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Manassas, VA - Richard A. Viguerie, Chairman of ConservativeHQ.com, has written a blog on his Web site stating that conservative litmus tests for Republican candidates are "well intentioned," but "would do little to solve the two fundamental problems within the Republican Party: bad leadership and conservative acquiescence to bad leadership."

The article, at http://conservativehq.com/blog_post/show/470, states that liberal Republicans "are merely an annoyance."

Rather, Viguerie writes that the "current Republican leadership has consistently supported our national slide to socialism."

He cites Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Minority Leader John Boehner, and former Bush White House political advisor Karl Rove as Republicans who "have consistently abandoned constitutional principles of limited government in favor of socialist-statist programs, all in the name of 'winning.'"

McConnell and Boehner both voted for President Bush's Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) legislation, a $700 billion bailout of large financial institutions, which Viguerie said "transferred large piles of money from average taxpayers to Wall Street fat cats who had run their businesses into the ground."

Viguerie also criticizes former Speaker Dennis Hastert and former Majority Leader Tom DeLay for their leadership in passing the "largest federal government give-away program in decades," the Medicare Prescription Drug Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003.

Instead of forcing symbolic litmus tests on candidates, Viguerie wants "to put new leaders at the helm" of the House, the Senate, the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee, and the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

"The road to new leadership for the Republican Party goes through the 2010 primaries," Viguerie wrote, adding that conservatives should support "boat-rocking principled conservative candidates in the upcoming primaries, and making sure they win in November."