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| CPAC and the perils of becoming a Republican institution | CPAC and the perils of becoming a Republican institution |
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| It's easy to find Republicans who are disgruntled with the year's Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). The complaints extend to the event's new location. For years, the attendees held court at the Omni Shoreham Hotel, smack in the middle of north-west Washington. This year, it will be held at the Gaylord (no giggling) Resort in the dubiously monikered National Harbor, a conventioneer's wasteland about 10 miles by car and several DC Metro transfers from downtown Washington. | It's easy to find Republicans who are disgruntled with the year's Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). The complaints extend to the event's new location. For years, the attendees held court at the Omni Shoreham Hotel, smack in the middle of north-west Washington. This year, it will be held at the Gaylord (no giggling) Resort in the dubiously monikered National Harbor, a conventioneer's wasteland about 10 miles by car and several DC Metro transfers from downtown Washington. |
| Let's not try to get to metaphorical about this, distance-from-the-centers-of-power and all – the move is show of power. The resort is owned by GOP billionaire donor Robert Rowling; it hosted the 2011 Republican National Committee as well. Rowling owns the Omni brand but the Gaylord Hotel is new, relatively unknown, and struggling. Nothing that 10,000 CPAC attendees can't fix. | Let's not try to get to metaphorical about this, distance-from-the-centers-of-power and all – the move is show of power. The resort is owned by GOP billionaire donor Robert Rowling; it hosted the 2011 Republican National Committee as well. Rowling owns the Omni brand but the Gaylord Hotel is new, relatively unknown, and struggling. Nothing that 10,000 CPAC attendees can't fix. |
| It's who won't be making the trek to Maryland that has made CPAC headlines so far. Al Cardenas, chairman of CPAC co-sponsor the American Conservative Union, flaunted the decision to snub Chris Christie – deemed to have a "limited future" in the GOP – but put Jeb Bush in a prime slot, despite Bush's own serial apostasies of the past few years. (Bush even once took St Ronald's name in vain, saying Reagan "would have a hard time" in the party.) CPAC's equally flamboyant dismissal of conservative gay rights group GOProud shook the ranks among the young conservatives that CPAC is traditionally for. | It's who won't be making the trek to Maryland that has made CPAC headlines so far. Al Cardenas, chairman of CPAC co-sponsor the American Conservative Union, flaunted the decision to snub Chris Christie – deemed to have a "limited future" in the GOP – but put Jeb Bush in a prime slot, despite Bush's own serial apostasies of the past few years. (Bush even once took St Ronald's name in vain, saying Reagan "would have a hard time" in the party.) CPAC's equally flamboyant dismissal of conservative gay rights group GOProud shook the ranks among the young conservatives that CPAC is traditionally for. |
| These slightly baffling choices – not to mention the inclusion of Donald Trump – make a lot more sense in light of the biographies of CPAC's organizers. For instance, Cardenas is a long-time friend of Bush, a sometime client for Cardenas' political consultancy. The exclusion of GOProud came after agitation by CPAC board member Cleta Mitchell. Mitchell is a lobbyist for the National Organization for Marriage, though she herself has divorced: it is painful but relevant that Mitchell's ex-husband went on to become an Aids organizer; he later died from the disease, his obituary noting that he was survived by "his companion, Gary Leuschner". | These slightly baffling choices – not to mention the inclusion of Donald Trump – make a lot more sense in light of the biographies of CPAC's organizers. For instance, Cardenas is a long-time friend of Bush, a sometime client for Cardenas' political consultancy. The exclusion of GOProud came after agitation by CPAC board member Cleta Mitchell. Mitchell is a lobbyist for the National Organization for Marriage, though she herself has divorced: it is painful but relevant that Mitchell's ex-husband went on to become an Aids organizer; he later died from the disease, his obituary noting that he was survived by "his companion, Gary Leuschner". |
| The personal connections woven into these controversial choices are important, but only signs of what's going wrong with CPAC. It's not that CPAC is a haven for kooks and Neanderthals, so rigidly ideological they can brook no dissent; it's that CPAC is no longer a haven for the party's more eccentric voices, including the wackadoodle rightwingers. It may look like CPAC is crushing dissent from a party line, but in reality, it is just becoming a more exclusive party. | The personal connections woven into these controversial choices are important, but only signs of what's going wrong with CPAC. It's not that CPAC is a haven for kooks and Neanderthals, so rigidly ideological they can brook no dissent; it's that CPAC is no longer a haven for the party's more eccentric voices, including the wackadoodle rightwingers. It may look like CPAC is crushing dissent from a party line, but in reality, it is just becoming a more exclusive party. |
