His willingness to administer the death penalty brought him conservative backing, while his emphasis on education was widely popular.

Despite strong conservative backing, universal proposals have repeatedly lost political battles.

Spruyt left the party in the summer of 2006, after it proved unable to build broad conservative backing, and people like Joost Eerdmans and Marco Pastors proved unwilling to join.

Representative Les Aspin and Senator Sam Nunn both have the necessary expertise and conservative backing.

The action by the Governor, who has said he will probably run for the Senate seat held by Senator John Ashcroft, a Republican with solid conservative backing, drew strong praise from Roman Catholic officials.

But in exchange for that support, Mr. Le Pen demanded conservative backing for his own bid for the presidency of the assembly of the Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur region in southeast France.

Hayworth also had difficulty rallying conservative backing due to his past support for Congressional earmarks and for his past associations with lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

The new Bush-appointed V.O.A. boss, Robert Reilly, had conservative backing and tries to resist giving equal time to murderers on U.S. government facilities.