CPAC allegedly drew a fraction of the attendance at past conferences this weekend.
Fox News did not station a crew as in years past. The Heritage Foundation did not buy a display booth. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence, and other leading conservatives did not speak.
And some guy named Perry Johnson did.
“I can remember when you used to have Ron Paul and Rand Paul-like libertarians debating foreign policy with Donald Rumsfeld on the stage of CPAC,” Dennis Lennox, a Republican strategist from Michigan, told the Washington Examiner. “Those sort of debates would be unthinkable today because CPAC is pay-to-play. It’s a grift.”
Donald Trump won the CPAC straw poll over Ron DeSantis 62 percent to 20 percent.
Kari Lake, whose antics fired up conservatives in Arizona but alienated other voters to such an extent that she lost her gubernatorial race to a truly horrible candidate, topped the list for vice presidential candidates.
So, CPAC attendees want two candidates who both lost their last elections and never won a majority in any election to run against Joe Biden?
“In 2016, I declared: I am your voice,” Trump told the CPAC audience. “Today, I add: I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed: I am your retribution.”
It all sounds very cathartic. Is politics group therapy or a means to elect candidates and pursue wise public policy?
Smart Republicans want not catharsis but to elect a president.
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