Thousands of conservative activists converged Thursday on Washington for CPAC. But aside from a packed hotel ballroom and a few memorable applause lines, the throngs were noticeably subdued as the yearly conservative confab kicked off.
That may change Friday, when Republican hopefuls Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich are scheduled to speak. But for a crowd of self-identified conservative activists that numbered about 10,000, there was no palpable sense of excitement and few outward signs of support for most of the presidential contenders.
“It’s been tough. A lot of people are still undecided, and they keep saying they need more information. There’s not a lot of excitement here yet,” said Joseph Lipp, who was handing out stickers for Santorum.
In a primary season that has thumbed its nose at many of the typically predictive events on the campaign calendar — Michele Bachmann won the Ames Straw Poll but finished sixth in Iowa — campaigns may have made a conscious decision not to invest heavily in CPAC.
Last year, Ron Paul’s Students for Liberty group encouraged members to attend and vote in the conference’s straw poll. In prior years, the Romney campaign invested considerable effort in CPAC and was rewarded with three straight straw poll wins from 2007 to 2009.
This year, however, there were no visible efforts by any of the leading Republican campaigns to book blocs of tickets for supporters.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), widely considered to be a contender for the vice presidential nomination, drew loud applause when he spoke of “the American example” and the need to spread American values globally.
“What happens if we diminish? What happens if we retreat? … That space will be filled by someone else [and] the only nations capable of filling that void are totalitarian nations like Russia and China. … the greatest thing we can do for the world is be America,” said Rubio, to thunderous applause.
Spreading American values abroad was a theme several speakers hit on throughout the day — a marked change from recent years, when traditionally isolationist Paul supporters dominated the conference. The Texas Republican has won the CPAC straw poll for the past two years.
But there were flashes of enthusiasm as the conference progressed, as prominent conservative speakers and lawmakers addressed the crowd.
Most speakers took a few crowd-pleasing shots at the Obama administration and the left more generally.
“Someone asked me, ‘How do you know the majority of Americans are conservative?’ Here’s how I know: How come liberals never admit that they are liberals? They never admit it. They’ve now come up with a new word called ‘progressive’ — which I thought was an insurance company,” quipped Rubio.
The crowd appeared to unify when speakers brought up the Obama administration’s decision to require employers to provide contraception coverage in their employee health care plans.
“People are coming here angrier than I’ve seen in a long time,” CPAC organizer Al Cardenas said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” earlier in the day.
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