Chicks on the Right: Giving conservatism a makeover

• Two professional%2C working central Indiana mothers run an edgy%2C conservative website
• Amy Jo Clark %28Daisy%29 and Miriam Weaver %28Mockarena%29%27s site boasts nearly 1.5 million views a month
• The women%2C who are OK with the morning-after pill%2C attribute popularity to a void in politics

INDIANAPOLIS -- When people swoon over President Barack Obama like he's a rock star, these women want to hurl.

They blast the Democrats, saying they've run the country into the ground, spending money the nation doesn't have.

But, they're OK with the morning-after pill, even abortions up to five weeks of pregnancy.

And they couldn't care less if gay people get married. Just quit whining about it, they say. And don't force churches to perform the ceremonies.

They admit they are not domestic creatures. People say they dress too provocatively. They cuss pretty much like sailors. They call themselves feminists.

And this, say the self-proclaimed Chicks on the Right, is the face of conservatism — after a much-needed makeover.

It's a makeover that's resonating in a big way.

The Chicks — two professional, working Central Indiana mothers who wear lipstick and talk about boob jobs — run an edgy, conservative website (http://chicksontheright.com). They are known to their followers as Daisy (Amy Jo Clark) and Mockarena (Miriam Weaver).

Launched in 2009, their website boasts nearly 1.5 million views a month and continues to climb the Alexa list of the nation's top 100 conservative sites, ranking No. 16 today.

The Chicks' Facebook fan page has more than 165,000 followers. Their Twitter account (twitter.com/chicksonright): more than 11,000 followers. They just landed a Saturday afternoon radio show on WIBC, a Fox News radio station in Indianapolis. A book is in the works, expected to be released early next year.

The two women attribute their popularity to a void in politics.

"There was nothing for us, and we felt so underrepresented by the Republican Party," said Weaver, 44, of Indianapolis. "We wanted to reach out to other women and let them know you don't have to be locked into this gun-totin' box. You can like stilettos and cocktails."

"We're not all stodgy, grumpy white dudes," said Clark, 41, of Franklin, Ind. "Liberals and the media have made us out to be this way. We are screaming from the roof tops, 'you can believe in God and still have a gay best friend.' "

Screaming? That's about right. Some of the things the Chicks say are almost over the top. So over the top, they had a run-in with Facebook this year.

The social media website threatened to shut down their fan page over a posting that was critical of the Obama administration.

That post was a link to a blog on their site titled, "You Know What? Liberal Hypocrisy is Starting to Cause Me Actual Physical Pain."

In a comment on Facebook, Weaver posted that White House Press Secretary Jay Carney could kiss her backside. People complained. Facebook blocked her out.

There was enough of an uproar (started by the Chicks) about the shutdown that Fox News Radio anchor Todd Starnes caught wind of it. He did a story. Facebook apologized.

That left the Chicks with an immediate 20,000 bump in the number of fans on Facebook and a glowing endorsement from Starnes.

"The 'Chicks on the Right' put the cool in conservative," he said of them. "They have carved a unique niche with their wickedly fun take on culture and politics."

That unique niche all began innocently enough. Clark, a medical writer by trade, and Weaver, a human resources recruiter, landed in the same workplace five years ago. They clicked immediately. The two would go to lunch every day and gripe about the state of politics. It was about the time of the 2008 presidential election. They bemoaned that the Republican candidate was John McCain. He didn't represent them. And what is it with this obsession with Obama?

"I've never been uber-political, but I thought, 'Why has everybody been acting like this guy is a rock star? It's freaking me out,' " Clark said.

So, the two women decided to put together a website and start blogging about it. The name came easy.

"I like chicks because it offends so many people," Clark said. "And I want to offend people. We are not politically correct."

Even with all the fans, the Chicks are still under the radar. This is their coming out of sorts. Up to now, they hadn't revealed their real names.

The Chicks are rock stars in some conservative circles. They are getting requests nationwide to launch state chapters. At their first meet and greet in September, people showed up from around the U.S.

"I don't think we will ever stop being surprised that people want to meet us," Weaver said. "We're just dorks."

