt Romney the opening he needs to take not only Florida but the nomination.

John Pendleton