Brewing unrest between the social conservatives and libertarians

[Emit]

A conservative civil war over the Conservative Political Action Conference

Friction between parts of the social conservative and libertarian wings of the conservative movement has escalated into a shooting war in the run-up to the Conservative Political Action Conference, with accusations of embezzlement (true), homosexuality (true), and creeping sharia (disputed) hurled against the 38-year old conservative institution.

CPAC’s leaders respond that its foes’ real gripe is that it won’t give a platform to their lunatic conspiracy theories about presidential birth certificates (disputed).

But however esoteric the disputes, the fracas has led to real-world repercussions: a move by a group of conservative figures to begin organizing a move to turn the Value Voter Summit, a newer annual event planned for October, into a full-fledged rival to CPAC by shifting its focus toward economic and security issues, according to two participants in the developing strategy. Two of the heavyweight groups of the broader right, the Heritage Foundation and the Media Research Center, have dropped out of CPAC and are expected, planners said, to add to the Value Voter Summit’s heft.

~snip

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0111/47231.html


More:

More Conservative Groups Pulling Out Of CPAC -- And Blasting Gay Inclusion

Is the annual CPAC conservative activist conference coming undone -- with the inclusion of gays being the final straw?

As we've posted before, some social conservative groups have been pulling out of the annual event, due to the inclusion of the gay conservative group GOProud. As the right-wing World Net Daily, which has been hammering away at this issue, now reports, the Heritage Foundation and the Media Research Center -- an organization that cover a variety of issues, not just social conservatism -- have also pulled out of CPAC.

~snip~

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/01/more-conservative-groups-pulling-out-of-cpac---and-blasting-gay-inclusion.php

GOP Rep. Jim Jordan Also Boycotting CPAC

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) has said that he is joining the conservative boycott of CPAC.

~snip~

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/01/gop-rep-jim-jordan-also-boycotting-cpac.php


CPAC supporter James Higgins had this to say about social conservatives and the Value Voter Summit:

Defending CPAC
An ally of CPAC organizer David Keene and of Grover Norquist pushed back hard this morning against the boycott move that Rep. Jim Jordan joined last night.

"A certain kind of social conservative has had an absolute veto over what social policy should be among conservatives for decades, out of all proportion to their numbers," said James Higgins, who co-directs the conservative Monday Meeting in New York City. "And now that the Tea Party is so important, it's really out of proportion to their numbers."

Tea Party members are, polling suggests, quite socially conservative -- but aren't organized around those issues.

The Family Research Council -- whose Values Voter Summit is being set up, with the help of the Heritage Foundation, as a rival to CPAC -- "is on the fringe of the conservative coalition – it has always been on the fringe of the conservative coalition," Higgins said, noting that its former president, Gary Bauer "got less than one percent of the Republican primary vote in New Hampshire" in his 2000 presidential bid.

~snip~

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0111/Defending_CPAC.html

[tanyev]

1. I've been following this with great interest on Talking Points Memo.

:popcorn:

[orwell]

2. Big Tent?

...or tiny minds.

We report, you decide...

[EC]

3. I'll bet the tea partiers will go to CPAC - not VVS

"Tea Party members are, polling suggests, quite socially conservative -- but aren't organized around those issues."

They are lying, most of the tea people are the very same people that go to CPAC and those social issues are their #1 priority...they were using the meme of taxes and balanced budgets to get far right conservatives in office for their social priorities, they don't really give a damn about balanced budgets.