Not really dorks. At that gathering, then-Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels showed up and surprised the chicks.

"I just couldn't resist coming by tonight to tell them again how much I love them and how much I love what they have been doing," he told the crowd.

Current Indiana Gov. Mike Pence didn't respond to a request for an interview about the chicks. Clark and Weaver say some Republicans are a bit leery of them.

Perhaps because they are too liberal to be conservative and too conservative to be liberal.

"We get flack from everybody," Clark said.

Take what Indiana Democratic Party chairman John Zody had to say about the chicks and their motto: "Because conservatism needs a makeover."

"It's nice to see our friends on the right are starting to realize there's a massive disconnect between today's GOP and the common sense, middle-class agenda most Hoosiers want their elected officials to embrace," he said. "They're right that Republicans need a makeover, but when they're all done, I think they'll wind up looking a whole lot like Indiana Democrats."

The Chicks didn't like that. They are far from Democrats, they say. Their blog posts regularly catch fire and rile up the left, referring to them as liberal trolls, talking about health-care reform as entitlement syndrome and claiming the so-called GOP war on women is fantasy.

The Chicks' one wish is that the Republican Party had someone more like them to run for president. They like Rand Paul, a U.S. senator from Kentucky, because he is a "straight talker."

They are also fans of Mia Love, the 37-year-old mayor of Saratoga Springs, Utah, and a 2012 Republican Party nominee for the U.S. House of Representatives.

And the Chicks have certainly nailed what a successful Republican movement needs to look like, said Janet Holcomb, wife of former Indiana Republican Party chairman Eric Holcomb.

"I think everyone agrees that there needs to be a much larger, more inclusive umbrella under which conservatism resides," she said. "Mock and Daisy both embrace this and epitomize it.

"They are seriously two of the funniest people I know," Holcomb said.

It was that vibe that drew David Wood, the Chicks' program director at WIBC, to offer them a gig.

He'd heard about them and then one day they showed up in his Facebook feed.

"I checked out one of the blogs, and I was laughing hysterically," he said.

Response from listeners has been overwhelmingly positive, minus the people who don't agree with their political views, Wood said.

"They have such natural chemistry and affection for one another," he said. "They are not afraid to poke fun at themselves. And they are just funny."

Amy Jo Clark (Daisy)

Age: 41.

Personal: Married to Greg. Two stepchildren, 23 and 19, and a 3-year-old daughter.

Real job: Medical writer and project manager.

Education: She has a degree in English rhetoric and composition from the University of Tennessee and a master's degree in communications from Southern Polytechnic State University in Georgia.

Are you a registered Republican? "Yes. I was a registered independent for years but always voted Republican."

Are you a feminist? "We do call ourselves the real kind of feminist. We feel like it's been hijacked. The real feminist is the single mom working her butt off and not taking government handouts."

Religion: She calls herself a "non-affiliated, yet self-proclaimed spiritual Christian mutt."

Abortion: "I used to be pro-choice because I really didn't want to talk about it. I'm a GOP person, but I have a little Libertarian inside me. I've been pregnant three times and lost two. The day I found out I was pregnant, I was a mother. I mourned those first two pregnancies. I realized there is no such thing as pro-choice. There is pro-abortion or pro-life. I'm pro-life."

Miriam Weaver (Mockarena)

Age: 44.

Personal: Married to Ron. She has a 7-year-old son with Ron and a 16-year-old son from a prior marriage.

Real job: Human resources, talent acquisition and recruiting.

Education: She has a psychology degree from the University of Kansas.

Are you a registered Republican? "Yes. I was a registered Republican before I even knew what it meant."

Are you a feminist? "Yes. That means independent, strong, empowered. It doesn't mean we are trying to be better than men. It's OK to be feminine."

Religion: She calls herself "a true religious mutt, who believes in God and in good old Christian values," but isn't affiliated with a church.

Abortion: "I've been accused of not being pro-life enough. I'm a proponent of birth control, IUDs, morning-after pills, family planning, abstinence. Science says life begins at conception. I have a tolerance level for abortion up to the heartbeat, around five weeks. If there is a heartbeat you don't mess with that."