Mitt Romney, the perpetually questioned front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, had a rough week. Three embarrassing losses to Rick Santorum in Tuesday’s non-binding contests led to questions about Romney’s conservative bona fides just in time for GOP activists, gathering at their annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, to collectively grumble about it. But in two narrow, largely symbolic victories on Saturday, Romney reclaimed the headlines. Never mind the details. He was winning again.
“Ultimately, I’m a lobbyist for freedom,” a man in a yarmulke tells a pretty girl in the basement of a cavernous Marriott in northwest Washington. The man could have been attempting to network or to flirt — a seminar on how to date conservatives had just wrapped up down the hall — but either way, [...]
An interesting weekend in Washington. Two conventions claiming 11,000 attendees each. One, the CPAC convention was heavily reported in the press–including by me, below; the other was the annual Teach For America alumni conference, where I moderated a panel after I’d spent three days listening to the Republican presidential candidates at CPAC. Both crowds were [...]
The press areas of CPAC are filled with idle cable news producers and correspondents. In normal times, they would be busy filing updates on the coming 2012 campaign. But the nation, and the cable news bookers, are distracted these days by Egypt, where people are cheering in the streets, fireworks are exploding, and the 30-year [...]
Just five years ago, the Conservative Political Action Conference still had a Doris Day feel, like a time warp to 1978, when everyone was still filled with nostalgia for 1961. Pat Boone was the musical act, and he played before a screen that showed flapping flags, rhyming the word “God” with the word “God.” It [...]
The heirs to Ronald Reagan’s conservative legacy gathered Thursday in a hotel ballroom to exchange variations on the dominant theme in today’s Republican politics: It is evening in America. “The Germans are buying the New York Stock Exchange,” announced former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. “The U.S. is becoming the laughing stock of the world,” exhorted [...]
Newt Gingrich talked policies, and the crowd seemed to like it. Rick Santorum announced that “America belongs to God,” and he was politely applauded. But it was Donald Trump, a real estate investor who became a reality show star, who finally got the crowd’s 2012 election juices going on the first day of the Conservative [...]
The Conservative Political Action Conference, a three-day carnival of Republican ladder-climbers and red meat throwers, convenes Thursday in Washington . The nearly 40-year-old tradition is expected to attract 10,000 activists and set the tone for a party navigating new highs and old divides on its way to a presidential nomination fight. David Keene, chairman of [...]