| What is CPAC? | What is CPAC? |
| CPAC evolved from a series of political conferences in Washington during the 1960s, convened by the Young Americans for Freedom, the American Conservative Union and a handful of other conservative groups under the guidance of William Buckley. Buckley did not have a direct hand in CPAC; it evolved out of his anticipation for the fallout and crises that the fledgling "new right" movement would inevitably face if it were to survive. | CPAC evolved from a series of political conferences in Washington during the 1960s, convened by the Young Americans for Freedom, the American Conservative Union and a handful of other conservative groups under the guidance of William Buckley. Buckley did not have a direct hand in CPAC; it evolved out of his anticipation for the fallout and crises that the fledgling "new right" movement would inevitably face if it were to survive. |
| The problem of how to turn insurgency into institutions is one every successful revolution faces, but it's a particularly knotty question if the animating purpose of the insurgency is the preservation of institutions. Buckley understood this conflict and was wary of it: | The problem of how to turn insurgency into institutions is one every successful revolution faces, but it's a particularly knotty question if the animating purpose of the insurgency is the preservation of institutions. Buckley understood this conflict and was wary of it: |
| "Conservatives pride themselves on resisting change, which is as it should be. But intelligent deference to tradition and stability can evolve into intellectual sloth and moral fanaticism, as when conservatives simply decline to look up from dogma because the effort to raise their heads and reconsider is too great." | "Conservatives pride themselves on resisting change, which is as it should be. But intelligent deference to tradition and stability can evolve into intellectual sloth and moral fanaticism, as when conservatives simply decline to look up from dogma because the effort to raise their heads and reconsider is too great." |
| Since that first meeting, CPAC has been the place where conservatives toss around outlandish, heretical and controversial ideas: third-party fantasies, libertarian purism, critiques of internal intellectual inconsistency. Some of the ideas spouted from its podiums seem unthinkable now. | Since that first meeting, CPAC has been the place where conservatives toss around outlandish, heretical and controversial ideas: third-party fantasies, libertarian purism, critiques of internal intellectual inconsistency. Some of the ideas spouted from its podiums seem unthinkable now. |
| In 1986, Attorney General Ed Meese argued that federalism, "properly understood", should allow states to oversee, or not oversee, abortion and pornography. In 1987, Pete DuPont endorsed (with negative audience reaction) sanctions against South Africa. More recently, Daily Caller founder Tucker Carlson advocated reading the New York Times. | In 1986, Attorney General Ed Meese argued that federalism, "properly understood", should allow states to oversee, or not oversee, abortion and pornography. In 1987, Pete DuPont endorsed (with negative audience reaction) sanctions against South Africa. More recently, Daily Caller founder Tucker Carlson advocated reading the New York Times. |
| Buckley also famously defined conservatism as "standing athwart history yelling, 'Stop!'" which is a delightful and evocative image, if a wholly impractical one. A more appropriate metaphor is probably conservatism as a power-generating dam against the incoming, inexorable flow of progress and change – not so much stopping it, but controlling and harnessing it and directing it. Whether by accident or design it's not exactly clear, CPAC is its pressure-relieving outlet. | Buckley also famously defined conservatism as "standing athwart history yelling, 'Stop!'" which is a delightful and evocative image, if a wholly impractical one. A more appropriate metaphor is probably conservatism as a power-generating dam against the incoming, inexorable flow of progress and change – not so much stopping it, but controlling and harnessing it and directing it. Whether by accident or design it's not exactly clear, CPAC is its pressure-relieving outlet. |
| By the numbers, the need for such a valve has grown almost exponentially: 500 people there in 1975, 10,000 last year, with mostly steady increases in between. Anywhere between two thirds to one half of attendees are still college students. In 1998, tale-teller Stephen Glass wrote the most famous depiction of CPAC, "Spring Breakdown". It was a fevered dream of young Republicans gone wild, raiding imagined mini-bars, rudely disagreeing with orthodoxy, having sex. As with many of Glass' fabulations, he got away with it for as long as he did because the story felt right to those who knew the broad outlines of the event. There is a lot of drinking, for instance, and while the amount of sexual activity is ultimately unknowable (and none of our business), there's a dressed-up-for-speed-dating vibe among the college-age visitors that suggests healthy flirtation if nothing else. | By the numbers, the need for such a valve has grown almost exponentially: 500 people there in 1975, 10,000 last year, with mostly steady increases in between. Anywhere between two thirds to one half of attendees are still college students. In 1998, tale-teller Stephen Glass wrote the most famous depiction of CPAC, "Spring Breakdown". It was a fevered dream of young Republicans gone wild, raiding imagined mini-bars, rudely disagreeing with orthodoxy, having sex. As with many of Glass' fabulations, he got away with it for as long as he did because the story felt right to those who knew the broad outlines of the event. There is a lot of drinking, for instance, and while the amount of sexual activity is ultimately unknowable (and none of our business), there's a dressed-up-for-speed-dating vibe among the college-age visitors that suggests healthy flirtation if nothing else. |
