Sen. John McCain reached out to conservatives during a brief campaign stop at the Seattle Westin Friday night. Speaking to a crowd of more than 500 people, he called for party solidarity, asking supporters of Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney and Ark. Gov. Mike Huckabee to line up behind him.

“Gov. Romney and I had a very good conversation,” he said. “I look forward to working with him as we unite the party.”

On a flag-filled staged, and with a array of state Republican leaders, including former Sen. Slade Gorton, Rep. Dave Reichert (R-WA) and state GOP chair Luke Esser, McCain urged conservatives to vote for him in Saturday’s Republican caucus.

As of Monday, he is narrowly beating out Huckabee, 25.4 to 23.8 percent, with about 93 percent of the vote counted.

Touting his conservative credentials with “straight talk,” McCain addressed the war in Iraq, taxes and government spending. He said he’d work to make the Bush tax cuts permanent and would privatize medical care for veterans.

“When the consumer and citizen spend money, it’s good for America,” McCain said. “When government spends your money, it’s bad for the economy of America,” he said.

McCain identified rampant government spending by Republicans as the cause of the party’s setbacks in the 2006 congressional elections.

He also identified militant Islam as a threat to stability in the Middle East.

“This is an evil of incredible proportions … an evil that is hard for us to comprehend,” he said.

Gary and Mary Johnson of Port Orchard, Wash., were spending the weekend at the Westin and came to see what was going on in the ballroom upstairs.

“Our best friends are incredibly Democratic,” said Gary, a 1971 alumnus of the UW.

While both lean to the right on a variety of issues, they said they’re not comfortable with McCain’s anti-abortion stance.

At the same time, Mary, an elementary school teacher, feels reassured by McCain’s experience.

“I’d like to see us out of Iraq, but we have to do it responsibly,” she said.

Washington state Attorney General Rob McKenna, McCain’s state committee chair, said he had to scramble to get an event organized for Friday, having only heard about his candidate’s visit a couple days beforehand.

“This was put together on incredibly short notice,” he said. But he said that the senator’s visit to Seattle was effective in getting Romney and some Huckabee supporters on McCain’s side.

“Give ‘em a little time,” McKenna said. “I think we’ll see Romney behind McCain soon.”

[Reach reporter Will Mari at news@thedaily.washington.edu.]