War Pushes Conservatives to Close Ranks With Bush : Politics: President’s handling of the crisis pleases most right-wing leaders. Differences over domestic policy are on the back burner for now.

Conservatives, who not so long ago were in open rebellion against President Bush, now are rallying behind the commander in chief of the Persian Gulf war.

But, given their continuing, deep-rooted misgivings about Bush’s domestic policies, it is not clear whether the present honeymoon will survive the end of hostilities in the Middle East.

These conclusions have emerged as right-wing leaders and activists from around the country attempt to chart their movement’s future at the 18th annual Conservative Political Action Conference, which concludes today.

House Minority Whip Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) set the tone for the new positivism toward Bush in the opening session of the three-day conclave.

“Despite the fun we have on the right in beating up on the President, our No. 1 opponent is not George Bush but the Democrats,” said Gingrich, one of the leaders of last year’s House GOP mutiny against Bush’s decision to abandon his “read my lips” pledge not to raise taxes.

That conciliatory view was echoed by Housing and Urban Development Secretary Jack Kemp, whose supply-side economic sensibilities also were offended by Bush’s tax turnabout. “The unity of a cause doesn’t require uniformity,” Kemp told reporters after addressing the conference Friday. “We all have a high cause, and Bush represents that cause, I believe.”

Neither Gingrich nor Kemp linked his support of Bush directly to the war. But other participants attributed much of the current enthusiasm for backing the President rather than bashing him to Bush’s role in the confrontation with Iraq.

“Obviously the Iraq war has changed the atmosphere from what otherwise would have been a revolt against Bush on domestic policy,” said Donald Devine, longtime conservative activist and former personnel chief in the Ronald Reagan Administration.

The war has made Bush seem stronger, more decisive and therefore more appealing to conservatives. Moreover, many conservatives believe that the war has greatly brightened Bush’s reelection prospects in 1992, thus making it seem more sensible to support the President than to challenge him.

“You are going to have a classic reelection next year on a landslide basis,” predicted Gingrich, urging conservative Republicans to take advantage of the opportunity to gain seats in the House and Senate and at the local level.

But for all the current euphoria about Bush, most conservatives still nurture grievances about his performance during his first two years in the White House.

“Except for the war, most conservatives are outraged at Bush and his Administration,” said David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, one of the chief sponsors of the conservative conference. Keene cited Bush’s flip-flop on taxes, the issue many conservatives regard as definitive, and the President’s natural tendency to compromise when conservatives think he should stand fast and fight.

“If the war ends successfully tomorrow,” Keene said, “within 60 days conservatives will be criticizing him again.”

Kemp argued that, the war aside, Bush is adopting new domestic policies more suited to conservative tastes. “The President’s new budget has no new taxes, empowers the poor and pursues the empowerment agenda,” he said. “I think conservatives have more to be for than they have had in quite a long time.”

But others are skeptical. “I liked what the President said in his State of the Union address,” Devine said. “But I liked what he said last year too. Then came that budget deal with the tax hike.”

“I think the ball is in his court,” Vern I. McCarthy Jr., a self-described free-market conservative, told a reporter. “Is he going to stand up to Congress? Is he going to tell the American people we are going deeper into bankruptcy?”

Unless the President comes up with the right answers, McCarthy said, Bush will at best hinder the ability of conservatives to support him for reelection, and at worst, “I suspect he’ll have a challenger in the primary.”