Conservatives’ Reunion Is Less Than United This Year

Last February at the 33rd annual convention of the Conservative Political Action Conference, President Bush’s top political advisor, Karl Rove, made note of his boss’s reelection three months previously by proclaiming: “Conservatism is the dominant political creed in America.”

A year later, that tenor of triumph has faded.

The 2006 convention, which opened Thursday and continues through the weekend, finds the conservative movement in some disarray.

There is considerable disappointment that Bush has not tamed the federal deficit. His immigration plan has divided hard-line conservatives, who oppose his guest-worker proposal, from more moderate business interests which rely on immigrant labor. Even the administration’s policies in the war on terrorism have created controversy.

In one of the conference’s first sessions, conservative former Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.) argued that the National Security Agency’s warrantless eavesdropping on the international communications of people in the United States violated the 4th Amendment’s prohibition of unreasonable search and seizure.

He closed his comments with this thought: What if a new administration, less favored by conservatives, exercised the same power?

“That gauntlet will be taken up by somebody we really don’t like, and it will be used against us,” Barr said.

That was too much for Ralph Sorcinelli, 52, a painting and wallpapering contractor from West Springfield, Mass. He let out a loud boo from the back of the hotel ballroom -- and then another.

His shouted disagreement cut through the polite applause for the low-key debate between Barr and Viet D. Dinh, a Georgetown University law professor and former Justice Department official who defended the administration’s policy.

Sorcinelli said: “It was outrageous that he would invoke the Constitution of the United States to say that the president is off course.” He added: “I can’t believe I’m in a conservative hall” hearing Bush’s direction questioned in his “defense of the United States of America.”

While the president struggles to regain his political footing after the downturns of 2005 -- sliding approval ratings, reversals in Iraq, rising oil prices and the indictment of Vice President Dick Cheney’s nowresigned chief of staff in connection with the disclosure of a CIA agent’s identity, among others -- he has been pummeled in recent days: Some conservatives, Barr at the top of the list, have challenged the eavesdropping as crossing a boundary that protects Americans’ privacy.

Others expressed dismay that his State of the Union address did not mention opposition to same-sex marriage.

And there were deep disagreements Thursday with Bush’s proposal to designate foreigners “guest workers” for a specified period to fill jobs for which employers can’t find U.S. citizens.

“America is a great country, and we welcome people who want to be 100% Americans -- and they are the only people we want to admit into this country,” said Phyllis Schlafly, founder of the conservative political group Eagle Forum.

Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.), a leader of congressional opposition to Bush’s plan, got in a side note: “God bless Denmark,” he said, going considerably beyond Bush in voicing support for the nation under attack throughout the Islamic world over a Danish newspaper’s publication of cartoons of the prophet Muhammad, a deep offense to Muslims.

But an unscientific sampling of opinion among roughly 2,300 activists attending the convention’s first day suggests that the biggest gripe with the president is economic as he enters his sixth year in office.

With Republican majorities in the House and Senate, they said, he has still failed to reduce government spending enough to give them confidence he will bring down the budget deficit. His administration predicts the deficit will be halved by 2009 if Congress enacts the budget he proposed Monday and if it adheres to his future spending recommendations.

Never mind the matter of same-sex marriage -- not so much because they support it or don’t, but because it is an issue better left to the states, they said.

The National Security Agency’s program, which Bush defended anew elsewhere in Washington on Thursday, drew little heat.

“The wiretapping is something that is needed at this point,” said retired marketer Anita Clos, 61, of Savannah, Ga., who moved out of Chappaqua, N.Y., five years ago, just as Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton were moving in. “I would prefer to be protected.”

But, Clos said, she was “very disappointed with the Republicans and their approach to the deficit.” Under Bush’s $2.77-trillion budget proposal, the administration projects, the deficit next year would be $354 billion -- the fourth-largest in dollar terms.

Said congressional candidate Randy Graf, 47: “We’ve got control of the White House, the House and the Senate, and we’ve been anything but serious about controlling spending.” He is seeking the GOP nomination for the southeastern Arizona seat of retiring Republican Rep. Jim Kolbe. “It’s just critical to the future of this country that we get that under control.”

Washington tax lawyer Ralph Winnie Jr., 36, said Bush’s new spending plan gave him hope that Bush was listening to conservative supporters. With congressional elections approaching, he said, the president “can’t afford for the base to stay at home.”

Indeed, a poll of registered voters that was released Thursday by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press has found that 31% consider their vote for Congress this coming November as a vote against the president, compared with 18% who see it as a vote for him (and 47% who do not consider him a factor in that vote). In the February before the previous midterm election, in 2002, 9% thought of their upcoming votes as being against Bush and 34% as being for him, the poll reported.

“I think he’s going to have to cut spending and deal with the deficit,” Winnie said.