Conservatives Celebrate Resurgence of Republican Right

Conservative Republican activists began re-stoking the ideological fires Saturday after muting their scorn for GOP moderates in the name of party unity during the 1994 California election campaign.

The resurgent conservatives gathered for the annual convention of the California Republican Assembly to cheer heroes of the Republican right, beginning Saturday with a fiery speech by commentator Patrick J. Buchanan.

But they cheered themselves as well when Buchanan declared in a luncheon address: “The rebels are on the move.”

Buchanan had noted that leaders of the group, which had become virtually dormant a few years ago, were gaining control of leadership spots in the California Republican Party.

The conservatives have expanded their influence within the state GOP by virtue of 1994 election victories for state offices and in the Legislature. Those victories entitle them to appoint delegates to the GOP’s official ruling body.

Just before Buchanan spoke, California Republican Assembly President Greg Hardcastle of Sacramento told the crowd, “We are the best of the Republican Party--both here and nationally, and we don’t have to apologize for that.”

The message from Buchanan and the organization’s leaders was that they had been more in tune with the people than moderate Republicans such as former President George Bush and California Gov. Pete Wilson.

Buchanan referred to Bush and Wilson when he said that the conservatives’ message had been: “We don’t care if it is our President or our governor in Sacramento, we do not believe in imposing a huge new tax burden on the middle class of this country, and we have been right.”

“And now they all agree with us. They’re all voting against taxes.

“In 1992, we said it was wrong to impose quotas and now they are all coming out against affirmative action,” Buchanan added.

Wilson was dogged by criticism from the Republican right the first three years of his first term as governor. The conservatives grudgingly cooled their rhetoric during the 1994 election campaign, however, in response to appeals from the Wilson camp.

Wilson’s supporters argued that the ongoing battle over such emotional issues as abortion and gay rights could cost Republicans the election. Now, however, the truce is over and ideological warfare between the two factions has resumed.

Group officials are among those who are incensed that Wilson would risk turning the governorship over to a Democrat by seeking the presidency. If Wilson won national office, he automatically would be succeeded as governor by Democratic Lt. Gov. Gray Davis.

Wilson has admitted that his agreement to a $7.5-billion state tax increase in 1991 was a mistake and he is using the affirmative action issue as a basis for a White House campaign.

Buchanan, a former broadcast commentator and newspaper columnist, appeared to take direct aim at Wilson when he declared that any politician who tries to remove the anti-choice abortion plank from the party platform will have to “walk right over me.”

Wilson has suggested that Republicans revisit the controversial abortion issue during the 1996 GOP National Convention in San Diego.

Buchanan raised the matter by dismissing the argument over how many abortions may have been performed by Dr. Henry W. Foster, President Clinton’s nominee to be surgeon general of the United States.

“It doesn’t matter how many he did because no abortionist is morally qualified to. . . .” The end of Buchanan’s statement was drowned out by cheers.

Wilson also was a target of criticism from another potential conservative GOP presidential candidate, Rep. Robert K. Dornan of Orange County.

Dornan lashed Wilson for failing to support Reagan for President in 1976, for the tax increase and for signing gay rights legislation.

“If I have to be a truth squad of one against Pete Wilson, I’ll do it,” Dornan said.