Tancredo woos conservatives

Coloradan pitches himself as more than single-issue

M.E. Sprengelmeyer, Rocky Mountain News

Published March 3, 2007 at midnight

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WASHINGTON - Shadow boxing substituted for head-to-head debate Friday when Republican presidential hopefuls tried to score points at a crowded gathering of still- proud conservatives.

Long shots took jabs at unnamed front-runners. Contenders bobbed and weaved around perceived weaknesses. And each candidate found different words to explain how they would pick the conservative movement up off the canvas after last year's brutal pounding at the hands of Democrats.

The theme from the movie Rocky played as Colorado's underdog entrant, Rep. Tom Tancredo, made his pitch to the 34th Annual Conservative Political Action Conference.

"If you want to call me a single-issue candidate, fine, so long as you know that the single issue is the survival of the conservative movement in America," Tancredo said, while supporters, including several dozen college kids bussed in from Michigan, waved blue and white Tancredo signs.

Tancredo is best known for his hard-line stance against illegal immigration. But he's been trying to expand his appeal as a lifelong, all-around conservative.

He denounced what he called "hyphenated-conservatives" - like "social-conservative," "fiscal-conservative" - and said the only split adjective he'd give himself is "unapologetic-conservative."

He was among six contenders who who took the stage Friday at the Omni Shoreham Hotel. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, California Rep. Duncan Hunter and Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback also spoke.

Other possible 2008 presidential candidates, former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia and former Virginia Gov. James Gillmore, are scheduled to address the gathering on Saturday.

The conference is sponsored by the American Conservative Union, an influential lobbying group. This weekend's events are considered critical for contenders who want to gain traction with the conservative wing of the Republican Party.

ACU members consider themselves the caretakers of the legacy of former President Ronald Reagan, who attended about a dozen times.

His name was invoked every few minutes Friday, as speakers touted his ability to solidify a coalition of laissez-faire capitalists, national security hawks and religious conservatives.

Tough for moderates

The gathering is considered a tough crowd for perceived moderates. That's why much of the media attention was on Romney and Giuliani, who are in the top tier of the early national polls but face skepticism over their past breaks with conservative orthodoxy.

As a moderate facing a staunchly conservative audience, Giuliani was seen as as having the most at stake.

He is riding high from recent polls putting him at the top of the field just ahead of Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who did not attend on Friday.

While touting his image as "America's Mayor" during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, he faces skepticism from some social conservatives over support for gun control, abortion and gay rights.

Giuliani tried to laugh with the skeptics Friday. "We don't agree on everything. I don't agree with myself on everything," he said.

But he tried to win over the crowd with a call for a determined approach to national defense.

"Maybe we made a mistake in calling this a war on terror," Giuliani said. "This is not our war on them. This is their war on us. This war is over when they stop planning to come here and kill us."

Like others, he evoked the name of the departed Cold War commander in chief.

"We'll get there the way Ronald Reagan got there," Giuliani said. "Peace through strength."

Although Romney calls Reagan his hero now, critics passed out yellow foam "flip-flop" sandals imprinted with his 1994 quotation: "I was an independent during the time of Reagan-Bush. I am not trying to return to Reagan- Bush."

Romney has tried to solidify his credentials as a fiscal conservative by signing a formal pledge not to raise taxes and another promising to veto any non-defense spending that grows by more than inflation minus 1 percent.

The right road

For such lesser-known rivals as Tancredo, Huckabee, Hunter and Brownback, the strategy was to urge the crowd to be suspicious of moderates or anybody who converted to conservative orthodoxy on the "Road to Damascus," meaning the campaign trail.

Brownback stirred the crowd with a mix of traditional-values and fiscal-conservative themes that President Bush used to win over the old Reagan coalition. He denounced activist judges and called for overturning the landmark decision that legalized abortion.

Huckabee, a former Southern Baptist minister, said his campaign is based on "faith, family and freedom."

He touted his childhood in Hope, Ark. - one of the hometowns former President Clinton also claims - and said he'd stick with traditional views on issues such as opposing gay marriage until Moses comes down with new tablets "postmarked Brokeback Mountain."

While others spoke of taking a tough stand against Islamic terrorists, Huckabee went a step further, saying, "We're not on the brink of, we're in the midst of, a World War III" with Islamic fascists.

In a crowded field, Tancredo and Hunter both are building their campaigns on tough stands against illegal immigration. Hunter touted his efforts to expand a border fence from his southern California district to the rest of the border.

He got his loudest applause, as Tancredo did, by promising to pardon two U.S. Border Patrol agents who are imprisoned over the shooting of a drug-smuggling suspect.

If nothing else, Tancredo got off one of the day's bigger laugh lines by trying to buck up battered conservatives by invoking the name of Democratic front-runner Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's First-Husband-in-Waiting.

"With Bill Clinton already measuring the drapes in the White House," he said, "conservatives can't sit this one out."

sprengelmeyerm@shns.com or 303-954-2729

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