Top GOP names urge unity, strategy as election looms

Article posted: 6/8/2012 1:04 PM

	Rick Santorum ?
	Chris Christie ?
	Herman Cain ?

Buoyed by Gov. Scott Walker?s historic victory in Wisconsin this week, top conservatives took the stage in Rosemont this morning to urge a team effort as the Nov. 6 national election nears.

?We made a mistake after Ronald Reagan,? Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin said, noting the GOP must ?never take anything for granted again.?

That means using various sectors of the conservative party ? from tea partyers to moderates ? in broadcasting a message that the country needs to return to Republican values, speakers at the conference said.

But many of their overtures this morning were to a conservative constituency. The Conservative Political Action Conference, the first of two regional events this year, is designed, according to organizers, to ?take the fight of the future of America directly to President Obama?s backyard.?

Illinois? Democratic leadership, as well as the state?s well known budget problems, provided plenty of punch lines for speakers in the lineup.

?Is New Jersey the worst tax state in America?? Chris Christie, the governor of that state, asked the crowd. ?Oh no. Every night I hit my knees and thank God for Gov. Pat Quinn in Illinois and Gov. Brown in California.?

Former presidential candidate Rick Santorum, a alumnus of Carmel Catholic High School in Mundelein, announced the start of a new grass-roots effort, Patriot Voices, aimed at ?those who are not part of the American narrative.?

?The only way to unite America and start anew is to remember who we are,? Santorum said.

?We are not an ethnicity. We are not a race. We are an ideal. ... We are a country founded on the idea of limited government,? Santorum said, urging attendees to work to protect those rights.

Former presidential candidate Herman Cain of Georgia, at his first media appearance in Illinois since a scandal involving a suburban woman spurred his withdrawal from the GOP presidential race, called on Republicans not only to focus on the party?s own base, but to reach out to independents, people of faith and ?weary Democrats.?

The day will conclude with the results of a vice presidential straw poll and speeches by three members of the Illinois congressional delegation: House GOP Chief Deputy Whip Peter Roskam of Wheaton, Rep. Joe Walsh of McHenry and Rep. Randy Hultgren of Winfield.

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