White House hopefuls head to conservative confab

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Thousands of Republicans descended on the US capital Thursday to plot a path to presidential victory, with Mitt Romney still aiming to win over the conservative base and be named the party's champion in November elections.Stung by losses to religious conservative Rick Santorum this week in three voting contests, Romney must court the core faithful who carry heavy political weight but have given little love to his 2012 White House campaign.

Written off only a few weeks ago, Santorum won contests on Tuesday in Minnesota, Colorado and Missouri -- the latest turnaround in the volatile race to pick a candidate to challenge President Barack Obama in November.

While the startling defeats did not derail Romney's campaign, they put the former Massachusetts governor on notice that he is not invincible and raised questions about his conservative appeal.

And so on Friday he, along with Santorum and rival Newt Gingrich, will drop off the state-by-state campaign trail and address the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC), where up to 10,000 energized politicos gather over three days to hash out a battle plan to thwart Obama's bid for a second term.

The fourth-place candidate, congressman Ron Paul of Texas, is not on the schedule at CPAC, but conservatives here are contending with a slew of presidential hopefuls who have expressed intent to stay in the race all the way to the Republican Party's nominating convention in late August.

Senator Marco Rubio, who electrified CPAC on its opening day with a rousing anti-Obama speech, sought to tamp down concern that conservatives had yet to coalesce behind one man.

"We have four really good candidates," Rubio said. "At the end we're all going to come together, and we know that right?"

Steering clear of internal divisions, Rubio focused on Obama, who he said had put the US economy into a deeper hole, tied the hands of big business, infringed on citizens' rights and instituted unpopular health care reforms.

"The president of the United States looks like he is a really good father, a really good husband. But he is a terrible president," Rubio said to a standing ovation.

Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell also painted over any possible divisions among conservatives seeking to unite behind a single candidate.

"Now the trick is to stick together, and keep our focus where it belongs," McConnell told the gathering.

He and other lawmakers and major speakers addressing CPAC did not discuss the presidential candidates, but attendees were quick to unload, particularly on Romney, a multi-millionaire businessman who continues to face withering accusations of "flip-flopping" on key conservative issues.

"He's just not convincing enough," Sandra Kern, a contractor working on a government agency project, told AFP, adding that Romney has failed to articulate his conservative vision for America as other candidates have.

"What's his plan? What's his goal?"

Financial advisor and Ron Paul supporter Terry Tahir, 70, was blunter.

"I think he should get out of the Republican Party," he said of Romney. "I don't think he's really a Republican."

Romney has three big state victories under his belt, and leads in the all-important delegate count that determines the nominee, but he and the rest of the Republicans face an enthusiasm gap, something the core conservatives at CPAC will have to address.

Experts have pointed to low overall turnout at caucuses and primaries, and Romney's tepid polling numbers, that could end up handing Obama a second term should the divisive race continue through November.

"Certainly those conservative evangelicals are not going to vote in droves for Obama, but what they could do -- and what they did in 2008 -- is that they could stay home," said Michael McDonald, a voter turnout expert at George Mason University.

Another pitfall for Romney is low turnout among the moderate and independent voters who often decide US elections, even as the Republican primaries have attracted huge amounts of media attention, McDonald said.

Low turnout at the polls was mirrored in a survey released Wednesday which found that only 54 percent of Republicans are "very excited" about voting in November's presidential election, compared with 58 percent of Democrats.