I thought he did what he needed to do, he was conciliatory, he pointed out the differences between him and the conservatives but he also reminded them of their areas of agreement and he promised to run on conservative principles. It was a good first step and if I were him I would look at it that way because he has a long way to go to earn our trust, though the reaction from some was pretty positive.
He now has to pick a conservative running mate and that does not mean Huckabee. Huckabee’s populism and class warfare demonstrates a weakness in an area that McCain is weak: economy. McCain needs a fiscal conservative to demonstrate that he understands he is weak in that area and he also needs a social conservative to woo the evangelicals. Stephen Hayes has some suggestions for the VP slot here, as does Pat Toomey. He needs a rock solid conservative to get people to trust that he will run as a conservative and it might motivate conservatives to vote for McCain if they kept in mind that the VP would have a leg up on the competition in 4 to 8 years and in case he has to take over the presidency if something happened to McCain. Putting someone like Huckabee on the ticket would not motivate the fiscal conservatives to vote for McCain for the same reason.
The next thing he needs to do is run as a conservative. If he runs to the left, he will lose his base. He doesn’t have to out liberal the liberals to win this election. He needs to bring out the Republican base which is going to be very hard for him to do. His only hope would be to remind people that we are at war and Iran is on its way to obtaining nukes, do we really trust an inexperience Senator with only two years of experience in the Senate with that responsibility? He needs to hammer that point home.