The Natives Are Restless

Following up my post from yesterday:

More than half the Republicans in the House have signed a formal complaint to President Bush about the failure to give prominent conservative, pro-life party members even one prime-time speaking role at the Republican National Convention.

[…]

The pre-convention rebellion by so many conservative House members is driven by re-election concerns and frustration over policy differences with the White House in the past 31/2 years, Capitol Hill Republicans said privately.

Public revolt is the last thing the Bush campaign wants to see, after the Senate Republican leaders failed Wednesday to get even 50 votes to back a constitutional amendment against homosexual “marriages.”

Last month, Republican convention planners announced a prime-time speakers’ list, which was approved by chief Bush strategist Karl Rove.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, New York Gov. George E. Pataki, New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani — all of whom are pro-choice — are lined up for evening speeches.

[…]

“The most conservative speaker right now is John McCain, who is truly a fiscal conservative. But a lot of conservatives believe the conservative movement that got us here is being ignored at the convention,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican.

[…]

Mr. Pence said signers of his letter agreed that “millions of voters will be tuning into the convention to hear someone give voice to the traditional moral values that brought them to the Republican Party in 1980.”

“The strength of the Republican majority in America is not in the California governor’s office or in the moderate politics of George Pataki,” Mr. Pence said. “It’s in the millions of pro-family voters who will campaign for our candidates and turn out on Election Day.”

This controversy just guaranteed that Tom Brokaw and Wolf Blitzer will bring up the fact that Rove tried to keep the real conservatives off the podium at the one event at which they really wanted to appear moderate and mainstream. The bad news is that nobody’s going to watch the conventions who isn’t already decided. Still, it doesn’t hurt and it’s illustrative of the problem the administration is having with its base.