| More substantively, CPAC's attendees bring a pugnaciousness to speakers and panels that leads to a degree and flavor of audience participation more common to professional wrestling than C-Span: the aforementioned booing, catcalls, and cheers, too. | More substantively, CPAC's attendees bring a pugnaciousness to speakers and panels that leads to a degree and flavor of audience participation more common to professional wrestling than C-Span: the aforementioned booing, catcalls, and cheers, too. |
| The conference's exhibition area is where it most resembles, in the words of Republican strategist Steve Schmidt, "the Star Wars bar scene", but only because it's there where those young folks in marginally seductive Sunday best rub shoulders with an impressive variety of conspiracy theorists (like these End-Times UFO scouters), third-party reformers (Libertarians, Tea Partiers), vanity publishers, quixotic petitioners (Muslims for America), has-beens (Joe the Plumber), throwbacks (Youth for Western Civilization), strange bedfellows (the American Civil Liberties Union rented a booth until last year) and, if not for Cleta Mitchell, gay rights advocates. | The conference's exhibition area is where it most resembles, in the words of Republican strategist Steve Schmidt, "the Star Wars bar scene", but only because it's there where those young folks in marginally seductive Sunday best rub shoulders with an impressive variety of conspiracy theorists (like these End-Times UFO scouters), third-party reformers (Libertarians, Tea Partiers), vanity publishers, quixotic petitioners (Muslims for America), has-beens (Joe the Plumber), throwbacks (Youth for Western Civilization), strange bedfellows (the American Civil Liberties Union rented a booth until last year) and, if not for Cleta Mitchell, gay rights advocates. |
| Looking at this riot of opinions and the giddiness with which conference goers consume them, I get the Star Wars reference, but I'm also put in mind of another 70s icon: Plato's Retreat. They're experimenting with extremes; and, yes, sometimes taking those behaviors home with them. As a gently tolerated, approved outlet of youthful impropriety, CPAC isn't exactly Spring Break, it's Rumspringa. | Looking at this riot of opinions and the giddiness with which conference goers consume them, I get the Star Wars reference, but I'm also put in mind of another 70s icon: Plato's Retreat. They're experimenting with extremes; and, yes, sometimes taking those behaviors home with them. As a gently tolerated, approved outlet of youthful impropriety, CPAC isn't exactly Spring Break, it's Rumspringa. |
| CPAC's other audience: love-hate with the media | CPAC's other audience: love-hate with the media |
| It's impossible to ignore the role the media plays in sustaining CPAC. For members of the media, CPAC is one-stop shopping, a mall of stereotypes and colorful anecdotes not too far from their front doors. | It's impossible to ignore the role the media plays in sustaining CPAC. For members of the media, CPAC is one-stop shopping, a mall of stereotypes and colorful anecdotes not too far from their front doors. |
| Presidential campaign coverage is made up of dutiful recordings of a candidate's position combined with the reactions of "real people"/voters to those positions (sometimes, the feasibility of those positions even comes into play). CPAC brings Iowa to DC – a "good enough" sample of base voters that allows reporters to extrapolate, however tenuously, a candidate's chances. All that without actually having to visit the midwest hinterlands: The Land of Non-Dairy Creamer and Carbs. | Presidential campaign coverage is made up of dutiful recordings of a candidate's position combined with the reactions of "real people"/voters to those positions (sometimes, the feasibility of those positions even comes into play). CPAC brings Iowa to DC – a "good enough" sample of base voters that allows reporters to extrapolate, however tenuously, a candidate's chances. All that without actually having to visit the midwest hinterlands: The Land of Non-Dairy Creamer and Carbs. |
| CPAC's geographic accessibility, combined with the creep of an everything-on-the-record-all-the-time mindset has made the event significantly different from the Iowa potlucks and New Hampshire town halls in one important way. Far away from Washington, where bloggers are too cheap to read, it's still possible for a candidate to indulge in the uncoded language of their base. At CPAC, the audience is now much bigger than the one in the room. You can get in trouble for the stuff you say at CPAC now. | CPAC's geographic accessibility, combined with the creep of an everything-on-the-record-all-the-time mindset has made the event significantly different from the Iowa potlucks and New Hampshire town halls in one important way. Far away from Washington, where bloggers are too cheap to read, it's still possible for a candidate to indulge in the uncoded language of their base. At CPAC, the audience is now much bigger than the one in the room. You can get in trouble for the stuff you say at CPAC now. |
