INDIAN WELLS – Elaine McKearn is the kind of socially conservative Republican who used to dominate California Republican Party conventions such as the one that concluded Sunday.

The Thousand Oaks resident opposes abortion rights and gay marriage and sees illegal immigration as one of California's main problems. In 2002, the now-66-year-old was so inspired by GOP gubernatorial hopeful Bill Simon that she jumped aboard as a campaign volunteer.

At this convention, however, McKearn said she felt lost. All three of the party's gubernatorial candidates are pro-abortion rights social moderates who make only passing references to immigration, gay marriage, religion and other red-meat conservative social issues.

One candidate, former Rep. Tom Campbell, was once registered as a Democrat and supports legalizing gay marriage, while the other two – Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner and Meg Whitman, the former CEO of online auction firm eBay – have contributed to Democratic candidates in the past.

"We're trying to find our way," McKearn said of conservatives. "We have no favorite candidate to go to." It's a dilemma that many conservative Republicans wrestled with this weekend as fiscal issues such as cutting taxes and government spending and streamlining business regulations rather than social causes dominated the discussion.

Few speakers at the convention's dinners, workshops and news conferences brought up illegal immigration, although the topic was almost always one of the first cited at candidate question-and-answer sessions held with party activists.

At one point Saturday, Poizner invoked Democratic President John F. Kennedy while trying to sell delegates on his plan to cut taxes to create jobs and grow state revenue.

For activists such as Mike Spence, past president of the conservative California Republican Assembly, such centrist talk inspires unease following what they said was Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's betrayal of the Republican base.

Spence called the Republican governor a failure and blasted him for breaking his promises to conservatives by, among other things, approving the biggest tax increase in state history earlier this year. Schwarzenegger has also championed traditionally liberal causes such as Assembly Bill 32, which requires the state to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by about 25 percent by 2020.

"After the governor, people are cautious about who they support," Spence said.

State Sen. Sam Aanestad, who's running for lieutenant governor, echoed that sentiment Sunday at the convention's open session by calling on the party to refocus on "conservative principles." Nonetheless, he defined those principles in solely fiscal terms, leaving out the social issues.

To succeed in a general election statewide, Republican candidates need to navigate an electorate that's only 31 percent Republican while 45 percent Democratic and 20 percent independent. On top of that, decline-to-state voters usually lean left on issues such as legalizing gay marriage and euthanasia while registered Republicans have been shifting in the other direction, according to a study released last month by the nonpartisan Field Poll.

"Republican statewide candidates who have been most effective in recent years are those that combine a conservative agenda on economic and public safety issues with a more moderate approach on environmental and social matters," said Dan Schnur, director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at the University of Southern California and a former GOP strategist.

However, California GOP Chairman Ron Nehring said the convention's economy-dominated agenda reflected the issues on voters' minds.

"There's no doubt the economic issues are crowding out many of the other issues as the economy continues to suffer and as we continue to suffer from unacceptably high unemployment," Nehring said.

Gay marriage was a big issue at last year's event because Proposition 8, which banned such marriages, was on the ballot then, said state party Chief Operating Officer Brent Lowder.

"These issues go up and down," Lowder said. "They'll be back on the agenda."

The three gubernatorial candidates gave the same read, arguing that voters were focused on economic and not social issues this year and that candidates were responding to those priorities.

"I'm quite happy to tell people where I sit on these social issues, but this is all about fixing the state and the economy here," Whitman said in a Saturday news conference.

Campbell went even further. He said Republican voters are beginning to understand that only socially moderate GOP candidates are electable to statewide office.

"I think it's probably right," he said. "I really do believe, however, that you can find a huge amount of interest in what unites us, and that's on the economic issues."

That view drew disagreement not only from Nehring but also from conservative Republican activists such as McKearn, who let the candidates know where they stood.

At a Saturday breakfast hosted by Campbell, McKearn told him, "I think it's important you start selling yourself to conservatives in the Republican Party."

Tujunga resident Joe Panzarello toured the convention Friday wearing a T-shirt that slammed RINOs – common party parlance for Republicans in Name Only.

Panzarello said moving to the center was why the Republican Party's fortunes had fallen over the past years.

"There's really only one way the party is going to be refounded," Panzarello said. "That's by going back to its roots."

Call Jack Chang, Bee Capitol Bureau, 916-326-5543