With conservative jubilation, a bit of concern
As leaders and grass roots activists gather for an annual conference, some see fissures emerging in the powerful coalition.
By WES ALLISON
Published February 19, 2005
WASHINGTON - They came for sessions like "2004: How the Good Guys Won" and "Thwarting the Liberal Drive to Govern Through Judicial Edict," for morning panels on the evils of union bosses and afternoon panels on the evils of the United Nations, for pithy digs at Hillary Clinton and to cheer the keelhauling of anchorman Dan Rather.
They came to sip celebratory cocktails, to hear rousing speeches from their heroes and to stand in long lines for book signings with the likes of Oliver North and former Georgia Sen. Zell Miller, the token Democrat, as The Right Brothers entertained them with songs about the separation of church and state and immigration. ("Tell me why do we allow the illegals to keep on comin' in," the country duo sang. "They just keep on rushin' in. ... Somebody tell me why ...")
More than 4,000 conservative leaders and grass roots activists from across the country convened this week for the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, the largest in the event's 32-year history.
Even in the afterglow of the November elections, despite the heady prospect of tax cuts and Social Security reform and even though the "new media" of the Internet and Fox News have allowed conservatives to bypass the liberal, biased dinosaurs of "old media," an undercurrent of concern ran through the Ronald Reagan Building.
Having vanquished their foes in Sen. John Kerry and the Democratic Party and added to their majorities in Congress, conservatives who spent the past 40 years kicking at the walls of Washington now must get on with the untidy business of governing.
Already, the task is exposing fissures in the powerful coalition of economic and social conservatives that constitutes the American right, in terms of what each side finds most pressing, and where President Bush and the Republican-led Congress should spend their new political capital.
Sen. Rick Santorum, a Pennsylvania Republican and national leader on conservative social issues, broached the subject in a speech Thursday, addressing the "economic conservatives who may not be cultural conservatives."
He told the standing-room only crowd: Some of you don't share the fervor that he and other social conservatives have for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, but you should.
Gay marriage would erode marriage, he said. And just look at neighborhoods with high percentages of out-of-wedlock births, fraught with crime, poverty, child abuse and drug abuse.
"You know what government neutrality gets you?" Santorum told them. "It gets you single moms and fathers who are not participating."
But Friday, at the beginning of forums on cutting government, Deb McCown said she and her conservative friends were more concerned with tax cuts and Social Security reform than social reform.
"One of the speakers everybody hated yesterday was that senator from Pennsylvania," said McCown, 22, editor of the Carolina Review, a conservative magazine at the University of North Carolina. "He got up there and started talking about marriage, as if it was the biggest issue. But it's not. It's taxing and spending."
As to who can marry, who's the federal government to say? She said Republicans "are not living up to their ideals, cutting spending and smaller government and personal responsibility."
If this year's conference has a theme, it's that conservatives believe the Republicans owe them big, having contributed the ideas and activism that led to gains in the House and the Senate, as well as to the president's re-election. They want action now, but deciding what to push first is not so easy.
For the fiscal conservatives, led by Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform and others, the priorities include more tax cuts, private Social Security accounts, more business-friendly regulation, less government.
For social conservatives, led by Santorum, Bill Murray of the Religious Freedom Coalition and the leaders of other religious advocacy groups, priorities include a ban on gay marriage, restrictions on embryonic stem cell research and abortion, and more government support of religion at home and abroad.
Keeping them together to ensure continued wins for Republicans will require strong leadership, conservatives said. The president and congressional leaders are well-positioned to provide it, as long as they quickly begin converting their power into policy.
"There will be considerable pressure brought to bear on the Republicans to deliver." said Richard Lessner, executive director of the American Conservative Union, which sponsors the conference. "If political power becomes an end in itself, then we haven't won anything."
Colin A. Hanna, president of Let Freedom Ring, a grass roots advocacy group for economic and social conservatism, said the tension among conservative activists is all part of switching from the opposition party to the ruling party.
"Majorities tend to fracture into factions if left untended, in a way that minorities don't," said Hanna, who introduced Santorum. "It's kind of an aphorism in politics. Nothing unites like a common enemy. ... We don't have a clear Democratic personified enemy, although for some the prospect of a Hillary Clinton presidency is close enough."
The three-day conference, which ends today, is aimed at the conservative's conservative. Along with fishing trips and weekend mountain getaways, items offered in a silent auction included dinner for four with President Reagan's secretary of state, Ed Meese.
It gives grass roots activists a chance to hear political and intellectual leaders from the right, including Vice President Dick Cheney and Karl Rove, the president's political architect; former House Speaker Newt Gingrich; commentators Pat Buchanan and Ann Coulter; and writers John Fund and David Horowitz.
Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., a favorite of the Christian and economic right, made the pitch that fiscal conservatism is good for families because shrinking government will reduce the tax burdens on future generations.
Rove told the crowd that the 2004 election cemented the conservatives' transition from reactionary force to guiding force and that Social Security reform would prove a key test of its power.
But the Democrats' collapse is "also a cautionary tale of what happens to a dominant party when its thinking becomes ossified, its energy is drained and a feeling of entitlement is allowed to creep in," Rove said.
"As a governing party, Republicans cannot grow tired or timid."
Some grumbled that the Bush administration had done just that, allowing government to balloon during its first term. While the president remains popular, some participants complained he's done little to stem illegal immigration, and they disdain his proposal to offer amnesty to illegal aliens working in the United States.
Many say he should divert more Social Security taxes to private accounts than he's proposed. Others said he's failed to push the gay marriage amendment.
But few acknowledged that Bush and other Republicans, even the true conservatives, must deal in political reality, and the reality is that politics requires compromise.
Coburn blasted "careerist" lawmakers who were more concerned with re-election than pushing bold conservative issues.
Conservatives first, Republicans second, Buchanan said.
"To my fellow Republicans who say, "I don't know, let's hold back, we can't risk losing our majority,' I say, "What's the point of being in the majority if we don't do something?"' Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., told the crowd.
But there was little discussion of the question that may determine whether conservatives keep the power they've earned: Is there a point where the prospect of losing control should temper their pursuit of conservative ideals?
Here, at least, the answer was no.