As Hillary Clinton sets the stage to bow out and endorse Barack Obama for president this weekend, Republicans are targeting the spoils of the bitter Democratic primary campaign.

Presumptive GOP nominee John McCain and his supporters are encouraging Clinton loyalists to abandon their party this November in a bid to exploit their frustration and convince them McCain is their next best choice.

This comes as some Clinton backers, seeing the curtain closing on their candidate, are organizing to draw other Clinton backers to McCain's side.

"A lot of Clinton's supporters liked her because they saw that she was experienced, ready to start the job on Day One. ... Those are all traits that John McCain shares," Republican National Committee spokesman Alex Conant said.

Conant told FOXNews.com that since the beginning of the week, "our switchboards are pretty much lit up from women asking how they can change their registration -- Clinton supporters. ... We think there's a real opportunity there."

Cristi Adkins, of the newly formed Clintons for McCain group, told FOX News that Clinton supporters should seriously consider putting their money on the GOP candidate.

"It's really not that big of a jump from Clinton to McCain," she argued.

While some Democrats likely will be unshakable in their opposition to McCain for his support of the Iraq war, the McCain campaign sees an opening to court the so-called Reagan Democrats who supported Clinton.

The Arizona senator, to deflect the charge that he is campaigning for a third Bush term, is offering a moderate pitch that could appeal to the voting blocs that carried Clinton -- seniors, Hispanics, security moms and blue-collar voters.

In the days ahead, the campaign plans to send high-profile female surrogates to flood states where Clinton won.

McCain also launched a new Web site called Citizens for McCain that states it is recruiting supporters "no matter what party you belong to or who you supported during the primary campaign."

The online form includes a box for voters to check if they were part of the Clinton campaign.

"I think there (are) a lot of Senator Clinton's supporters who will support me because of their belief that Senator Obama does not have the experience or the knowledge or the judgment to address this nation's national security challenges given we are in two wars," McCain said Wednesday in Louisiana, casting Obama as an outside-the-mainstream partisan with "the most liberal voting record" in the Senate.

Recent polls suggest there is a cross-section of disaffected Democrats ripe for the Republicans' picking.

A new CBS News poll out Wednesday night showed 22 percent of Clinton supporters claim they would vote for McCain in the general election. Sixty-three percent said they would support Obama and 8 percent said they'd stay home on Election Day.

Among all registered Democrats polled, 12 percent said they would support McCain.

But if McCain is going to court Clinton voters, he'll have a lot of catching up to do, since Obama has been targeting the same voters for months.

And that won't stop just because he clinched the nomination.

Obama said Thursday that he and Clinton agreed on most issues, and he will actively court her supporters.

"We're going to speak to them but also listen to them, get advice ... and we're going to try with all humility to seek their support and figure out how we can all work together to win in November," Obama said.

Several Democratic strategists think the idea of Clinton supporters breaking for McCain en masse is unlikely. They say the polls are just a product of the tense and combative mood of the Democratic race to date.

New York Rep. Charles Rangel, who with the rest of the New York delegation switched his support from Clinton to Obama on Thursday, downplayed the intra-party divisions.

"We're Democrats, dammit. And hell, we fight," he said. "And when it's over, we come together and just go out there and win."

The rancor among Clinton supporters is overstated, and most will not abandon their party, said Daniel Gotoff, from the Democratic strategy firm Lake Research Partners.

"I think you're going to see a lot of that dissipate, frankly," he told FOX News, responding to the CBS News poll. "Those (poll) questions are asked in the heat of battle, and these are campaigns that have been pretty well dug in for several months now."

Clinton has a chance to send a signal to her supporters that it's time to drain the bad blood and close ranks behind Obama Saturday, when she is scheduled to publicly bow out of the race.

"I think once (Clinton) endorses him, once she starts campaigning with him, a lot of that (frustration) is going to start to ebb away," Gotoff said.

Several Clinton surrogates argue that the best way for Obama to sweep up Clinton's supporters is to tap her as his running mate.

"She is clearly the best political asset to the ticket," Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell told FOX News on Thursday.

But in that window before the bulk of Clinton supporters are put at ease, some frustrated voters are fanning the flames.

Self-identified Clinton backer Edward Hale, whom the Texas Democratic Party confirmed is a state party convention delegate, launched a new Web site over the weekend calling on other Clinton backers to promote McCain.

The primitive site, which consists mostly of an attack video and bold-faced statements slamming Obama, plays the fear card by suggesting voters would see "Baghdad here in the USA" if the Illinois senator were elected.

"I am one of them Bible-thumping, gun-toting rednecks and damn proud of it," the author declares on the site of Hillary Clinton Supporters for John McCain.

But according to the ticker on the home page, it has more than 400,000 hits, and Hale claims he wants to form an independent "527" group to raise money and runs ads against Obama.

McCain has condemned such groups, meaning any independent campaigns against Obama could cause more headaches than anything for the Arizona senator.

"I will do everything I can to keep anything that may be that kind of ugliness out of this political campaign," McCain said Thursday in Florida.

FOX News' Carl Cameron, Mosheh Oinounou, Judson Berger, Chad Pergram and Bonney Kapp contributed to this report.