Mar.30

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CPAC Was Different This Year

For the first time since 2016, Donald Trump skipped the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), which was held just outside Dallas this year. Maybe he is tired of so much winning, maybe Iran is a distraction, but this one felt different than the previous ones. Some speakers and attendees had more freedom than they have had in the past. Conservatives are always talking about freedom, but in this case the freedom meant not having to toe the party line on everything, especially the war in Iran. Steve Bannon asked the audience to imagine sending their children and grandchildren into combat in a part of the world that looks like the surface of the moon. (Actually, it didn't look like that until the bombing started a month ago).

Bannon wasn't the only one. Podcaster Jack Posobiec said that his listeners under 45 are telling him that they oppose the war in Iran while those over 45 support it. He was hopeful there was still time to win back young voters before the midterms. Former AG nominee Matt Gaetz warned Trump about sending ground troops into Iran. He said: "But a ground invasion of Iran will make our country poorer and less safe. It will mean higher gas prices, higher food prices, and I'm not sure we'd end up killing more terrorists than we would create." This aligns Gaetz with Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, and Joe Rogan, who also oppose the war.

There were also plenty of supporters of the war there. One of them was the exiled "Baby Shah" (Reza Pahlavi), who would love for the Iranian regime to be overthrown and himself installed as the new shah. He defended Trump and praised him for going to war in Iran.

Another fissure within CPAC was over Israel, with younger attendees less supportive of it than older ones. Posobiec said that the dividing line here, too, was 45, with people older than that largely supportive of Israel. However, among evangelicals, support for Israel is still strong. The opening speaker, Rev. Franklin Graham, son of the famous Billy Graham, compared Trump to the Biblical Queen Esther. It's our guess he didn't run that by the White House before saying it. Trump might just have preferred a comparison to, say, King David, rather than Queen Esther. Of course, Esther lived in Iran (then called Persia) and David didn't.

The war aside, there were also signs of opposition to Trump that hadn't been there in previous years. Right-wing commentator Brandon Straka said "A directive has gone out that Marjorie Taylor Greene is a traitor. And if you want to be part of the in crowd, you must hate her, too." Straka doesn't hate her and doesn't think other people should hate her, either. It is a small thing, but in previous years, no speaker would have said that.

Since CPAC was in Texas this year, Texas AG Ken Paxton (R) saw this as a prime campaign opportunity and showed up, moving easily among the largely adoring crowd. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) did not show up and was booed every time his name was mentioned. Among far-right conservative activists—the kind of people who show up at CPAC—Paxton is their man.

CPAC always holds a straw poll about the next presidential election. Not surprisingly, this year's winner, with 53% of the votes, was J.D. Vance. Marco Rubio was second at 35%. Does this mean Vance is a shoo-in for the GOP nomination? Well, not exactly. Here are the straw poll winners since 1976. In years when there was a Republican president who was eligible for another term, the straw poll was not held:

As you can see, CPAC got it right 10 times and wrong 19 times, so the right-wing attendees are batting .345. That's pretty good in baseball, but getting it wrong two-thirds of the time is less good in politics. (V)