Nation & World

Election 2012 |

WASHINGTON — The Republican presidential race shrank to the size of a hotel ballroom Friday. Three top contenders made pitches to conservative activists, each hoping a speech could unite a movement that months of campaigning had not.

It couldn't.

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum emphasized his ideological purity. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich emphasized his courage, casting himself as an angry outsider, beset by both Democrats and his party's establishment.

And former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney — the hobbled front-runner, struggling to stop conservatives from turning to the other two — talked about his experience.

In what could be one of his most important speeches, Romney said he had been living the ideals of the right for decades as a businessman and "severely conservative" governor in a liberal state.

"I know conservatism," said Romney, repeating the word or its variants 24 times. "Because I have lived conservatism."

He seemed to win over some activists, yet there were lingering doubts.

"(He's) a little bit like the guy on the playground who gives himself a nickname" because no one else will do it, said Eric Kohn, 30, a public-relations professional from Chicago.

The three candidates spoke, hours apart, at a conference that drew a large and lively swath of the American right. The Conservative Political Action Conference is a famous stage for political theater: On Friday alone, there was a ventriloquist act, a group of protesters with their mouths taped shut (for the silence of poverty) and a man dressed as Britain's King George III.

But Friday's business was serious in the Marriott ballroom.

Santorum went first. Speaking with his wife and several of his children standing behind him, he argued that the way to beat President Obama was to nominate an ideological opposite.

In other words: him.

"I think we have learned our lesson. And the lesson is that we will no longer abandon and apologize for the principles, and principles that made this country great, for a hollow victory in November," Santorum said.

He laid out hard-right positions on the idea of human-caused climate change (a "facade") and the health-care law. Without naming Romney, Santorum said his competitor had been less conservative on both.

Foster Friess, a major donor to a super PAC supporting Santorum, was less coy. As he introduced Santorum, Friess told a joke about Romney's past shifts in political belief.

"A conservative, a liberal and a moderate walked into a bar," he said. "The bartender says, 'Hi, Mitt!' "

That drew both cheers and boos.

Romney later took the stage to a loud ovation. He told the crowd he was the only candidate in the race who never had worked a day in Washington, D.C. Even his time in the Massachusetts state House, Romney said, hadn't changed him. "I served in government, but I didn't inhale," he said. "I'm still a business guy."

Romney used his speech to underline his proposals to cut government spending, overhaul Medicare and boost the U.S. military. Echoing many speakers, he said four more years of Obama would lead to debilitating debt and the erosion of American free enterprise and personal freedom.

Gingrich was the last candidate to appear. In contrast to Santorum, the former speaker made only indirect references to Romney, preferring instead to attack Obama, whom he criticized in lacerating terms as, variously, a liar, a dangerous radical and a threat to America's pre-eminence in the world.

Gingrich promised on his first day in office to have "repudiated at least 40 percent" of Obama's accomplishments.

"No money for abortion overseas. Period," the former speaker said to applause. "An executive order to repeal every act of religious bigotry by the Obama administration. Period."

That presumably included Obama's policy requiring religiously affiliated groups to provide health-insurance coverage for contraception, a rule the president softened earlier Friday.

If the president is re-elected, said Gingrich, a convert to the Roman Catholic faith, "He will wage war on the Catholic Church the morning after his re-election."

Details about Gingrich's speech were provided by the Tribune Washington Bureau.