Iraq looms in background at conservative summit

WASHINGTON -- At a meeting of thousands of leading conservatives being wooed by GOP presidential candidates this week, the elephant in the room was not the iconic symbol of the Republican Party. It was the war in Iraq.

Candidates and activists mulling the future of conservative politics talked about abortion, same-sex marriage, and the need for fiscal discipline. But they shied away from mentioning the unpopular war, which conservative activists say is beginning to divide the Republican Party.

"It's an embarrassment to both sides" of the issue, said Art Kelly , who runs a conservative website.

"The people who are for the war are afraid to speak for the war, and the people against it don't want it to be the line in the sand" that splits the GOP, he said, as he manned a booth at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

Colonel Bud Day , a retired Air Force officer, lamented the near-exclusion of Iraq from the panel discussions and speeches. "I think a bunch of them are goosey about mentioning the war," said Day, president of the Vietnam Veterans Legacy Foundation .

"McCain is the only one who has the guts to say 'I'm for it,' " Day said, referring to the Arizona senator, the only major Republican presidential candidate not to speak at the conference.

Vice President Dick Cheney defended the Iraq war during a speech Thursday night, but other GOP officials stayed far from the divisive issue. Social conservatives said many evangelical Christians have a moral conflict over the war, while others -- including some fiscal conservatives -- said they had never believed in the war and especially the nation-building effort that followed.

While conservatives have long benefited from a public perception that the GOP is strong on national defense, the 2008 campaign has made candidates skittish about aligning themselves too closely with President Bush on a war Americans largely oppose.

The presidential candidates made little or no mention of Iraq yesterday, limiting their comments to the overall fight against terrorism. Only former governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts made comments in support of the war, saying he approved of the "surge" in troops.

But Romney also said that after the war started, "we were underprepared, underplanned, undermanaged, and undermanned," a rhetorical gesture to those in the audience unhappy with the progress of the war.

Ken Connor , president of the Center for a Just Society and a leading social conservative, said the GOP candidates were avoiding the issue because "there's not a consensus among conservatives about the war."

"People have begun to have doubts. What are we asking our young people to fight for?" said Connor, who did not attend the conference. "I do think that there is an uncertainty and an unrest that cuts across ideological boundaries."

None of the panel discussions in the three-day conference was directed at the Iraq war. Instead, the only one of 34 seminars to cover military matters was titled "The Left's Repeated Campaign Against the American Soldier."

Rudolph Giuliani , New York's former mayor, received the warmest reception among the six presidential candidates who spoke. In an address heavily laden with references to conservative hero and former president Ronald Reagan , Giuliani also spoke of a day when the United States would not be fighting militarily or politically with so much of the world.

"If we do it right, with the spirit of America, the enemies we think we have in this war in time will be our friends," Giuliani said.

The shift away from discussing the war forecasts a troubling campaign year for Republican candidates, who must seek to satisfy Bush supporters in the GOP base along with conservatives and independents who are increasingly skeptical of the war, Republican and independent analysts said.

"If Iraq is no different -- or is worse than it is right now -- that's a major problem for Republicans" in 2008, said Whit Ayres, a Republican consultant.

A year ago, 77 percent of Republicans believed the war was going "very well," according to a Pew Research Center survey. But a poll by the organization two weeks ago suggested that just 51 percent of Republicans now feel that way.

"This change in attitudes toward how things are going may presage a stronger call for getting out [of Iraq] among Republicans or greater calls for support of a deadline" to pull troops out of the country, said Andrew Kohut , president of the Pew center. "For the Republican primary candidates, the war is a problem, no matter how you look at it."

Michael Franc , a political specialist at the Heritage Foundation, said conservatives have been moving away from their support of the war for some time. The best way for GOP candidates to handle the situation, he said, is to "focus more on the global aspect of the war against terrorism," which is what many did yesterday.