In 2004, Wisconsin Right to Life sued the federal government over the campaign finance law co-authored by Sen. John McCain that restricted their election-year advertising.

The group later endorsed one of McCain's Republican presidential opponents, former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson, who dropped out before Wisconsin's Feb. 19 primary.

But by April, with McCain the last Republican candidate standing, the anti-abortion rights group issued a ringing endorsement of the Arizona Republican.

"It was no contest," Susan Armacost, WRTL legislative and political action committee director, said of the McCain endorsement. "We didn't even have to think about it."

The endorsement illustrates how Wisconsin Republicans and conservative groups have set aside their concerns over McCain and embraced the candidate expected to secure the GOP presidential nomination this week at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul.

McCain has a generally conservative voting record. Yet he's criticized the GOP over the influence wielded by social conservatives and broken with the right wing of the party over his campaign finance bill, which he authored with Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold, a Democrat.

He's also clashed with some in the party over climate change, immigration and tax cuts.

Nevertheless, state Republicans say McCain is the right candidate to battle Democratic nominee Barack Obama in a year many perceive as favorable for Democrats.

"Nobody agrees on every issue, and there are some issues on which people disagree with Sen. McCain," said Mark Graul, a GOP strategist who ran President Bush's 2004 state campaign but is not working for McCain. "But once people started looking more closely at his record in the Senate and his personal story and the sacrifices he made as a war hero, people thought, Hey, this guy is better than I thought he was.'"

UW-Madison political scientist Charles Franklin said Republicans are entering their convention more unified than Democrats began theirs last week, in part because of what he called an "uneasy truce" between McCain and conservatives.

And McCain's pick of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice presidential nominee solidified his standing with conservatives, Franklin said. Indeed, within an hour of Friday's announcement that Palin had gotten the nod, Armacost issued a statement saying WRTL was "elated" with the selection.

Wasn't first choice

McCain was not the first choice of many top Wisconsin Republicans.

Heavyweights such as former Department of Administration secretary James Klauser, Rep. Tom Petri of Fond du Lac and Republican National Committeewoman Mary Buestrin supported former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

Former state GOP executive director Rick Wiley took a job with former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, whose campaign also picked up endorsements from lobbyist and former Commerce secretary Bill McCoshen, former Sen. Bob Kasten and former Rep. Scott Klug. Former Gov. Tommy Thompson also endorsed Giuliani after he ended his own campaign last year.

But those candidates and others dropped out of the race before Wisconsin's Feb. 19 primary, when McCain defeated his top remaining foe, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

McCain's 55-37 margin of victory signaled some dissatisfaction with the senator, experts said then. But by the time the state GOP held its convention in May, party activists and officials were galvanized around him, officials said.

"For a while there was disappointment that your guy didn't win, but no hard feelings," Klauser said. "John McCain won fair and square. It was a good contest. Elections are choices and you look at the choice and, from the perspective of Romney supporters, you're going to be a lot more enthusiastic for McCain compared to Obama."

Connie Blau, a Westport real estate agent who is a first-time convention delegate, acknowledged some Republicans aren't enthusiastic about McCain. But he said after his favored candidate, Huckabee, dropped out he began to "feel comfortable" with McCain.

"I feel this is our one chance in our lifetime to elect someone who is somewhat independent," Blau said. "If so many people on the left don't like him and so many people on the right don't like him, he must be doing something right."

A key battleground state

Democratic presidential candidates won Wisconsin in 2000 and 2004 by margins of 5,700 and 11,400 votes, respectively.

The state is expected to be a key battleground again this year, and McCain advisers say he's going to campaign hard for the state's 10 electoral votes.

McCoshen said party loyalists who may not have always embraced McCain are buoyed by polls showing McCain and Obama neck-and-neck.

"The guy's playing to win," McCoshen said. "Diehards love that."

Jeff Waksman, a UW-Madison physics graduate student who is going to the convention as a first-time delegate, said he is more conservative than McCain but wants the candidate to remain independent and not stake out positions just to make conservatives happy.

"John McCain's campaign so far has appealed more to moderates, and some true conservatives have felt left out in the dark," Waksman said. "But he needs to stay true to himself and be independent. It's up to us in the base to remind others that there's no perfect candidate and you'll never agree with any candidate 100 percent."