Rhino
03-05-2007, 08:41 AM
Anger on Display Among Conservative PAC Audience
Monday, March 05, 2007
By Kelley Beaucar Vlahos
WASHINGTON — America's conservatives are mad and they're not going to take it anymore.
That was the message the movement's leaders delivered throughout the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C. last week.
One after another, conservatives told FOXNews.com that they are angry, irritated, frustrated and in some cases depressed. And the target of their angst and ire is none other than the Republican Party, which wants and needs their support to win the 2008 presidential election and avoid losing more seats in the Senate and House next election.
Many of these conservatives, whose national stars began to rise with the presidential election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, described the GOP's state of affairs in Washington with words like "failed," defeated" and "in the grave."
"The Republican Party apparently has a death wish, but that doesn't mean we conservatives have to go along with it," Richard Viguerie, a movement veteran who helped elect Reagan, said during his wildly-received speech delivered Thursday. "Let's focus on the conservative movement, not the GOP."
"We've got to stop being lackeys of the Republican Party. We've got to be a third force," said Bill Greene, head of RightMarch.com, an online activist network. He is running as a Republican in the June special election to replace the late Rep. Charlie Norwood, R-Ga., who died of cancer on Feb. 13.
Several candidates vying for the GOP nomination appeared at the conference. But one — Arizona Sen. John McCain — was notably absent, and the frontrunner in generic opinion polls — former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani — acknowledged to the crowd that he has differences with his audience on social issues.
That left former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney holding the majority of the straws at the conference end's poll of party preferences. He won 21 percent of the 1,705 votes cast compared to Giuliani's 17 percent and McCain's 12.
Several true-blue conservatives, including Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, made his case at the event and got 15 percent of the vote. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who has said he won't decide on a run until the fall, earned 14 percent of the vote.......http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,256517,00.html
Frustrated? Join the crowd.
Monday, March 05, 2007
By Kelley Beaucar Vlahos
WASHINGTON — America's conservatives are mad and they're not going to take it anymore.
That was the message the movement's leaders delivered throughout the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C. last week.
One after another, conservatives told FOXNews.com that they are angry, irritated, frustrated and in some cases depressed. And the target of their angst and ire is none other than the Republican Party, which wants and needs their support to win the 2008 presidential election and avoid losing more seats in the Senate and House next election.
Many of these conservatives, whose national stars began to rise with the presidential election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, described the GOP's state of affairs in Washington with words like "failed," defeated" and "in the grave."
"The Republican Party apparently has a death wish, but that doesn't mean we conservatives have to go along with it," Richard Viguerie, a movement veteran who helped elect Reagan, said during his wildly-received speech delivered Thursday. "Let's focus on the conservative movement, not the GOP."
"We've got to stop being lackeys of the Republican Party. We've got to be a third force," said Bill Greene, head of RightMarch.com, an online activist network. He is running as a Republican in the June special election to replace the late Rep. Charlie Norwood, R-Ga., who died of cancer on Feb. 13.
Several candidates vying for the GOP nomination appeared at the conference. But one — Arizona Sen. John McCain — was notably absent, and the frontrunner in generic opinion polls — former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani — acknowledged to the crowd that he has differences with his audience on social issues.
That left former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney holding the majority of the straws at the conference end's poll of party preferences. He won 21 percent of the 1,705 votes cast compared to Giuliani's 17 percent and McCain's 12.
Several true-blue conservatives, including Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, made his case at the event and got 15 percent of the vote. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who has said he won't decide on a run until the fall, earned 14 percent of the vote.......http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,256517,00.html
Frustrated? Join the crowd.