It was hardly in doubt, but it was confirmed yesterday that Senator John McCain will not recede from the national stage as Texas Governor George W. Bush campaigns for the presidency.
Campaign workers said the Arizona senator's ''crusade'' for campaign finance reform, an issue that helped to define his candidacy for the Republican nomination until he suspended his campaign on March 9, will continue.
It will continue, not in a third-party run, as some have speculated, but via a far more conventional route: a political action committee.
McCain, who returns from vacation at the end of the week, will soon announce the formation of a committee called Straight Talk America.
''It will be a vehicle which will allow Senator McCain to continue his crusade for reform,'' said spokesman Todd Harris. ''He will actively campaign in support of reform-minded Republican candidates across the country.''
The committee will be a way for McCain to ''continue promoting his cause of reform, and to speak for the millions of Americans who want something different out of their government,'' spokesman Howard Opinsky said.
It will fund a speaking tour by McCain to be held in six months.
The committee will also serve as a clearinghouse for reform ideas, and a way of fulfilling McCain's stump pledge to make beneficiaries of pork-barrel expenditures ''famous'' by exposing them to voters.
McCain will retain his delegates, Opinsky said, in the hopes of bringing a campaign finance reform amendment to the floor at the Republican National Convention, if Bush hasn't already introduced the principle into the platform.
''We're interested in making sure the reform agenda is a part of the Republican Party, and we've heard a lot of rhetoric about it thus far,'' Opinsky said. ''But with seven states won and a large number of delegates to his name, Senator McCain wants to reserve the right to utilize those delegates if necessary, which it may not be.''
Bush, in an interview in today's New York Times, indicated he had no intention of embracing McCain's views on reform, saying the senator ''didn't change my views.''
Bush, who has been pressed by prominent Republicans to reach out to McCain, said he had learned nothing new about reform from his erstwhile rival.
