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Not only did John McCain turn down an invitation to speak at CPAC, he tried to rent a room to court attendees away from the cameras:

Sponsors of the Conservative Political Action Conference, which begins today in Washington and brings together thousands of conservative leaders and grass-roots activists, say the Arizona Republican has "dissed" organizers by attempting to schedule a private reception for attendees after rejecting invitations to speak at the event.

"It was a classical McCain move, dissing us by going behind our backs," said William J. Lauderback, executive vice president of the American Conservative Union...

Conservative activists have speculated that Mr. McCain did not want to be seen on television "pandering" to Republican "right-wingers" but wanted to court those same activists at a reception in the same hotel.

"He turned down repeated CPAC offers to speak but then tried to get around us by having his office call the hotel to rent a room for a reception for CPAC attendees -- without first seeking approval of CPAC organizers," said Mr. Lauderback.

Incidentally, if you're at CPAC, be sure to stop by and say hi. TAS has a booth -- Jim Antle was there, last I saw -- and I'm on Blogger's Row.

topics:
John McCain, Television