CPAC

I guess it should come as no surprise that the establishment conservatives are dismissing Ron Paul's victory in the CPAC straw poll as meaningless. 

While Paul sees his victory as "significant," others do not: 

Jason Mattera, spokesman for the Young America's Foundation (YAF), was a speaker at the event where more than half of the attendees who voted were between the ages of 18-25.

"Ron Paul, his supporters almost have a cult-like allegiance to him," Mattera comments. "They are a vocal minority. It was, I believe, less than 3,000 people who voted in the straw poll, even though there [were] 10,000 people at CPAC. It means nothing in terms of a favored candidate."

According to the YAF spokesman, the big draw at CPAC is not the politicians and their "canned speeches," but rather the "culture warriors" like Andrew Breitbart, Ann Coulter, and Glenn Beck, who "really inspire the crowd to take action." Mattera says he wishes Ron Paul would retire because he "has some very wacky, wacky ideas."

Keep in mind that Mattera is the one who spent his speech at CPAC accusing President Obama of using cocaine and called him "scrawny street agitator" and "jack-ass."

But it's not just Mattera dismissing Paul's win ... Gary Bauer is as well, arguing that Paul's supporters are Truthers and that Paul's views encourage that sort of "dangerous and deranged mindset":

[T]hen came surprising news that Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) won CPAC’s 2012 straw poll, which according to one report elicited “a cascade of boos” from the audience.

Let me add some perspective to this. First, not every attendee voted. The number of total votes cast was around 2,500, and Paul won 31% or roughly 775 votes out of the eight to ten thousand people there.

Second, it’s difficult to consider Ron Paul within the mainstream of American conservatism. While his views on limited government have some appeal, his voting record on values issues is abysmal. Paul opposed the marriage protection amendment, has voted against key pro-life legislation and critical national security issues, such as military tribunals for terrorists.

The producer of the Bauer and Rose radio show was at the CPAC convention all weekend, and he gave me this disturbing report: The Paul supporters were overwhelmingly young. That’s great. But Paul supporters of all ages were often “9/11 truthers.” That’s very bad. Many were openly spouting conspiracy theories that were favorites among leftists during the Bush years, accusing our own government of attacking us on 9/11.

Paul’s rhetoric and his many appearances on alternative radio shows often encourages this dangerous and deranged mindset. It is way beyond time for Ron Paul to publicly denounce the 9/11 truther movement and reject the support of those who adhere to such nonsense.

Paul was interviewed on CNBC this morning and said, “Why should we be looking for a war with the Iranians? What have they done to us? What are they capable of doing to us?” Let me remind Rep. Paul that Iran is the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. We know Iran is responsible for the deaths of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Its leaders routinely refer to the United States as “the great Satan.”

When the CNBC hosts said that the regime was pursuing nuclear weapons, Paul denied it three times, adding “Nobody’s proven that.” Somehow convinced that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s apocalyptic views will lend themselves to rational dialogue, Paul repeatedly insisted that we should follow Obama’s policy of reaching out diplomatically to our enemies, including the Iranians. This degree of delusional thinking is on par with that of European leaders who thought they could negotiate in good faith with Adolf Hitler.

I cannot fathom how any Ronald Reagan conservative could share these views, but I’d be happy to hear from those who think Paul is right.

If it's "difficult to consider Ron Paul within the mainstream of American conservatism," then how did Paul just win CPAC's straw poll, which Bauer himself describes as the quintessential gathering of mainstream American conservatism? 

"It's a free country and a free conservative movement," Mr. Bauer, a Christian conservative leader and former White House domestic policy adviser, told The Washington Times. "The people at CPAC represent the three legs of the conservative coalition - traditional values, economic- libertarian and strong national defense."

It seems that even Gary Bauer doesn't seem to know what to make of the fact that the conservative movement appears as if it is being taken over by right-wing fringe activists. 

While watching CPAC last week, I was wondering to myself why Mike Huckabee wasn't participating?  Did organizers decide to snub him by not inviting him or did he snub the convention by refusing to attend? After all, Huckabee had been given a speaking slot in the main auditorium each of the last three years.

But this year Huckabee skipped the event and blasted it as pointless, corrupt, and too libertarian:

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee blasted the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Saturday as outdated, nearly corrupt and unrepresentative of the conservative movement.

Huckabee, a 2008 Republican presidential contender and potential 2012 candidate who had spoken at the conference for years, said the reason he blew it off this year was that the meeting has become dominated by libertarian activists.

“CPAC has becoming increasingly more libertarian and less Republican over the last years, one of the reasons I didn’t go this year,” Huckabee said in an interview with Fox News, where he is a paid analyst and has his own show.

He was responding to a question about whether he was upset by his single-digit showing in the conference’s straw poll, which was won by libertarian-leaning Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas).

But it wasn’t the only criticism the Arkansan leveled at CPAC.

Huckabee said the rise of the tea party movement had “taken all of the oxygen out of the room,” rendering the venerable conference far less relevant than it had been in previous years.