| It's hard to say if politicians draw the media or vice versa, because both have always been there. Back in 1975, CPAC didn't just rate run-of-the-mill coverage in the New York Times; the Times sent the already legendary reporter RW Apple as its correspondent. Apple's story, filed from the Mayflower, documented a gathering at which attendees pondered "the decisiveness of the Republican party defeat last November" and argued whether the "ideological impurity of the Republican party" might prompt either a third party or an "insurgent movement". The head of the Young Americans for Freedom fretted: | It's hard to say if politicians draw the media or vice versa, because both have always been there. Back in 1975, CPAC didn't just rate run-of-the-mill coverage in the New York Times; the Times sent the already legendary reporter RW Apple as its correspondent. Apple's story, filed from the Mayflower, documented a gathering at which attendees pondered "the decisiveness of the Republican party defeat last November" and argued whether the "ideological impurity of the Republican party" might prompt either a third party or an "insurgent movement". The head of the Young Americans for Freedom fretted: |
| "The people at this conference no longer reflexively see the Republican party as home." | "The people at this conference no longer reflexively see the Republican party as home." |
| A perhaps purposeful undercurrent of dissatisfaction with the Republican party establishment is a through-line connecting every CPAC conference, no matter how many official representatives of the GOP apparatus appear there. A more obvious connection through the years are the names of the people there. In addition to the regular invocation of Reagan – his 1975 speech at CPAC was key to the elevation of both – there's the ones rolled out by the emcee: Senator Jesse Helms was a fixture through two decades; Senator Mitch McConnell has been going since 1998; they might as well name a wing for Newt Gingrich; Meese was there in 1986 and will be back this week! And that's just the speakers. Among the conference's non-student attendees, the returning alumni count is probably even higher. | A perhaps purposeful undercurrent of dissatisfaction with the Republican party establishment is a through-line connecting every CPAC conference, no matter how many official representatives of the GOP apparatus appear there. A more obvious connection through the years are the names of the people there. In addition to the regular invocation of Reagan – his 1975 speech at CPAC was key to the elevation of both – there's the ones rolled out by the emcee: Senator Jesse Helms was a fixture through two decades; Senator Mitch McConnell has been going since 1998; they might as well name a wing for Newt Gingrich; Meese was there in 1986 and will be back this week! And that's just the speakers. Among the conference's non-student attendees, the returning alumni count is probably even higher. |
| Some of the panels and workshops seem frozen in amber, too. Yes, this year there's one on "Memification" featuring someone from Buzzfeed, and "social media" is as prominent a topic as "social issues". But the conference's litany of complaints is stunningly familiar. | Some of the panels and workshops seem frozen in amber, too. Yes, this year there's one on "Memification" featuring someone from Buzzfeed, and "social media" is as prominent a topic as "social issues". But the conference's litany of complaints is stunningly familiar. |
| Jesse Helms uttered the words "media bias" from the CPAC podium in 1985. There is nothing in his indictment that hasn't been repeated every year since. "The real threat to freedom, the real threat to freedom of speech, the real threat to our constitutional system," he said, "is on our TV screens every evening and on the front pages of our newspapers every day," coming from reporters with "smug contempt for American ideals and principles" … stop me if you think you've heard this one. | Jesse Helms uttered the words "media bias" from the CPAC podium in 1985. There is nothing in his indictment that hasn't been repeated every year since. "The real threat to freedom, the real threat to freedom of speech, the real threat to our constitutional system," he said, "is on our TV screens every evening and on the front pages of our newspapers every day," coming from reporters with "smug contempt for American ideals and principles" … stop me if you think you've heard this one. |
| There's a similar history to discussions of school choice, on the agenda or a topic of speaker since 1993; the flat tax has also been floating through conversations from about the same era. Even more sustained is the anxious attitude of "what now?" | There's a similar history to discussions of school choice, on the agenda or a topic of speaker since 1993; the flat tax has also been floating through conversations from about the same era. Even more sustained is the anxious attitude of "what now?" |
