For Reagan and the New Right, the Honeymoon is over

Every president has a honeymoon, and Ronald Reagan’s has been longer than most. Congress, the press, opinion leaders and even many Democrats are still treating him like a new bridegroom. • But for one important group of Reagan supporters – the New Right conservatives – the honeymoon is over. ‘I’hey flexed their muscle over the nomination of Sandra D. O’Connor to the Supreme Court, and lost. For some of the most vocal leaders of the New Right movement, the nomination was the latest in a series of slights and insults they have suffered from Reagan advisers which raise questions in their minds about whether the president is really their kind of conservative. “The White House slapped us in the face,” says Richard A. Viguerie, the conservative direct-mail expert. “‘I’he White House is saying you don’t have a constituency we’re concerned about. We don’t care about you.” “Thel’e’s been a challenge issued,” explains Viguerie. “It is something we can’t ignore. We either fight this one, or we aren’t leaders.” Viguerie and his cohorts on the New Right have done just that. They have f urned and fussed. They’ve launched a series of pointed’ attacks on O’Connor in their publications and in thousands of letters and telegrams sent to their supporters around the country. But after two weeks, they have yet to persuade a single senator to come out against O’Connor, the first woman ever appointed to the Supreme Court. They plan to continue what they now see as an all but hopeless fight if only