OXON HILL, Md. – She was not on the speaking program, but Hillary Rodham Clinton had presence at the nation’s largest annual gathering of conservative activists Saturday, as high-profile Republicans launched a dual effort to attack the prospective Democratic presidential candidate and improve the GOP’s longstanding struggle with women voters.
It was the closing act of a Republican summit highlighting acute challenges for a party that hasn’t won a presidential election in almost a decade.
The GOP’s 2008 vice presidential nominee, Sarah Palin, offered a message to all women, a group having backed Democrats in every presidential election since 1988: “Women, don’t let them use you – unless you choose to be their political pawn, just their piece of accessory on their arm.”
The Republican firebrand was among just a handful of women featured on the main stage during the Conservative Political Action Conference, which offers an early audition for GOP officials weighing a 2016 presidential run and a platform for leading conservatives to put their stamp on the evolving Republican Party. Thousands of conservative activists, opinion leaders and Republican officials flocked to a hotel just across the Potomac River near Washington.
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul won the conference’s presidential preference straw poll, a symbolic victory reflecting his popularity among conservatives who typically hold outsized influence in the GOP’s presidential selection process.
Clinton has yet to announce her 2016 intentions, but she is considered the overwhelming favorite to win her party’s nomination should she run.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich charged Clinton would be “a prison guard for the past” should she become president. Gingrich, a 2012 presidential hopeful, said Republicans would recapture the White House if the next election is framed as a fight between the past and the future and predicted the GOP would then “govern for two generations.”
Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., declared the former secretary of state “has a lot to explain” should she run for president, raising pointed questions about Clinton’s work in Russia and Libya. And she challenged the Republican Party’s struggle with women, who have supported Democrats in every presidential election since 1988.
“Don’t forget, we are the party, the only party, that had a woman on the presidential ticket this century,” Bachmann, a 2012 presidential candidate, said of the GOP’s 2008 ticket and vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin.
Women were a focus on Saturday, claiming three, prime-speaking spots on the closing day of a three-day event that included dozens of speakers. Women played a more prominent role in breakout sessions and panel discussions over the course of the conference.
After a disappointing 2012 election season, Republican officials acknowledged the need to broaden the GOP’s appeal among the growing bloc of minority voters and women.
“Women are not a ‘coalition.’ They represent more than half the voting population in the country, and our inability to win their votes is losing us elections,” read an exhaustive self-examination released by the Republican National Committee less than a year ago. Ronald Reagan was the last Republican presidential candidate to win a majority of women voters.
Carly Fiorina, one of five women featured alone on the main stage, said she was sick and tired of Democrats who charge that Republicans are waging a “war on women.”
“We respect all women. And we do not insult them by thinking that all they care about is reproductive rights,” the former U.S. Senate candidate from California said. “All issues are women’s issues. We are half of this great nation.”
But the RNC report found in order to attract more women, Republicans should become more “inclusive and welcoming” on social issues in particular. “If we are not,” the Republican authors found, “we will limit our ability to attract young people and others – including many women, who agree with us on some but not all issues.”
Some of the GOP’s most prominent conservatives insisted earlier in the conference Republicans emphasize hot-button social issues like abortion and gay marriage in this year’s midterm elections.
Paul represents a new generation of libertarian-minded Republicans less likely to oppose gay marriage or embrace laws allowing the government to affect people’s private lives.
“There’s a great battle going on. It’s for the heart and soul of America,” he told a swelling crowd Friday, focusing on civil liberties instead of social issues.
