The biggest political news in the last week was apparently not the threat of a shut-down at the Department of Human Services (DHS), which was serious enough. However, the television talk news centered around a meeting taking place in National Harbor, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C. The meeting called CPAC 2015 was a show, maybe a sideshow to some, for potential Republican Presidential hopefuls to get some free publicity. It was officially the Conservative Political Action Conference with a lot of Tea Party undertones.
The conference publicity points out the lengths our political parties go to in stressing the importance "the process" makes in the final selection of a candidate. In the final analysis, the moneyed contributors determine the party's candidate, but we don't really want to acknowledge that fact. This three-day event (Feb. 25-28) not only prompted a lot of television coverage, but was followed by apparent large numbers on social media devices and there were numerous internet websites devoted to it.
There were some interesting details that prompted my attention along with the potential candidates and well-known personalities who were invited guests. The official (I guess that is correct because it listed the sponsors) website gave an extensive list of "sponsors" of varying support levels. Their first level sponsors were called "Presenting Sponsors." There were five listed at this level. Of the five, I recognized two -- the National Rifle Association (NRA) and The Washington Times -- The Times is a Washington, D.C., general interest daily newspaper. At their website one can find a fairly complete daily newspaper leaning very conservative. The other three sponsors' sites produced a minimum of information when I tried to get a brief rundown on DuckDuckGo.com. Breithart, one of the other three, is a conservative news service I had never heard of, Leadership Institute is a 501 non-profit organization in Arlington, Va., that "teaches political technology" and the final presenting sponsor listed was One America and I found nothing meaningful about it. The major tie is their conservative affiliation apparently. Other than the National Rifle Association, I do not know how they handle their fund raising. How much each supporter paid to have their name on the list was not mentioned, but it was substantial I'm sure. They were all identified only by their company logo.
On Sunday morning, The Washington Times website had a whole series of articles written during the conference. They may have been removed by the time this is published, but it is obvious they glean plenty of newspaper information to help justify their "presenting sponsor" status.
There were also seven "associate sponsors" listed, most notably "Trump." It was not specified if it was "The Donald," the casino, or Trump Inc., just "Trump." Donald Trump did appear at the conference. At the third level 16 "supporting sponsors" were listed and some appeared to be primarily PACs supporting another PAC. The final level of sponsors listed 24 "contributing sponsors" who were also listed, again, by their logo or name. No attempt was made to determine their affiliation with CPAC although several of them were recognizable as Republican support groups. An interesting name in this group was "The Graduate School of Political Management" of George Washington University. This was obviously a very expensive conference designed to bring together a large group of conservative Republicans to promote something beyond the average man-on-the street's level of political input. The word "conservative" was key to understanding their purpose.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ken.) and House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) did not attend the conference, although it apparently is only 10 miles from our nation's capitol. Seventeen potential candidates for the Republican nomination, however, did find their way. I did not find a listing giving the total number of attendees, but the final activity is apparently a straw poll to determine the "people's choice." The straw poll listed 3,007 votes cast, so there were at least that many in attendance. The top vote getter was not a surprise -- Rand Paul "won" for the third year in a row with 25.7 percent of the votes. That is hardly surprising and does not prove much except about a quarter of a select group of Republicans with the money and interest to travel to the convention feel he is more conservative than other Republican candidates. Of interest to me was the response of voters to others such as Scott Walker (R-Gov., Wisc.) at 21.4 percent, Ted Cruz (R-Sen.Texas) with 11.5 percent and one of the most soft-spoken but thought provoking potential candidates, Ben Carson, a retired neurosurgeon who received 11.4 percent of the total almost equalling Ted Cruz.
I didn't start my pursuit of the subject with a specific thing in mind, however, I did learn a few things that might be of interest to some readers. There was a group called Log Cabin Republicans listed as a gay conservative organization that was new to me. I learned that others beside myself apparently feel a potential third Bush in the White House is too much. It was reported that some members of the audience were threatening to walk out when Jeb Bush spoke.
To sum it all up, events of this kind best illustrate how much money is spent and how much effort is expended to try to get us involved in a process that, as average lower middle class Americans, we have little or no effect on the actual outcome. Our opinions are lost in the shuffle of paper as the wealthy power brokers write their six-figure checks.
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Editor's note: Leo Lynch is an award-winning columnist. He is a native of Benton County has deep roots in northwest Arkansas. He is a retired industrial engineer and former Justice of the Peace. He can be contacted at [email protected].
Editorial on 03/03/2015