US conservatives riled up but where do they go?

By Ed Stoddard - Analysis

DALLAS (Reuters) - The Texas governor ponders secession from the United States, anti-tax "tea parties" are held and some states snub federal economic "stimulus" funds.

The U.S. Republican Party's conservative base is fired up and taking aim at the old target of "big government" as its opposition hardens to the agenda of President Barack Obama and a U.S. Congress controlled by his fellow Democrats.

But some analysts say the Republicans, after setbacks in the 2006 congressional elections and the 2008 presidential election, risk turning off more voters than they attract if they embrace the kind of populism on display lately.

The Republican Party and the conservative movement are at a crossroads as they search for a winning formula after George W. Bush left office in January as a deeply unpopular president.

"Republicans need to figure out what it means to be a Republican and a conservative in a post-Bush era," said Dennis Goldford, a political scientist at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa.

And the political base -- largely white, male, Southern, evangelical Christian and rural -- appears to be shrinking.

Analysts also say the Republican Party has no heavyweight stars in Congress at the moment, and both the party and the conservative movement lack a unifying leader.

Those in the spotlight -- Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, the party's 2008 vice presidential candidate; Texas Governor Rick Perry, who spoke of secession; and radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh -- appear unlikely to be able to broaden the Republican base.

"It is the most polarizing figures who are getting the media play right now," said Michael Lindsay, a political sociologist at Rice University in Houston.

But conservative activists say are heartened by the level of enthusiasm at the grass-roots level. The conservative movement has owed a lot of its past success, for example, to its ability to tap political passions at the grass-roots level in venues like fast-growing evangelical churches.

"Our mailing list has exploded. ... We are also in the process of adding staff and hiring," said Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United For Life, a conservative organization that opposes abortion rights.

'VISCERAL AND VOCAL'

The most vocal Republicans at the moment are aiming to tap into resentment over massive federal spending under the economic stimulus package that Obama signed in February as well as the president's $3.6 trillion 2010 budget plan.

"Nationally Obama has about 60 to 62 percent support for his job approval rating and about 56 to 58 percent for his economic policy, but there is about 30 percent who oppose both. ... And about half that number is fairly visceral and vocal about it," said Cal Jillson, a political scientist at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

It was such a crowd that Perry appealed to last week when the Texas governor told a "tea party" protest held on the federal tax deadline day that Washington had departed from America's founding ideal of limited government.