• CPAC,  WCPAC

    Big Conservative Organizations Leaving CPAC

    Mark Steyn and Pamela Geller at CPAC

    It was bound to happen by trying to accommodate everyone – from the John Birch Society to GOProud.

    Two of the nation’s premier moral issues organizations, the Family Research Council and Concerned Women for America, are refusing to attend the Conservative Political Action Conference in February because a homosexual activist group, GOProud, has been invited.

    “We’ve been very involved in CPAC for over a decade and have managed a couple of popular sessions. However, we will no longer be involved with CPAC because of the organization’s financial mismanagement and movement away from conservative principles,” said Tom McClusky, senior vice president for FRC Action.

    “CWA has decided not to participate in part because of GOProud,” CWA President Penny Nance told WND.

    FRC and CWA join the American Principles Project, American Values, Capital Research Center, the Center for Military Readiness, Liberty Counsel, and the National Organization for Marriage in withdrawing from CPAC. In November, APP organized a boycott of CPAC over the participation of GOProud.

    Besides social conservatives being upset with the inclusion of GOProud, there is also a financial scandal that is brewing within the CPAC organization.

    The non-profit organization responsible for the largest annual conservative gathering in the U.S. is under investigation for embezzlement of hundreds of thousands of dollars in donor money over several years, WND has learned.

    The American Conservative Union, headed by David Keene and best known for its organization of the Conservative Political Action Conference each year in the nation’s capital, has been embroiled in controversies in recent years, but this one is shaking the foundations of the Washington institution.

    The American Conservative Union reported to the Internal Revenue Service last month a “material diversion of the organization’s assets” totaling over $400,000. The group has an annual operating budget of about $1.5 million.

    I never found the desire to travel to D.C. in the middle of winter to cozy up to conservative pundits and leaders who would always come to California anyway. And, besides, the weather is horrendous and why pay for misery?

    Also, with the advent of social media, access to the conservative movement is only a tweet or click away.

    For convention junkies, there is always WCPAC.
    where my USC buddy, Jim Lacy is Chairman.  There will NOT be a controversy there, I bet.

    I will probably attend WCPAC this next year.