Well, its time again for the annual Wingnut Woodstock, the Conservative Political Action Conference, aka CPAC. (For past coverage see here; here;and here.) This year’s even will be held in National Harbor, Maryland. (Hopefully, without the bed bugs that plagued the 2011 convention in Washington, D.C.).
Featured speakers include all the present GOP presidential wannabes, including gentle Dr. Ben Carson, who is expected to announce his withdrawal from the campaign during his scheduled Friday address. Also too, the already forgotten, other failed candidates: Rick Santorum, Scott Walker, and Carly Fiorina.
But all eyes will be on Donald Drumpf Saturday; that is, if the Dump Trump movement being spearheaded by the slow-to-the-party GOP establishment and their affiliated super PACs have their way. Politico reports:
Even by the standards of CPAC, which over the decades has been in the middle of more than its share of contentious fights about the future of the conservative movement, the one brewing around this year’s gathering is shaping up as historic ― and historically nasty.
Organizers are trying to strike a tricky balance between their self-described role as neutral referees, and a leeriness about being seen as rewarding the increasingly incendiary campaign of the billionaire real estate showman threatening to shatter the Republican Party for years to come…
The anti-Trump super PAC Make America Awesome this week launched a petition calling on the ACU to rescind its invitation to Trump. If plans for Trump’s speech proceed, the group is planning some form of protest at the convention center hosting CPAC in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, according to Liz Mair, the GOP strategist behind the PAC.
Allowing Trump to speak “will do lasting and huge (yuge!) damage to the reputations of CPAC, ACU, individual ACU board members, the conservative movement, and indeed the GOP and America,” Mair wrote in an email.
With the GOP establishment in full panic mode at the growing likelihood of a Trump candidacy, they trotted out its standard bearer from the last presidential election, Willard Mitt Romney, to make a last minute desperate plea to voters and donors to stop Trump at any cost. Describing the parade of horribles that would ensue should Trump triumph, he went so far as to encourage voters to choose the candidate that has the best chance of depriving Trump of delegates in each, individual state election, whether they support that candidate or not!
Which smells like a covert effort to create a brokered convention. If Trump doesn’t come with the 1237 delegates he needs to win on the first ballot, that would effectively free up some 2/3 of the delegates already pledged to him so that they could vote for another candidate. (Different states have different rules for releasing same.)
Which smells like a covert effort by Willard to put himself back on the ticket. The Mittster opened his speech with some transparent sleight-of-hand, saying he wasn’t there to announce support for any particular candidate, including himself. He didn’t have to; first things first. By laying out a strategy for a contested convention, he opens the door to his own nomination.
Nice try, but I don’t think even what passes for the GOP electorate these days is that stupid.
All to which we say: Go Donald, go!
Donald Drumpf packing them in at the 2013 CPAC extravangza
