The Omni in Washington is one of DC’s hyper-hotels, like the Hilton just down the road. The above-ground parts of such edifices sit like the peaks of icebergs, atop vast structures beneath the surface, designed for conferences like this.
Rooms as big as aircraft hangers lurk, ready to host such events as the Values VoterSummit, a meeting of what used to be called the Christian Coalition and has now been sort-of absorbed into the Tea Party – the lead weight on the far right of the American political scales.
Friday turned out to be a momentous day in the history of internecine Republican warfare, and it was the day on which most of the Republican presidential heavyweights addressed the Values Voters. The Florida senator Marco Rubio was among them.
Since his thirsty moment during the official 2013 State of the Union response went viral, Rubio has not been able to stop making water-bottle jokes. He did one at the opening of the CNN candidates’ debate and, with a bone-dry sense of humour, he did one here.
“There’s four bottles of water here,” he said. “Isn’t that a bit much?”
Rubio wasn’t the favourite here, of course. Nor was Donald Trump, who was booed for the first time in this campaign. These people are more for Ted Cruz – the Texas senator won the summit’s 2016 straw poll, in which the absent Florida governor Jeb Bush received just five votes, only two more than the socialist Bernie Sanders – or Mike Huckabee. When he spoke, the former Arkansas governor was greeted with several standing ovations.
But in his well-received, if not adored, speech, Rubio got to announce that the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, John Boehner, had said he would step down. The audience was made up of Republicans, but the news got a huge cheer.
Huge standing ovation at Values Voters as Marco Rubio announces on stage that Boehner is resigning
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) September 25, 2015
That was not an oddity. The crowd at the VVS are right-of-the-right, capital-C conservatives. Many could be described as being to the right of Ghengis Khan, except that Khan would probably strike them as not sufficiently supportive of Israel. They hated Boehner. They made his life hell. This segment of American conservatism was the ideological root of several planned coups against him.
At the Omni, no one had a good word to say about the soon-to-be-former speaker. They saw him as practically treasonous, for failing to stand up to the Obama administration on the issues they hold most dear, especially and most lately Planned Parenthood, over which Boehner was unwilling to push the government to yet another shutdown.
For the Values Voters, that was a Boehner-killer.
That was a red-meat moment, a roar of rightwing joy. Otherwise, soothing Frank Sinatra piped into the Omni’s subterranean corridors, where young volunteers held signs directing punters.
An exhibition hall held booths from groups like the Liberty Institute, the Family Research Council and Evangelism Explosion International, Christians United for Israel and the One Nation Under God Foundation.
Anti-gay marriage groups with names like God’s Original Design Ministry and Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays sat next to those promoting abstinence and stalls piled with books with names like God Bless America and Rebound.
As in a Las Vegas casino, in the artificial lighting, it was easy to lose track of the time.
Among the pressure groups were the candidates: Kay Daly, looking to unseat a more moderate Republican in North Carolina’s second district, showed the Guardian her latest campaign ad. It featured her firing a shotgun.
Female attendees presented a certain look. Vivid blue, cream or mauve dresses; kitten heels; ubiquitous pearls; Sarah Palin blonde streaks and bangs.
The men, meanwhile, fell largely into two categories. The party operators were sharp-suited and cheap-shod, with ties in TV-friendly block colours. Some sported bowties.
Rarer were the Duck Dynasty-types – with unkempt beards, weathered faces and gnarled hiking-sticks, their jungle camouflage jackets, covered in patches proclaiming support for Israel and the second amendment, clashing with the sumptuous pink carpeting.
Outside the hotel, Jeff Smith stood on a street corner with a 6ft poster of a bloody, aborted foetus, bearing the legend “MURDER”. He had driven from Wichita, Kansas in a borrowed van. He didn’t have a ticket to the event – he hadn’t been inside – but he had come, he said, to reach out to the “small proportion of people who support the message”.
Inside, with the halls temporarily empty over lunch, Christopher Inman was throwing a toy aeroplane around the cavernous corridor. A Texan from Dallas, he is the president of the Amerival Group. His company is like an investment firm for projects that project conservative values: freedom, faith, family and free enterprise.
For him, none of the candidates who came to kiss the conservative ring had all those qualities.
“[Mike] Huckabee touched on faith. Ted Cruz touched on family,” he said. “Donald Trump touched on free enterprise. I think [former senator Rick] Santorum touched on freedoms.”
He grinned.
“I’d love to see all of them combined.”
