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Tag: values voter summit
Conservatives At Summit Cheer Boehner Resignation As Speaker

Conservatives At Summit Cheer Boehner Resignation As Speaker

By Steve Holland and Erin McPike

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The news that U.S. House Speaker John Boehner will resign electrified a summit of Republican conservatives on Friday, with a variety of presidential candidates saying it is time for a new generation of leadership in Washington.

Raucous cheers broke out at the Values Voter Summit in Washington when Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, a candidate for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, broke into his prepared speech to announce that Boehner planned to step down.

“I’m not here to bash anyone,” Rubio told the crowd. “But the time has come to turn the page.”

Many conservatives have long since been fed up with Boehner for what they consider a failure to advance their agenda. With Republicans in control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate, conservatives are frustrated that President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law has not been repealed and that Obama still seems to have his way with Congress.

“This is an opportunity for a new speaker who will take it as a solemn commitment to the people who elected us that he or she is going to do exactly what we told the voters we will do,” said Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, another Republican presidential hopeful.

Boehner’s announcement that he was leaving the speakership and Congress effective Oct. 30 highlighted the split in his party between conservatives and more moderate Republicans.

Senator John McCain of Arizona, the party’s 2008 presidential nominee, hailed Boehner as a good man who had grown weary of attempting to keep conservative House Republicans in line.

“I’m sad because I have great respect and affection for Speaker Boehner,” McCain told reporters after his address to the Values Voter Summit.

Some Republican presidential candidates are trying to tap into conservatives’ anger at the party’s establishment in order to gain support from a key voting bloc and advance their bid for the nomination to run in November 2016.

New York billionaire Donald Trump, who is leading in opinion polls of Republican voters, said politicians become different people once they get to Washington.

“They get elected. They’re full of vim and vigor. They’re going to change things. They’re going to get rid of Obamacare. They’re going to do all of these things. They come down to these magnificent vaulted ceilings that you see all over Washington. And what happens? They become different people,” Trump told summit attendees.

The candidates had another reason to welcome the Boehner news. An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found that 72 percent of Republican primary voters were dissatisfied with Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s ability to achieve Republican goals. The poll was conducted Sunday through Thursday.

(Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Photo: U.S. Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) wipes away tears as he answers questions about his resignation as Speaker and from the U.S. Congress at a news conference at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, September 25 2015. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

Romney, Perry Spat Brings Mormon/Evangelical Divide To Fore

Rick Perry was introduced by Robert Jeffress, a Baptist church leader, at the Values Voter Summit in Washington Friday. Jeffress later that day called Mormonism a “cult” and said he did not believe Mitt Romney was a Christian. Check out the video:

And so the issue of the Republican establishment favorite’s religion — Romney is a Mormon — which had largely stayed off the radar of this campaign, is poised to reemerge as a serious issue just when Republican primary voters start to settle on their choices.

Romney’s camp was quick to punch back. His introducer at the Summit, Bill Bennett, rebuked Jeffress before the candidate took the stage.

“Do not give voice to bigotry. Do not give voice to bigotry,” Bennett said. “I would say to Pastor Jeffress: You stepped on and obscured the words of Perry and Santorum and Cain and Bachmann and everyone else who has spoken here. You did Rick Perry no good, sir, in what you had to say.”

Romney’s speech was well-received, and as this is the second story in as many weeks painting Perry as a bigot (the first being the now-infamous name of his hunting ranch), the Texan’s backers have to be worried that the electability argument might start to pull (even more) establishment Republicans into Romney’s camp.

The spat also opens a bigger debate: is the Republican Evangelical community too intolerant, too prone to judgments and even prejudice — whether toward Mormons, Islam, or homosexuality?

Romney himself gently rebuked another hard right social conservative speaker at the Summit, Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association.

“We should remember that decency and civility are values too,” Romney said when he took the stage Saturday. “One of the speakers who will follow me today has crossed that line, I think. Poisonous language doesn’t advance our cause.”

Romney, then, is expanding his push for a more moderate, practical Republican Party to the lion’s den — the religious Right. His new strategy carries risks, though: he may not need their whole-hearted support to win the primary, but as Karl Rove can tell you, a fired-up Evangelical community is key to the Republican Party winning national elections these days.