April Foster is a Republican and a conservative, but she hardly looks the part of a right-wing conspirator.
She has an open face and a college student's idealism, displaying none of the fangs and horns you might have expected after first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton blasted the "vast right-wing conspiracy" she believes is out to get President Clinton.Instead, the 19-year-old student at Liberty University, Jerry Falwell's Baptist college, believes in honesty and morality. Like many of the 1,500 gathered here for the 25th annual Conservative Political Action Conference, Foster says she is not out to get anyone.
"In a day when it's the `X' generation and we're all supposed to be valueless, I don't see how we can have any government or social structure if that's true," she said Thursday as the three-day conference got under way.
To be sure, the meeting hall is anything but Clinton Country, even if it is located just across the Potomac River from Washington.
The conference was the setting used by Paula Jones in 1994 to allege that Clinton sexually harassed her while he was governor of Arkansas and she was a state employee. This year's speakers include House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former Vice President Dan Quayle and Iran-Contra figure Oliver North.
A booth for the Young America's Foundation has a poster showing Clinton waving just below the headline, "Crime wave." A nearby TV shows nonstop videos of former President Reagan and talk-show host Rush Limbaugh.
Another booth sells Republican Party mouse pads and a T-shirt reading, "Jail to the Chief."
A third offers $2 buttons that say, "I believe Gennifer, Paula, Monica, etc."
The last name refers to Monica Lewinsky, the former White House intern who claimed she had a sexual relationship with the president. Clinton has emphatically denied that allegation, as well as suggestions that he participated in a cover-up.
On Tuesday, the first lady attacked the right wing of the political spectrum, saying the allegations against Clinton were "part of an effort, very frankly, to undo the results of two elections."
One conference attendee, Kevin Watson, a Seattle resident who wrote "The Clinton Record: Everything Bill and Hillary Want You to Forget," said Hillary Clinton's assertion is really an attempt to distract the public from examining the truth of the charges.
"To think that there's some coordination between talk radio, the conservative wing and the special prosecutor's office is not true," he said.
Watson asserted that Hillary Clinton made her attack because most liberals and many Democrats "won't accept that their position is not the sole high ground."
Nearby stood Jim Murphy of Boulder City, Nev. Like several others who stopped to talk, he urged his fellow conservatives to ignore the first lady's remarks.
"Let the press take care of it," said Murphy, a retired airline pilot. "I think it would look bad, because I think the impression among the general public is that there's a conspiracy and we're trying to discredit him because of politics and not moral questions."