by Bruce Majors
CPAC2023 was noticeably smaller than CPAC has been in previous years, with a half-empty ballroom at the Gaylord National Resort on the shores of the Potomac in Oxon Hill, Maryland. It’s CPACtrophy.
Although you could see the Masonic Temple in Old Town, Alexandria from the Gaylord, there were few Virginia politicians. Former Congressman Dave Bratt and Lt. Governor Winsome Sears made appearances. Like Florida Governor DeSantis, Governor Youngkin was not a speaker. (Lots of Virginians crossed the bridge to attend and vote in the CPAC straw poll however.) Richmond radio talk show host John Reid was spotted at an ancillary event on Capitol Hill where Trump’s Ambassador to Germany, Ric Grenell, spoke before appearing at CPAC on a panel with Democrat Jennifer Palmieri of Showtime’s The Circus.
In 2010, one of the last years CPAC was held in Washington, D.C., at the Woodley Park Marriott, 2,300 registrants voted in the CPAC presidential straw poll. CPAC’s registration kept growing, its stated reason for moving out to the Gaylord, where 3,000 registrants voted in the straw poll in 2015. After spending a few COVID lockdown years in Florida, CPAC is back at the Gaylord on the Potomac waterfront this year.
This year only 2,028 people took the straw poll. This is only a proxy for registration, as some people may not have voted. But it is only two-thirds the number who voted in 2015.
There are fewer workshops and panels outside the main hall, and the main Potomac Ballroom is noticeably half empty.
A reporter acquaintance asked me about the low attendance and whether I thought it was due to the “Schlapp scandal.” I did not see this, but according to a Washington Times article, CPAC chairman Matt Schlapp was chased through the halls Thursday morning by reporters asking him about a $9 million lawsuit against him for a sexual assault.
I don’t think this is why CPAC is smaller, but CPAC does seem to have a case of paranoia. Media this year seem carefully curated. I was, without being informed about it, for the first time denied a media credential — I usually just apply as a freelancer. As usual (I’ve been going to CPAC since 2007), I’d also bought a regular ticket, and at one point security searched me out and detained me in the exhibit hall, went through my possessions, and physically took off my lanyard and conference badge, because being denied a media credential this year put me on a “banned” list, ineligible to even purchase admission.
Security marched me back to registration, where I had to ask a registration desk troubleshooter to call her supervisor, who called the CPAC general counsel, until apologies were made, my badge was returned — and best of all my ticket price was refunded. I went for free. (I’ve since learned that other writers — like Mike LaChance from Legal Insurrection — who write for smaller center-right publications were denied media credentials. But I now wonder if this “new media department” denied media credentials to any applicants they did not know well, especially those who write for smaller publications. If so, apparently it didn’t help, and Mr. Schlapp was still chased around the Gaylord Hotel.)
CPAC is something of a mom and pop company — a mom and pop multinational, since there are now CPAC annual conferences in a growing list of countries including Brazil, Hungary, and Japan — put on by husband and wife team Matt and Mercedes Schlapp. Mr. Schlapp, who has several children, is being sued by a man who was a Herschel Walker campaign staffer assigned to drive Schlapp when he spoke at last year’s Walker campaign events. The anonymous accuser says an inebriated Schlapp aggressively groped him. The accuser also said that he would reveal his identity if Schlapp denied the charges. Schlapp has denied the charges and the accuser has not given up his anonymity, leading many to think the charges are spurious and the accuser is simply seeking an out-of-court settlement. Matt Schlapp did not appear on stage much this year; Mercedes introduced speakers several times a day.
I don’t think this is why CPAC is smaller. Most people who are here are Trump loyalists, and I imagine they discount stories about Schlapp groping a man as they would stories about Trump grabbing a woman, as mainstream media lies.
What CPAC is mainly missing this year are the throngs of college students who used to register so they could vote in the straw poll for Ron Paul (who won the 2010 poll) and for Rand Paul (who won the 2015 poll), helped out by generous subsidies for their tickets and hotel rooms by Ron Paul groups like Young Americans for Liberty and the Campaign for Liberty. Half (47%) of the straw poll voters in 2015 were between the ages of 18 and 25.
There are no Ron Paul- or Rand Paul-related booths in the exhibit, and no related speakers. There are no libertarian booths of any stripe, from the Ayn Rand Institute to Reason magazine, who have often been here in the past.
One irony of CPAC this year is the “early voting” on the straw poll. Trump volunteers were out encouraging people to vote (all online, using the ID number or QR code on their badge) well before Nikki Haley or Vivek Ramaswamy spoke. (Leaving the hall after Ramaswamy’s speech, an older gentleman told me he liked what Ramaswamy had said, but had never heard of him before. Daily Wire commentator Michael Knowles joked that he was the only speaker at CPAC not running for President, because he is not yet old enough.) Matt Schlapp reappeared in the penultimate segment before Donald Trump’s speech, to announce the results of the straw poll. CPACers ranked their Vice Presidential choices as: Kari Lake (20%), Ron DeSantis (17%), Nikki Haley (10%). For President: Trump at 62% (4 points higher than he won in the last year’s straw poll), with DeSantis a distant second.
Another irony is that even though the libertarians are not here, their policies have triumphed. Many speakers opposed continuing involvement in the war in Ukraine and want Europeans to pay for NATO on their own. In the straw poll, 79% of CPAC registrants opposed American involvement in Ukraine. Trump appointee, Kissinger staffer, and CPAC board member K.T. McFarland and others emphasized that deregulating American energy production would lower the price of fossil fuels and impoverish Russia, reducing its ability to fund wars, and making U.S. military interventions almost unnecessary.
Federalist editor Mollie Hemingway and many other speakers decried government censorship and surveillance and cooperation between the federal government and corporations to control Americans’ lives.
Vivek Ramaswamy announced that his first action as President would be to abolish the Department of Education and his second act would be to abolish the FBI. A few people, including Ramaswamy, criticized free trade policies, but not globally or to protect American jobs, instead singling out not allowing trade and investment that enriches hostile totalitarian countries like China. The only aspects of the war on drugs discussed were China exporting lethal formulations of fentanyl to the U.S. or criminal cartels controlling the southern border.
Seventy-four percent of CPACers in the straw poll preferred that states make laws regarding abortion, and did not prefer a federal ban.
Apparently, we are all libertarians — or at least libertarian leaning conservatives — now.
