For the last eight years, conservatives used their signature annual gathering to blast the Obama administration and plot a Republican takeover. Now, the GOP is in charge -- and this week’s Conservative Political Action Conference is the movement’s first big chance since President Trump’s victory to hone their agenda.
“The conservative movement has elected a Republican president,” American Conservative Union Chairman Matt Schlapp said Wednesday, at the start of the annual conference, which his group sponsors. “It’s not so much now about complaining about President Obama’s agenda as it is about what we’ll do with political power and the responsibility to get the economy moving.”
Leaders are hoping to use the conference to strategize about what they can accomplish now that Republicans control Capitol Hill and the White House and to better articulate their values at a time when the very definition of conservatism has seemed to waver.
The conference at National Harbor, just outside Washington, D.C., will feature a host of lawmakers and officials -- including top White House advisers and Vice President Pence on Thursday, and President Trump on Friday morning.
White House Counselor Kellyanne Conway predicted Thursday morning that the energy surrounding the new president is so intense, “tomorrow it will be TPAC when he’s here.” Read more at Fox News