Thread: Conservative draws hard line

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Conservative draws hard line
Candidates unworthy, Schlafly says in visit


By WALTER ALARKON
Monitor staff


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February 22. 2007 8:00AM


Phyllis Schlafly said the Republican front-runners lack credibility.

Conservative author Phyllis Schlafly urged New Hampshire Republican activists to test the conservative bona fides of the 2008 presidential candidates, especially those of the three Republicans leading in polls.

"New Hampshire is the front line of the presidential race, and as I go about and talk to the conservative movement, they're in disarray," said Schlafly, who led opposition to the failed Equal Rights Amendment more than 25 years ago. "They don't know what to do, who to back. We're told by the media that we have a choice of one of three, (Sen. John) McCain or (former New York mayor Rudy) Giuliani or (former Massachusetts governor Mitt) Romney. Each one of them is capable of raising $100 million. I'm not happy of being told that at all. I don't think that any of the three are acceptable."

She spoke yesterday at Newick's Restaurant in Merrimack before about 50 people, including members of the Coalition of New Hampshire Taxpayers, the National Right to Life Committee and staffers of Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo's presidential campaign. She told them to ask hard questions of each candidate so that each would commit himself. But she made clear that she thought that McCain, Romney and Giuliani lacked credibility on issues important to her - immigration, gay marriage and abortion.

She disagreed with McCain's choice to co-sponsor legislation with Sen. Ted Kennedy that would give illegal immigrants a path to citizenship. Instead, she supported building a fence and fortifying the border patrol on the country's southern border.

Romney didn't impress her when she saw him speak in Missouri.

"Mitt Romney's very handsome, very attractive, a wonderful speaker with a wonderful resume," but he didn't focus on conservative issues, she said.
Instead, he focused on his turnaround of the 2002 Winter Olympics, she said.

As for Giuliani, Schlafly said his standing at the top of polls won't last. "The polls also say that people don't know that he's pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage and anti-gun," she said. "I think those polls will change when people find out."

McCain, Giuliani and Romney are the top three candidates in the latest poll of likely Republican primary voters by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center.

Schlafly, 82, visited New Hampshire to stump for issues she has long supported. Yesterday, she urged state legislators to fight the repeal of the parental-notification abortion law at a press conference in Concord. Schlafly, reviled by feminists for opposing the constitutional amendment calling for equal rights for both sexes, also spoke to a women's studies class at Southern New Hampshire University. Tuesday, she met with Rep. Duncan Hunter, a Republican candidate from California also visiting the state. Schlafly has backed iconoclastic candidates before, including Barry Goldwater, Steve Forbes and Ronald Reagan.

Her books include The Supremacists: The Tyranny of Judges and How to Stop It, Feminist Fantasies and A Choice, Not an Echo, which criticized the Republican Eastern establishment and was distributed by Goldwater's 1964 presidential campaign. She is the founder of the Eagle Forum, a St. Louis-based conservative volunteer group, and has fought for a pro-life plank to be included in the national GOP platform since 1984.

Those who attended Schlafly's speech echoed her call to confront candidates and to make sure voters listen to everyone running, not just the poll leaders.

"If McCain proved nothing else (in 2000), he proved that everybody has a chance from going to 0 percent in the polls to winning the primary," said Charlie Arlinghaus, president of the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy and a former state GOP chairman.

Several activists wore stickers for Tancredo, whom Schlafly lauded for opposing McCain's immigration bill.

"There are groups who will not vote for those three, because like Phyllis said, they don't line up with them on the right-to-life, gun control and immigration," said Shelly Uscinski, who is managing Tancredo's New Hampshire campaign and was handing out stickers yesterday.

Near the end of her speech, Schlafly tried to buck up Republicans dispirited by losses in the November congressional election. She likened the atmosphere today to when the press and some conservatives didn't believe her 1979 declaration that the Equal Rights Amendment was defeated.

"Conservatives didn't believe we could win anything at that time," she said, noting that the amendment hasn't been ratified. "We're kind of back to this defeatism again. We need to rebuild it."

We're told by the media that we have a choice of one of three, (Sen. John) McCain or (former New York mayor Rudy) Giuliani or (former Massachusetts governor Mitt) Romney. Each one of them is capable of raising $100 million. I'm not happy of being told that at all. I don't think that any of the three are acceptable."

Yeah. Doesn't seem like the Republicans want to be a conservative party anymore.

Originally Posted by loservillelabor

We're told by the media that we have a choice of one of three, (Sen. John) McCain or (former New York mayor Rudy) Giuliani or (former Massachusetts governor Mitt) Romney. Each one of them is capable of raising $100 million. I'm not happy of being told that at all. I don't think that any of the three are acceptable."

Yeah. Doesn't seem like the Republicans want to be a conservative party anymore.

That's not true. We are having these RINOs imposed on us from the top down. Someone doesn't want Conservatives, but it's not the average Republican, as far as I can see.