Giorgio: CPAC Should Be CWAC

Wednesday, March 04, 2015

Paul Giorgio, GoLocalWorcester MINDSETTER™

This past weekend CPAC the Conservative Political Action Conference, the premier right wing Republican group in America held its annual conference in Washington DC. It was more like CWAC, because the Republican candidates who paraded in front of this group sounded pretty wacky to me.

One of the problems with the Republican Party is that the extreme right wings dominated by Christian fundamentalist have taken control. Nothing is worse that religious extremist in any part of the world and in America, we have our fair share of religious zealots who make others in the world look mild by comparison.

A whole host of Republican candidates paraded before the attendees and tried to woo them with far right rhetoric. The entire event looked like a FOX News program with Sean Hannity playing a major role.

The Straw Poll

The weekend was capped by a straw poll which had Kentucky Senator Rand Paul topping Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker 26% to 21%. Texas Senator Ted Cruz and Ben Carson finished in a virtual tie with about 11% each, followed by Jeb Bush who received 8%. Trailing the pack were Chris Christie, Marco Rubio and Rick Perry who each received less than 4 % pf the vote. Christie may have been the big story (pun intended) by finishing with fewer than 3 percent of the vote.

Also in attendance were right wing luminaries Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich and Donald Trump, all who are now on the fringes of American politics. Trump just won’t give up the Birther Movement and Palin is just Palin, interesting but dumb.

I don’t even understand how Ted Cruz is a candidate. Wasn’t he born in Canada?

It is a full year before the first Presidential caucus or primary, but the campaign for President is in full swing. So who emerged from the weekend showdown in a suburb of Washington? There were clearly a few winners and some big losers.

Who Won, Who Lost

First the biggest loser was Chris Christie, the pugnacious bully should have had appeal in this room full of bullies, but he did not. Maybe the ultra right wingers are leery of another Northeast Governor. But both Marco Rubio and Rick Perry proved that their conservative credentials couldn’t sway a crowd. Rubio flopped last year in his response to the State of the Union and Perry has not recovered from the 2012 election cycle.

The big winner was Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, who finished behind perennial favorite Rand Paul who has won the straw poll here, three times in a row. Jeb Bush has to be considered a winner because he went into the lion’s den and came out alive. Bush’s primary problem is that he is a Bush. Does America really want a trifecta of economic disaster?

While coming in a better than expected second, Walker raised his profile and in doing so showed he may not be ready for the big leagues. Walker’s primary line of attack on foreign policy is that if he could stare down the SEIU in Wisconsin, he will have no trouble with ISIS.

Walker’s Naive View

This is clearly a very naïve view of foreign policy. This is likening my good friend Sandy Ellis head of the local nurses’ union to Jihadi John. I don’t think that the two equate. Just because you won a labor dispute in a Midwestern state filled with the most pleasant people I have ever met, does not mean you are ready to take on the world’s evil doers.

That statement of Walker’s shows how ill prepared he really is. The sad part is that the crowd at CPAC (WAC) loved it.

That happens when you have a convention of wacky right wingers-you get strange ideas. This is a group that adores Rand Paul and his notion of what America should be. This is a group that is for individual liberty except a women’s right to choose. This is a group who oppose religious zealots in the rest of the world but is clearly made up of Christian extremists.

So what will happen in 2016? The Republican’s will nominate the most extreme white man they can find who panders to this fringe group and their beliefs and who in the end will be so far out of touch with the real America, that they will once again lose the presidency.