| What's changed are both the positions occupied by those recurring speakers, and the fact that those panels reflect not a lively tumult but rather an addiction to the pose of embattlement, an attitude of constant vigilance and paranoia. Liberal critics highlight this pseudo-victimhood and call it hypocrisy; it is not as though the Republican party has always been exiled from congressional and presidential power, or has not won significant ideological victories. | What's changed are both the positions occupied by those recurring speakers, and the fact that those panels reflect not a lively tumult but rather an addiction to the pose of embattlement, an attitude of constant vigilance and paranoia. Liberal critics highlight this pseudo-victimhood and call it hypocrisy; it is not as though the Republican party has always been exiled from congressional and presidential power, or has not won significant ideological victories. |
| Yet, the most important aspect of the siege mentality that fortifies CPAC is that it is completely appropriate: their side is losing, not necessarily because Democrats or liberals have won any given election, but because history's tide cannot be stopped, no matter how loud you yell. | Yet, the most important aspect of the siege mentality that fortifies CPAC is that it is completely appropriate: their side is losing, not necessarily because Democrats or liberals have won any given election, but because history's tide cannot be stopped, no matter how loud you yell. |
| At Netroots Nation, the closest analogue to CPAC on the left, panels on women's rights take place in the context of a rapidly expanding role for women in business, government, foreign policy, even the military. Speakers addressing the problem of race have to calibrate their dissent to accommodate a black president. Gay rights activists are no longer agitating for merely a legitimate say in policy; they are pushing one victory after another forward. | At Netroots Nation, the closest analogue to CPAC on the left, panels on women's rights take place in the context of a rapidly expanding role for women in business, government, foreign policy, even the military. Speakers addressing the problem of race have to calibrate their dissent to accommodate a black president. Gay rights activists are no longer agitating for merely a legitimate say in policy; they are pushing one victory after another forward. |
| So, on the social issues where CPAC seems the most far afield from mainstream America, the answer is: yes, they should be worried. | So, on the social issues where CPAC seems the most far afield from mainstream America, the answer is: yes, they should be worried. |
| Economically, the battle lines are less distinct and the skirmishes so intricately choreographed that the only thing we can say for sure is that the rich continue to get rich. (This would be Netroot's Nation version a flat tax panel.) In this area, CPAC's perennial jeremiads against entitlements and "tax-and-spend liberals" aren't so much a statement about the line of scrimmage inching toward them, but a failure to understand that they're working from a playbook at odds with what Americans have come to expect – and need – from their government. | Economically, the battle lines are less distinct and the skirmishes so intricately choreographed that the only thing we can say for sure is that the rich continue to get rich. (This would be Netroot's Nation version a flat tax panel.) In this area, CPAC's perennial jeremiads against entitlements and "tax-and-spend liberals" aren't so much a statement about the line of scrimmage inching toward them, but a failure to understand that they're working from a playbook at odds with what Americans have come to expect – and need – from their government. |
| CPAC's problem of institutionalized insurgency | CPAC's problem of institutionalized insurgency |
| There is something weird about the top-down character of this planned chaos, CPAC's ritualized rebel yell. By the time CPAC reached its current iteration, its founders were thoroughly entrenched in the Washington establishment. Indeed, that's why there's no "humble beginnings" myth to the event, no tales of a small group of dedicated individuals gathered around a card table in a basement, plotting a take-over. It began in the Mayflower Hotel, a hub of Washington power and intrigue, and received immediate attention from both the establishment and the media. | There is something weird about the top-down character of this planned chaos, CPAC's ritualized rebel yell. By the time CPAC reached its current iteration, its founders were thoroughly entrenched in the Washington establishment. Indeed, that's why there's no "humble beginnings" myth to the event, no tales of a small group of dedicated individuals gathered around a card table in a basement, plotting a take-over. It began in the Mayflower Hotel, a hub of Washington power and intrigue, and received immediate attention from both the establishment and the media. |
