CPAC: Doubts long ago allayed, conservatives see Trump as undisputed leader and dream of comeback

WASHINGTON – In March 2016, Donald Trump snubbed the major conservative gathering known as CPAC amid fears that activists would boo him.

By then he was the front-runner to face Hillary Clinton. Speaker after speaker skewered him in absentia, warning that time was running short to protect the GOP nomination for a more reliable conservative.

“His choice sends a clear message to conservatives,” chided the American Conservative Union, which hosts the Conservative Public Action Conference.

A year later, Trump returned to CPAC in triumph, covering the 10 miles from the White House via Marine One, a spectacle that even a presidential motorcade more typical for such a short trip would not.

Victory helped to dispel the reservations, and the next four years cemented the affection of conservatives.

CPAC is in Dallas this weekend, making the Hilton Anatole the temporary Capitol of Trump Country. Cheers erupt at the mention of his name. Red “Make America Great Again” hats are a common sight, along with “Trump Won” T-shirts.

When the 45th president arrives Sunday afternoon to speak, he’ll be welcomed as leader of the movement and party –  and the rightful occupant of the White House.

“I’ll just say it. The election was stolen. I’m convinced of it,” said Texas agriculture commissioner and Trump adviser Sid Miller. As for the evolution in the Trump-CPAC relationship, he added, “Neither one has changed. Trump has proven himself. That’s what’s changed.”

Trump in four years slammed the brakes on immigration, built hundreds of miles of border wall, cut taxes and regulation, reshaped the federal judiciary and named fully one-third of the U.S. Supreme Court, putting a conservative stamp on the high court that will last a generation.

“Everyone was skeptical when he first ran,” Miller said. “Now that he’s proven himself and been one of the most conservative most successful presidents in our lifetime, people have learned to overlook the mean tweets, and the other character flaws most people would agree he might have. They certainly love his policies. They were fantastic.”

Conservatives spent eigh­t years out of power during the Obama era. At CPAC 2017, at a sprawling Gaylord resort in National Harbor, Md., outside Washington, a newly-inaugurated Trump presented himself as their savior.

“Now you finally have a president, finally,” Trump declared to a raucous crowd that chanted “Build the wall!” and, at the mention of Clinton, “Lock her up!”

Trump has been idolized at CPAC ever since. The base loves Trump and CPAC is the distillation of the base.

“I tell you what, I miss President Donald Trump,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., declared at the Anatole, eliciting a roar of approval. “We have to restore President Trump’s America First agenda…. He was holding the Chinese communists responsible for the Wuhan coronavirus.”

“I can’t tell you what Donald Trump is going to do in 2024,” said his state campaign co-chair, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. “In Texas we stand with President Trump…. In 2024, Trumpism will rise again!”

That also drew cheers.

Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller pictured at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday, July 10, 2021, in Dallas. (Elias Valverde II/The Dallas Morning News)(Elias Valverde II / Staff Photographer)

The Dallas CPAC appearance is part of a strip tease that started at CPAC in Orlando in late February and now also includes campaign-style rallies.

The only obvious agenda is to keep supporters riled and loyal, so he can punish Republicans who voted to impeach him, maintain his control of the party, and help retake the House and Senate in the 2022 midterm elections.

By design or not, these appearances also freeze the 2024 field, forcing potential rivals such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis – who sailed past Trump in a CPAC straw poll in Orlando – to tread carefully, lest they incur his wrath before they’ve gathered enough money and allies to survive an onslaught.

Only one such hopeful, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, signed up to speak at CPAC Dallas, leaving an unusual vacuum at a gathering that Republican wannabees have flocked to for years.

“I’d say better than 50% chance that he runs,” said ACU chairman Matt Schlapp. “But I think he has suspended that, and is focusing on these congressional majorities. And I think that’s the right thing to do.”

If all goes as hoped, Schlapp said, “He’ll get a lot of credit, and probably the most credit, for getting those majorities back.”

Trump has poured himself into that effort, raising money, endorsing candidates and holding rallies that play double duty – spotlighting select races while boxing out potential rivals.

At both rallies he’s held since he left office and retreated to his Mar-a-Lago resort, last weekend in Sarasota, Fla., and June 26 in Ohio, Trump downplayed the violence of Jan. 6, when thousands of frenzied supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol –  at his urging – hoping to stop Congress from certifying the election.

He also reiterated debunked claims about his defeat.

“We won the election twice,” Trump told a large crowd June 26 at a fairgrounds near Cleveland. “We may have to win it a third time.”

Debbie Billingsly of Van Alstyne, Texas, poses with Rep. Madison Cawthorn, R-N.C., at the Hilton Anatole in Dallas, during the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, on July 9, 2021, as her husband Paul Billingsly snaps the photo.

In the vast Anatole lobby, not far from the iconic elephant statues, Debbie Billingsly snagged a photo with Rep. Madison Cawthorn, R-NC.

She wore a “Trump 2024” button and puts it at “1000%” that he’s the undisputed leader of the party. She’s just as certain he’s running.

“Absolutely. Of course he’s not going to say so yet,” said Billingsly, 67, an interior designer from Van Alstyne, north of McKinney, after husband Paul had snapped the photo. But “he’s having the rallies and he’s working real hard to get the House back.”

(Moments later, Cawthorn raised eyebrows by claiming the Biden administration’s new push to expand COVID-19 vaccination through a door-to-door campaign is actually a Trojan horse –  a dry run for a government scheme to confiscate Bibles and guns.)

As for whether Trump won, said Billingsly, “He did. He absolutely did, and the people that don’t believe that just aren’t engaged, and they didn’t pay attention to what happened. It’s all going to come out, one state at a time. But listen, they know it. We know it. Democrats know what they did. This was planned with these machines a long time ago.”

A recurring topic of conversation at CPAC is whether Trump could somehow be reinstated as president, perhaps even next month.

“He should be,” said Billingsly, adding that maybe if Republicans win back Congress in the midterms it could happen. “It’s never happened before, but hey, it was never stolen before.”

Miller, the state ag commissioner, said Trump himself raised the possibility over dinner in April.

“He kind of indicated that, you know this Arizona deal might be the break we need to bring the house of cards down,” he said, referring to a privately funded recount in Phoenix, where election officials reject fraud claims. “So I said, `Mr President, if that happens, who’s going to take Biden out of office? You can’t. You’re not the president. You have to have somebody who can remove him, so who is that?’ He didn’t answer me.

“We’ll see. We’ll see. We’re a long way from that,” Miller said.

“President Trump is the standard bearer of the Republican Party,” said Phil Rizzo, a pastor from Hoboken, NJ, who was runner-up in the GOP primary for governor a month ago.

The winner, a moderate who’d called Trump a “charlatan” in 2015, might have lost if several pro-Trump candidates hadn’t split the vote.

“People are dead serious about President Trump in New Jersey,” said Rizzo, who also thinks Trump was cheated in the election. “I don’t live in a culture where I’m not allowed to believe what my eyeballs see…. The truth will come out, but there were so many irregularities.”