Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 2, 1990 TAG: 9003023191
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By Associated Press
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
At the opening of the 17th annual Conservative Political Action Conference, David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, said movement activists, once highly suspicious of George Bush, have been "somewhat pleasantly surprised" by him.
"I think most conservatives are relatively pleased with the direction the administration has taken," Keene said.
Vice President Dan Quayle said the conservatives should congratulate themselves for the victories of democratic movements in Central America and Eastern Europe.
"We are the ones who created the environment for the Berlin Wall to fall," Quayle said at the organization's dinner Thursday night.
Quayle barely touched on the future of the U.S.-backed rebels in Nicaragua now that a new president has been elected freely there.
"Why do you think it is that the people of Nicaragua had a chance to vote for freedom and democracy and the people of Cuba have never had the chance to vote for freedom and democracy?" the vice president said. "The reason is very elementary: In Nicaragua we supported the democratic resistance; in Cuba we abandoned the resistance. Let us not make that mistake again."
Keene said the decline of communism as a threat had forced conservatism into "a period of reshaping itself."
He said developments overseas were forcing "conservatives and Republicans to focus on other problems. All in all, I would prefer to have that problem than an armed and aggressive Soviet Union."
by CNB