There is something nutty about spending hundreds of dollars to walk around a convention center in difficult shoes and wool for an entire weekend, but let us stipulate that this is an impulse not unique to conservatives or to the denizens of the Conservative Political Action Conference in particular.
The urge to convent is nearly universal in the American character - or at least the American character that enjoys when work picks up the tab. Granted, a large part of conventions’ appeal seems to be that many of them are held in Orange County in the dead of winter, but the one constant is an underlying enthusiasm for their topics. If anything, the dreadful DC weather and awful moral climate speak to how much people want to be at CPAC. The easier thing to do would be anywhere else.
In this regard, CPAC closely resembles Major League Baseball’s Winter Meetings, which I attended back in December, 2013. At first blush, you’d think the latter would be a happier event. Nobody really hates baseball, at least not enough to have an ideological hostility to baseball; more to the point, one of the main aims of baseball’s meetings isn’t to tell you how much basketball is going to ruin everything.
But apart from that, they’re very similar. Superstars, agents, retirees and legends walk the halls. Deals or strategies can be revealed. People man booths on a convention floor and hand out unusable and often unlovable branded swag of varying degrees of self-congratulation or a lack of self-reflection.
And just like the hundreds of young “job seekers” who spend upwards of $1,000 to attend the Winter Meetings, the kids here are trying to be part of something. The difference is that all the kids looking to shoot the moon in baseball and become the next Theo Epstein are competing for 30 jobs and will likely fall into the chronically poor world of the minor leagues.
Comparatively, the conservative movement is not a bad gig. Including congress, there are 500 jobs to fill. Add state legislatures, and you’re in the thousands. Add aides, staffers, think tank fellows, pollsters, and the jobs jump into the tens of thousands. A few connections at CPAC, and you too might go back to Birmingham, Alabama and become the communications director for the Birming Ham Fighters Who Have Always Been Against The Light Rail Ballot Initiative That Was Unveiled Last Week, or whatever other Koch Brothers redoubt has just been leased downtown. That’s a pretty good job on a pretty sweet ladder, and worth the few hundred dollars on your tickets and down at the Brooks Brothers outlet.
But that kind of self-interested careerism seems to be a cherry on top, to be enjoyed sometime in the future. Ask any amateur attendee what brought them to CPAC and they invariably tell you something that sounds a little like a talking point but that rushes out with enough enthusiasm that it’s clearly not. Any or all of the following appears, in various orders and intensity: “It’s just so great to be part of the renewal of the conservative spirit in America, and I’m just so excited about being able to add my voice to it and to learn what I can do, because I don’t know a lot of conservatives back at my school/office/hometown or at least not ones I agree with, and it’s just great to be here with everyone and get to work.”
Even the wide-eyed gawking of the convention crowd feels familiar. They are driven by the same impulse you felt when you went to Model UN, or Debate and Drama Nationals, or Cheerleading Camp, or Basketball Camp or the MLB Winter Meetings.
We have all at one point, like the CPAC citizenry, paid $15 for the same rubber chicken sandwiches, worked off the same five hours of sleep, patted down pockets at what felt like a phantom phone vibration pregnant with news, looked for the same parties with good booze in different rooms of the hotel, eager to meet friends from around the country and maybe go to bed with one, and damn, everyone looks nice when they dress up.
It’s easy to see the appeal. It’s just so nice to be somewhere where almost everyone is on your side. There’s nothing quite so powerful and warm and fun as knowing that this many people agree with you, and you are not alone.
Of course, you might suggest that, if we devoted the same energy to reducing paranoia, distrust and demonization as we do to migrating to safe enclaves to be with our own kind, we might feel kinship wherever we are. But that might be too nutty.
