CPAC, Club for Growth Battle for the Future of Conservatism

After attending competing events for the Conservative Political Action Committee and Club for Growth, conservatives are heading back to work. Which vision for the movement prevails will determine if the GOP wins with ideas or loses by leaning on cults of personality.Political organizations often lose their mojo over time. When they do, in the words of John McCrae’s poem “In Flanders Fields,” it falls to a new generation to “Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw. The torch be yours to hold it high.”CPAC was once a place where conservatives gathered to plan for confronting the left. This year, CPAC tilted toward one man, President Trump, and chose for its keynote speaker the losing Republican candidate for Arizona governor, Kari Lake, who — like the former president — fought against accepting her defeat regardless of the damage to conservatism.A reliance on personalities isn’t sustainable. Consider that in the wake of sexual harassment allegations against CPAC’s founder, Matthew Schlapp, Fox News didn’t cover CPAC or act as a sponsor, as it did for $250,000 last year, and withheld its on-air talent.Republican candidates stayed away, too, made to feel unwelcome by Mr. Trump’s faction. The CPAC slate showcased instead those who my late boss, Rush Limbaugh, described as “the type of conservative who wants a Fox News gig and a book deal, and that’s cool. If the young conservative gets that, then it’s a success.”The Club for Growth event reflected a broader cross section, with more potential 2024 Republican presidential nominees than CPAC. These included Vice President Pence; Governors Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, and Chris Sununu; as well as Senators Cruz and the two Scotts.Much has changed since February of 2009 when — just a month after President Obama swept Republicans from the White House and added to Democratic majorities in Congress — Rush addressed CPAC. He never prepared speeches, but that year, he had a special mission in mind.Rush’s plan was to push conservatives back to their roots and present a bright vision, not the darkness promoted by personalities who put individual success hawking products before the nation’s. “Let me tell you who we conservatives are,” he said in what was billed as his First Televised Address to the Nation, “We love people.”The applause was deafening. “When we look out over the United States of America,” Rush said, “we see Americans. We see human beings. We don’t see groups. We don’t see victims. We don’t see people we want to exploit. What we see is potential.”Rush never saw himself as a powerbroker, but in the leadup to the speech, I took the rare step of presuming to offer him advice. Someone had to do what William F. Buckley did a generation before by purging the extremist John Birch Society from conservative ranks and dragging hatred out of the shadows through his book, “In Search of Anti-Semitism.”I wrote Rush that he alone had the gravitas to keep conservatism inclusive, to fix its eye on delivering ideas that they felt best for America, and not let it devolve into a vehicle for individuals to raise their profiles, boost their Amazon sales ranks, or add Twitter followers.Insulted as “the Club for No Growth” by Mr. Trump after it opposed his primary picks last year, the Club’s event raised the proverbial big tent, uniting conservatives on popular tenets like school choice. Putting their money where their mouth is, they gave $21.5 million to midterm candidates, more than the $20.3 million Mr. Trump spent out of his $92 million war chest.Conservatism, by definition, is about conserving what made America, as President Lincoln described it, “the last best hope of earth.” The way to do that is by meeting opponents in the arena of ideas, placing policies before the public with love, and earning their support.CPAC was long the place for that to happen. As the torch falls from its faltering hands, the Club for Growth and others are picking it up, holding it high to ensure that proven policies for American prosperity and security stand in the vanguard, knowing that enduring movements are built on ideas, not personalities.

CPAC, Club for Growth Battle for the Future of Conservatism

CPAC, Club for Growth Battle for the Future of Conservatism

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