The 2011 Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) meeting in Washington over the weekend provided, as always, a sort of dysfunctional family picnic for the self-conscious Right, and an opportunity for a large cast of would-be 2012 presidential candidates to tug the forelock to The Movement and beat up on the godless socialist foe.
Aficionados of conservative ideological infighting had a lot of entertainment at this year’s CPAC. There was, as reported in last week’s Wingnut Watch, lots of maneuvering over participation in the conference, with the conservative gay organization GOProud and the conservative Muslim group Muslims for America serving as the big flashpoints.
While most CPAC attendees (and some not attending, such as Sarah Palin) more or less defended inclusion of GOProud, its leader, Chris Barron, did himself no favors by calling critics “bigots.” There are reports the group won’t be invited back next year. Similarly, Muslims for America’s patron, anti-tax commissar Grover Norquist, made few friends by calling critics of CPAC’s agenda “losers,” and promptly earned an anathema from Red State’s Erick Erickson, who called on conservatives to come up with a better venue for coordination than Norquist’s famous Wednesday meetings.
The most visible sign of ideological problems at CPAC involved, predictably, the Ron Paul brand of libertarians, who noisily heckled the presentation of a “Defender of the Constitution” award by Dick Cheney to Donald Rumsfeld. (Paulites might justly claim this was too much provocation for any libertarian to resist, and CPAC organizers really screwed up by scheduling the award just after a speech by Rand Paul.)
But the social conservative complaint that fiscal hawks, libertarians, and/or political pragmatists were trying to subordinate their agenda probably exposed a more serious problem for the Right, and also a source of considerable confusion about the much-envied role of the Tea Party Movement. Certainly those, most conspicuously Indiana governor Mitch Daniels, who have argued for a temporary suspension of any talk about cultural issues, are being touted by many observers as representing the Tea Partiers’ alleged single-minded focus on deficits, debts, and limited government.
But no less prominent a figure as Rush Limbaugh has sought to identify the Tea Party Movement with social conservatives and indeed with anyone wanting an ideologically exclusive Republican Party:
Talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh, himself considered a conservative icon, blasted this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference for drowning out tea partiers and those concerned with social issues, lamenting, “That’s not the CPAC that I’ve always thought of or known.”
Saying he was concerned that “I might just drum myself out of a movement,” Limbaugh blamed the “ruling class” at CPAC for missing the message of the 2010 election, namely that there is “an unmistakable conservative ascendancy happening in this country,” evidenced most prominently in the tea-party movement….
Instead, Limbaugh said, CPAC seemed smitten with the idea of dumping traditionally conservative values in order to broaden the Republican Party’s tent.
“So you had a weird list of priorities and focus. I mean we had it all,” Limbaugh said. “We had GOProud, the gay conservatives. We had demands to legalize drugs, marijuana at CPAC. Most conservatives strongly oppose gay marriage and legalized pot.”
He continued, “The position of some people who spoke at CPAC: ‘Look, if you’re worried about immigration, stop it. We don’t want to be seen as racist. Stop talking about abortion, stop talking about the social issues, stop talking about all this. That’s only gonna hurt; we don’t need to deal with that in our party.’ This is what the ruling class guys were saying at CPAC.”
A conservative movement that can’t decide whether Mitch Daniels is the leader of the Tea Party Movement, or its deadliest “ruling class” enemy, has got some issues to sort out.
Ideological conflict aside, the role of CPAC as the first serious event in the Invisible Primary leading to the Republican presidential nomination was on full display this weekend, but produced no game-changing results.
The presidential straw poll held on the final day of the conference was easily won, for the second year in a row, by Ron Paul (whose collegiate admirers were out in force), an outcome that instantly devalued it as a indicator of future developments in the nominating process. Mitt Romney, whose PAC probably devoted more resources to the conference than anyone else’s, finished second, while every other name wound up in the low-to-mid single digits.
As for speechifying, there were some putative presidents who did better than others (though experts differed on “winners and losers”), but no real knockout punches or disasters. None of the longest shots (e.g., Herman Cain, John Bolton, Rick Santorum) did anything to vault themselves into serious contention.
Most candidates modestly met their most immediate needs. Tim Pawlenty showed he could give a fiery red-meat speech. Haley Barbour touted a right-wing record as governor of Mississippi (boasting of both Medicaid cuts and harassment of abortion providers), reminding listeners he’s a serious reactionary, not just a fundraiser. Mitt Romney stuck to tried-and-true conservative themes and showed once again he’s as smooth as Obama as a speaker. Mitch Daniels dealt with his “cultural issues truce” problem, and interestingly enough, did so by doubling down on his argument that fiscal issues, the “red menace” of our time, have to come first. Newt Gingrich showed he can still wow a live audience with his wonkery and one-liners.
It’s not really clear, however, that the no-shows (most notably Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee) lost anything by spending their weekend elsewhere.
We’ll soon see if the ideological fissures exposed by CPAC continue to widen or instead subside; the internal fights of the congressional GOP over legislative and budget priorities show all’s not well on that front.
Meanwhile, it’s finally fish-or-cut-bait time for GOP presidential candidates, or those who don’t already have near-universal name ID and some sort of history with Iowans. Newt Gingrich has said he’ll make up his mind whether to run by the end of February; John Thune seems to be on the same timetable. Haley Barbour and Mitch Daniels, both sitting governors, will wait until their current legislative sessions end in April. At present, you’d have to guess Gingrich and Barbour are in, while Thune and Daniels are out, though nobody knows for sure. And it’s anybody’s guess what Palin and Huckabee will do; the shape of the field will remain amorphous until those two figure out how they will spend their time in 2012.