Conservatives Direct Frustration at GOP Leadership

Frustrated by years of beating up on President Clinton and watching his poll ratings rise, conservatives are finding a new target for their anger: the leadership of the Republican Party, long their political home.

Calling Clinton “a walking, talking monument to the failures of the Republican establishment,” publishing magnate Steve Forbes, one of a number of GOP presidential prospects to address the annual Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday, called for the party to adopt “a bold new conservative agenda” in campaign 2000.

Make no mistake, few of the hundreds of conservative activists gathered for the two-day event were ready to disavow the effort to drive the president from office. Indeed, many in the audience cheered when one of their icons, Rep. Helen Chenoweth (R-Idaho), reminded them of the House’s vote to impeach the president.

Among the speakers, Forbes said that if he were in the Senate, he would vote to convict and remove Clinton. None of those who addressed the conclave was willing to echo Christian Coalition founder and chairman Pat Robertson’s recommendation this week that the effort to impeach Clinton ought to be abandoned in view of his continuing popularity.

But many seemed to agree with the assessment of conference chairman David Keene, who said that, increasingly, most conservatives “wish [the impeachment trial] would be completed sooner rather than later. Because once it’s over, you are going to get back to a fight on the issues.”

And the issue arena, conservatives complained, is where they have been let down by the GOP hierarchy.

“Republicans of late have spent far too much time poring over the polling and focus group data, trying to discern the drift of public opinion,” contended Gary Bauer, a leader of the party’s social conservative wing who is expected to announce his presidential candidacy next week.

“People will not respect such a party,” Bauer said. “The people want an alternative to Bill Clinton, not an imitation of him.”

Joining in the assault was yet another presidential prospect, former Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander. As a White House candidate in 1996, Alexander was viewed with suspicion by many conservatives as sort of a closet moderate. But at Thursday’s conference, he accused Texas Gov. George W. Bush--the early front-runner for the 2000 GOP presidential nomination--of using “weasel words” by labeling himself “a ‘compassionate conservative.’ ”

“Is Mr. Bush trying to suggest . . . that conservatism . . . is by his definition without compassion?” Alexander asked.

Compassionate conservatism “echoes to a time not long ago when conservatives were asked to attach qualifiers to ourselves, especially when we were told to be ‘kinder and gentler’ Republicans,” Alexander said, referring to a line popularized by the Texas governor’s father, former President Bush.

Among the policy initiatives pushed were the flat tax, greater flexibility for parents in choosing schools for their children and deployment of a missile defense system.