| CPAC is not in opposition to the traditional GOP structure; it's not even parallel, CPAC is a sine wave crossing the power line of the Republican party, sometimes infusing it with energy, at other times a distant point of light. CPAC didn't grow into importance; it has always been thus – springing fully formed from Buckley's forehead, an ideological Aphrodite inspiring loyalty and lust. | CPAC is not in opposition to the traditional GOP structure; it's not even parallel, CPAC is a sine wave crossing the power line of the Republican party, sometimes infusing it with energy, at other times a distant point of light. CPAC didn't grow into importance; it has always been thus – springing fully formed from Buckley's forehead, an ideological Aphrodite inspiring loyalty and lust. |
| And true to its student audience, it stays forever young. They've made up about half of the conferences' attendees since its inception, and they provide the energy and the mindset for it. It is typical, perhaps, of an event belonging to card-carrying free-marketeers that the participation of students in CPAC seems to have been an economic choice – as they have turned out to be CPAC's perenially-replenished lifeblood. | And true to its student audience, it stays forever young. They've made up about half of the conferences' attendees since its inception, and they provide the energy and the mindset for it. It is typical, perhaps, of an event belonging to card-carrying free-marketeers that the participation of students in CPAC seems to have been an economic choice – as they have turned out to be CPAC's perenially-replenished lifeblood. |
| Richard Viguerie, godfather of direct-mail political fundraising, got his start here in the early 1960s – shilling as a young operative tasked with capitalizing, literally, on the newly-discovered cadre of college-age conservative activists. Looking at the results of fundraising appeals that went out after the conferences, Viguerie had an epiphany, as he described in his memoir/how-to book, America's Right Turn: | Richard Viguerie, godfather of direct-mail political fundraising, got his start here in the early 1960s – shilling as a young operative tasked with capitalizing, literally, on the newly-discovered cadre of college-age conservative activists. Looking at the results of fundraising appeals that went out after the conferences, Viguerie had an epiphany, as he described in his memoir/how-to book, America's Right Turn: |
| "We were able to convince older conservatives to help our work on the campuses. We were fighting the radical SDS, the liberals, and the communists, and that was something older conservatives perceived we could do better than anyone else. That was our brand. That was our market." | "We were able to convince older conservatives to help our work on the campuses. We were fighting the radical SDS, the liberals, and the communists, and that was something older conservatives perceived we could do better than anyone else. That was our brand. That was our market." |
| The most salient feature of the activists as a group wasn't their numbers – conservatives have never, and probably never will, make up a significant slice of the Republican party – but what they symbolized: an embattled core of true believers alongside whom older Republicans could fantasize themselves heroes. This is probably why CPAC has survived thus far. | The most salient feature of the activists as a group wasn't their numbers – conservatives have never, and probably never will, make up a significant slice of the Republican party – but what they symbolized: an embattled core of true believers alongside whom older Republicans could fantasize themselves heroes. This is probably why CPAC has survived thus far. |
| But this long-time source of energy for the GOP has become stunted by organizational stagnation and a shrinking conception of its purpose. Like any venerable institution, its governing principles have become a ritual, its dramas pure theater. More to the point, CPAC's leadership has been able to take advantage of its influence to pursue goals that only reflect their personal predilections and not the continued health of the institution itself. | But this long-time source of energy for the GOP has become stunted by organizational stagnation and a shrinking conception of its purpose. Like any venerable institution, its governing principles have become a ritual, its dramas pure theater. More to the point, CPAC's leadership has been able to take advantage of its influence to pursue goals that only reflect their personal predilections and not the continued health of the institution itself. |
| That this narrowing of vision has become evident in part due to the decision to exclude GOProud from the event is an irony Buckley himself would have found delicious as well as unfortunate. | That this narrowing of vision has become evident in part due to the decision to exclude GOProud from the event is an irony Buckley himself would have found delicious as well as unfortunate. |
| There are two symptoms that betray the infirmity of a centralized bureaucracy: ideological rigidity ("Everyone must agree") and abuse of power by those at the top ("Everyone must agree … or else."). CPAC, by now, has a non-fatal strain of this disease, but it is a disfiguring one. | There are two symptoms that betray the infirmity of a centralized bureaucracy: ideological rigidity ("Everyone must agree") and abuse of power by those at the top ("Everyone must agree … or else."). CPAC, by now, has a non-fatal strain of this disease, but it is a disfiguring one. |
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