“Where CPAC was historically the event, the tea parties are having their own events all over the country and a lot more truly grassroots people are getting involved because of the tea parties,” said the former governor.

And, goaded by Fox Host Geraldo Rivera, Huckabee went even further.

“Because of the way that it solicits sponsors, it’s almost becomes a pay-for-play,” he said. “It’s kind of like, who will pay money to be able to be a sponsor and get time in the program. That’s one of the things that has hurt its credibility in the last couple of years.”

I have to say that I agree with Huckabee's assessment that something has happen to CPAC when Ron Paul is winning its straw poll. 

For the last three years, the poll has been won by Mitt Romeny with Paul hovering around 10% ... and this year Paul beat Romney by almost ten points.  In recent years, Paul has largely been treated as a sideshow by the conservative establishment which viewed him as far outside the mainstream of the movement but tolerated him because he had a relatively small but extremely dedicated base of support that somewhat overlapped with the movement in general.

The fact that Paul could pull in 10% of the vote at CPAC in previous years was generally a source of embarrassment to organizers. This year, Paul won (and organizers were utterly mortified.)

If that doesn't signal that the conservative movement has completely lost it bearings, I don't know what does.

Earlier this year when it was announced that the conservative gay group GOProud would be serving as a co-sponsor of this year's CPAC conference, some Religious Right groups threatened to boycott though, in the end, only Liberty University Law School actually followed through.

Now that the event is underway, CNN is reporting everyone is playing nice:

GOProud has a booth at CPAC just two spaces away from the exhibition for the National Organization for Marriage, which wants the government to define marriage as between a man and a woman.

...

Chris Plante, who is running the booth for the National Organization for Marriage, said being two booths away from GOProud wasn't an issue.

As cameras rolled, he introduced himself to Barron.

"I hope we'll have more time to talk over the next four days. Maybe we can have a beer later," Plante said.

"We can have a beer summit later. It worked for Obama," Barron joked.

A meeting, yes. But don't expect a meeting of the minds.

"Gays and lesbians have the right to live as they choose, but they don't have the right to redefine marriage for the rest of us," Plante said.

But off camera, things look a little different, as NOM felt it necessary to send out a far less friendly statement to reporters on GOProud's participation in CPAC:

Many reporters, including Politico, have asked us how we feel about the fact GOProud is just a few booths over from us. We welcome everyone's right to participate in the democratic process, but we have a message for GOProud on marriage: If you try to elect pro-gay-marriage Republicans, we will Dede Scozzafava them. The majority of Americans, and the vast majority of Republicans, support marriage as the union of husband and wife, and NOM is here to make sure these voters and their voices are heard loud and clear.

Time's Jay Newton-Small also reports that GOPround had a run-in with representative of American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property which, just the other day, released a report defending Don't Ask, Don't Tell on the grounds that homosexuality is fundamentally evil and allowing gays to serve openly would destroy the military's honor.  Needless to say, TFP was not every welcoming of GOProud: 

These days, the group is particularly concerned with gays in the military. Beyond opposing the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell, the organization of lay Catholics would like to see all homosexuals banned from the military, according to a white and green pamphlet they were handing out. The case against gays in the military is laid out in a book, displayed prominently, called An American Knight: The Life of Colonel John W. Ripley, USMC, yours for just $14.95.

While I was flipping through the autobiography, a woman approached the booth. Catherine Sumner, it turned out, was part of GOProud, a group of openly gay Republicans and conservatives that for the first time is taking part in CPAC. “Is this your flyer?” Sumner demanded, waving the white and green pamphlet. Thus launched a debate about gays in the military that pretty much ended when the booth attendee told her that homosexuality is a sin and she's going to hell.

“It's insulting,” Sumner, 31, who edits a military magazine, said turning away. “Across the board the reaction to GOProud's presence here has been positive, but then you have guys like this. Even Dick Cheney came out and says he supports us. Conservatives have to be more inclusive, they have to be.” In fact, just one group, Liberty University, boycotted CPAC over the inclusion of GOProud, though the Catholic crowd weren't the only ones unnerved by their presence: one booth down from GOProud's set up in the fourth row, those manning the National Organization for Marriage, which works to ban gay marriage, kept casting nervous – and slightly envious – glances at the somewhat larger crowd surrounding GOProud's booth.

Considering that a who's who of right-wing leaders, including David Keene of the CPAC-founding American Conservative Union, joined TFP for a press conference yesterday supporting DADT at CPAC itself, its hard to imagine that GOProud or its supporters could have felt particularly welcome at the event:

UPDATE: Via Sarah Posner we see that GOProud's Jimmy LaSalvia is not at all impressed with NOM's tactics: 

UPDATE II: This video from Media Matters is absolutely remarkable: 

Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty tells the CPAC audience that conservative "can learn a lot" from the Tiger Woods saga, saying they "should take a page out of [Tiger's wife's] playbook and take a 9 iron and smash the window out of big government in this country":