Why would Sarah Palin, or her people, think skipping CPAC would be advisable? Palin’s people say it’s because the ACU was involved in a pay for play scandal:
Palin is declining an invitation to address the Conservative Political Action Conference next month because, a source said, she does not want to be affiliated with the longtime organizer of the traditional movement confab.
At issue is the role of David Keene, head of the American Conservative Union which organizes CPAC. In September, POLITICO reported that Keene asked FedEx for between $2 million and $3 million to get the group’s support in a bitter legislative battle with rival UPS.
A source close to the Palin camp says that request led to a decision to stay away from the upcoming CPAC conference, calling it a forum that will place “special interests over core beliefs” and “pocketbook over policy.”
“That’s not what CPAC should be about and people are tiring,” the source said. “Palin is taking a stance against this just as she did in Alaska.”
That’s a nice position to take, but it’s hard for me to swallow.
First, let’s discuss the whole FedEx/UPS issues involving Keene.
Here’s what Politico said happened:
The American Conservative Union asked FedEx for a check for $2 million to $3 million in return for the group’s endorsement in a bitter legislative dispute, then flipped and sided with UPS after FedEx refused to pay.
For the $2 million+, ACU offered a range of services that included: “Producing op-eds and articles written by ACU’s Chairman David Keene and / or other members of the ACU’s board of directors. (Note that Mr. Keene writes a weekly column that appears in The Hill.)”
The conservative group’s remarkable demand — black-and-white proof of the longtime Washington practice known as “pay for play” — was contained in a private letter to FedEx that was provided to POLITICO. …
In the three-page letter asking for money on June 30, the conservative group backed FedEx. Rebuffed, the group signed onto a two-page July 15 letter backing UPS.
Erick Erickson at Red State breaks down Keene’s side:
According to Mr. Keene, the correspondence with FedEx was written June 30th and he agreed to lend his name to the other letter on July 1st. The letter was dated July 15th. He says he is sure that he had signed off on the second letter before FedEx even had time to make a decision on ACU’s letter.
His point, above all else, was that he had no knowledge of the ACU letter. People, myself included, forget that Dave Keene, unlike many other leaders of conservative interest groups, is not a full time Chairman. He is not in charge of the day to day operations of ACU and did not participate in the negotiations with FedEx.
What Keene does say, however, is that the conversation with FedEx was ongoing. ACU told FedEx that it supported its position. FedEx asked ACU what it could do to mobilize grassroots opposition. ACU told FedEx it could help, but did not have the budget for an aggressive campaign. FedEx asked ACU for a ballpark figure. ACU asked FedEx what it was looking for. FedEx said to make it a kitchen sink proposal and throw in everything.
The June 30, 2009, letter was a product of those ongoing conversations.
The money was to help organize the grassroots for a position the ACU supported, but didn’t have the money to promote the way FedEx wanted. And Keene later released a statement on this story supporting FedEx:
Let me be clear on this. I continue to agree with Senator Wallop’s objection to the mischaracterization of the issue and I also I continue to oppose extending NLRB jurisdiction to FedEx. Neither I nor ACU has changed our position on this and won’t, though I must admit that I am less than impressed with the manner in which FedEx has treated me and ACU in this matter.
Maybe I’m being a bit naive, but it sounds like a bit of a misunderstanding. Perhaps Palin’s people didn’t get the whole story.
Or perhaps they are still bitter about what Keene said in July to Newsmax:
Sarah Palin needs to stop whining about unfair media coverage and get over the fact that some people don’t like her, Dave Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, tells Newsmax.
Palin doesn’t seem to get that politics is a tough game, says Keene, one of the country’s most astute political observers.
The American Conservative Union, with 1 million members, runs the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington and publishes an annual “Rating of Congress,” the gold standard for ideological assessments of members of Congress.
“You’ve got to recognize that there are people who want you to fail,” Keene says. “And if you spend your time worrying about them, or whining about what they say, at the very least it’ll get you off your game, because you ought to be worried about what you’re going to do, not about what they’re going to do to you.”
Resigning as governor of Alaska only compounded Palin’s problems, which have been accumulating since the November election, Keene says.
“In the period leading up to the resignation, she needed to get over the fact that people didn’t like her,” Keene says. “Get over the fact that she harbored resentment for the McCain people that used her. All of those things are true, but she got more out of it than they did, and she had to begin to move on with what she needed to establish in terms of her own image, to move to the next level. And she delayed doing that.
“Now it becomes more difficult because of the way in which she bailed out on the governorship.”
I think it’s more likely this has more to do with her decision than the FedEx/UPS brouhaha. But I would not have let it keep me from attending the largest gathering of conservatives in the country.
In fact, the bolder move would be to attend and in her speech address these things. That would have been worth the price of admission.
Sarah will be attending the the Southern Republican Leadership Conference in April in New Orleans. She’ll have a large audience there as well.
It’s just disappointing that she can’t be at CPAC as well. The event is bigger than David Keene. I didn’t see him there, aside from when he was speaking on stage. For me, and so many others, the real CPAC is in the displays and discussions that take place away from the auditoriums.
You know, out with the people…the grassroots.
Update:
Dan Riehl weighs in:
As for Palin, I believe her recent decision-making is doing considerable disservice to the Conservative movement. Whether she’s too thin-skinned to accept that Keene didn’t bow down and worship her, or sees him as a threat as a potential Romney supporter and wants him out, I don’t know. The other possiblity is that she’s buying into Palin sycophant John Ziegler’s take on Keene. That would not be a balanced, truly informed approach and would look self-serving at best.
What I do know is that she will be cashing a check from a Tea Party group that does not speak for the whole, potentially giving it more weight than it deserves because they are either fans, or want to cash some checks themselves. The notion that she is cashing a check while also now going out of her way to run down CPAC, a group that despite its faults, does good service for theConservative movement, leaves me less than thrilled with her actions.
I imagine many hoping to attend CPAC this year can’t afford a grand, or two to go to Nashville to hear the queen speak. And for all it’s clout in the South, the Southern Republican Leadership Congress she’ll address is not a national event. Neither is the Nashville convention, I suspect. But she didn’t allow that to get in the way of her cashing a check. I doubt she truly understands the nature of the genuine Tea Party movement very well at all.
I’ve been to the tea parties in my area. I can’t continue to support a movement that could end up strengthening what the movement is supposed to be against. I’m starting to get mad. I’m starting to believe that the Tea Party movement has been taken over by opportunists.
Unfortunately, and as all too often happens in politics, it’s a pox on all their houses in my opinion just now. If something changes to alter my current opinion, I’ll say so. Until then, I’m moving on from this now unfortunate mess mainly courtesy of Palin, if you ask me.
No more whining about press hit jobs, Sarah. You’ve now proved yourself rather capable of orchestrating the very same thing. Maybe Hillyer is right and getting over yourself wouldn’t be such a bad idea. I’ve no intention of making the mistake the Left made by becoming so entranced with a shooting star my eyes glaze over. They forgot stars don’t burn forever and don’t stay aloft very long, either. The Right cannot afford to make the same mistake.
Other bloggers talking about this:
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Outside the Beltway: Palin Rebuffs CPAC
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Right Wing Nut House: SARAH PALIN AS THE PIVOT FOR ‘NEW’ GOP
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Don Surber: Palin turns down CPAC
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