Word: cpac
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...back wall 2004 World Poker Champion Greg Raymer stood waiting for a talk radio interview. "Focus on the Family considers poker immoral," Raymer said, gesturing towards the Focus on the Family booth down an aisle. "They have no right to tell me what to do." Raymer is at CPAC representing the Poker Players Alliance, which is lobbying to have a 2005 ban on Internet poker lifted - literally one of the last bills passed by the GOP before they lost control of Congress. "In the privacy of our own homes, consenting adults should be able to do whatever they want," Raymer...
While I was flipping through the autobiography, a woman approached the booth. Catherine Sumner, it turned out, was part of GOProud, a group of openly gay Republicans and conservatives that for the first time is taking part in CPAC. "Is this your flyer?" Sumner demanded, waving the white and green pamphlet. Thus launched a debate about gays in the military that pretty much ended when the booth attendee told her that homosexuality is a sin and she's going to hell...
...away. "Across the board the reaction to GOProud's presence here has been positive, but then you have guys like this. Even Dick Cheney came out and says he supports us. Conservatives have to be more inclusive, they have to be." In fact, just one group, Liberty University, boycotted CPAC over the inclusion of GOProud, though the Catholic crowd weren't the only ones unnerved by their presence: one booth down from GOProud's set up in the fourth row, those manning the National Organization for Marriage, which works to ban gay marriage, kept casting nervous - and slightly envious - glances...
...CPAC has always been wonderful in its jumble of competing issue groups all jostling for attention. And it certainly has seen similar tensions in years past: this is the second year that the Poker Alliance has set up shop at CPAC. But it was striking to see in speech after speech many of the wedge issues that so preoccupied the most recent GOP majority - Terry Schiavo, abortion, stem cells, gays, family values, religion in government - sublimated to the GOP's laser-like focus on the economy and to see the CPAC's attempts, as with GOProud, to widen their tent...
...annual Conservative Political Action Conference has always had a large youth contingent, but this year's 10,000-person gathering is more than half students. "Road trip!" is a common explanation for what brought them to CPAC. But more and more young attendees - who pay just $25 for a three-day pass, vs. $175 for adults - are highly articulate conservatives running their school or state Young Republican chapters. "We've seen a huge uptick in membership in the last year," says Zach Howell, national chairman of the College Republicans. Just because they're conservative, though, doesn't mean they...