The Other McCain

My 17-year-old son Bob was driving home Monday evening after we’d picked up his twin brother James from work and we were listening to the Mark Levin’s opening monologue on 1490 AM here in Hagerstown when I said, “Uh-oh, he’s going after Glenn Beck.” I grabbed pen and a piece of paper and jotted down a few notes, but Mark Maloney at the Radio Equalizer has pretty much the whole thing.

Rather than go into detail, let me ask you something possibly related: Am I the only one mystified by Michelle Malkin‘s non-participation in this year’s CPAC?

Michelle always speaks at CPAC. But not this year. Instead, she made a surprise appearance at the blogger’s bash hosted by FreedomWorks.

I don’t know that her absence had anything to do with Beck having the coveted closing-night address — reserved last year for Rush Limbaugh — but a few things occur to me as I think about this Levin-vs.-Beck dust-up.

Michelle Malkin and Mark Levin both had No. 1 bestsellers this past year. Levin’s conservative credentials are impeccable, dating back to the Reagan administration. Malkin has been a conservative columnist since she was in her 20s, is a frequent Fox News contributor and popular campus speaker and, in terms of the conservative blogosphere, her influence is rivaled only by Instapundit.

If you compare either Levin or Malkin to Glenn Beck in terms of their years of service to the conservative cause, then, Beck is certainly much their junior. And since we’re making such comparisons, what about Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter?

Granted, Beck has had an amazing impact since switching from CNN to Fox. He is a dynamic personality and his innovative show is now arguably the most fascinating hour on television.

Despite all that, however, he hasn’t paid his dues to the conservative cause to the extent that Levin, Malkin, Hannity and Coulter have paid their dues. The choice of Beck for the final night’s slot, then, could be perceived as a slight to those others. If that prime spot had gone to any of those four, well, OK. But . . . a Johnny-come-lately? And a somewhat erratic Johnny-come lately, at that?

I’m not saying that’s the explanation, I’m just pointing out that Beck’s lack of seniority in the conservative movement could be a factor here, above and beyond whatever specific criticisms Levin or anyone else makes.

The inexplicable absence of Malkin from this year’s CPAC program is certainly an omen of something. Whether it has anything to do with Beck, I don’t know, but my gut hunch tells me it’s an interesting story, whatever it is.

UPDATE: I agree with what Jonah Goldberg says about Bill Bennett’s criticism of Beck’s CPAC speech. And I like Dan Riehl’s take on the topic of conservative leadership.

In general, I don’t like conservative infighting, except when I’m the one starting the fight, like my call for Goldberg to lead a National Review coup against Rich Lowry. I saw Jonah at CPAC and again urged him to overthrow the Lowry regime, but he demurred. Don’t wait too long, Jonah, or I’ll start talking to eager young Robert Costa — he has that lean and hungry look — and the Costa uprising will overthrow both you and Lowry in favor of a Ponnuru-Derbyshire junta.

My friend (and sometimes antagonist) Quin Hillyer chaired this panel featuring Jonah Goldberg, Amity Schlaes and Herb London:

People who know me as the CPAC Schmooze King — as William Upton of The American Conservative observes, I have a knack for being everywhere at CPAC — often ask me, “Stacy, why have you never been asked to speak at CPAC, nor even to participate in a panel discussion?” I suggest these possible explanations:

1. I’m not 14 years old, like Jonathan Krohn.
2. I’m not a graceless douchebag like Ryan Sorba:
3. My so-called “friends” in the conservative movement, who might have sufficient influence to recommend me for inclusion in the CPAC program, are consumed by secret envy of my superior abilities. This is my own pet theory, especially in the wee hours of the morning when I brood over these repeated snubs, but I don’t expect others to encourage my unfortunate tendency toward a paranoiac worldview.
4. Sponsors are fearful of criticism for officially including a participant accused of “extremism.” That used to be my favorite pet theory, until it was invalidated by CPAC’s inclusion of the John Birch Society this year.
5. There is a grain of truth in Mike Huckabee’s “pay for play” smear. People outside the ACU/CPAC circle don’t understand the process of organizing this annual event. The sponsors of the conference control the conference, period. They do their best to make the event interesting and informative. The people actively engaged in this organizational work — in meetings, in conference calls, in e-mails — ultimately exercise a yea-or-nea authority over who speaks or doesn’t speak at CPAC, especially on the main ballroom stage. The alternative events (workshops, seminars, panel discussions and receptions outside the main ballroom) all have their own sponsors, who control the selection of participants in those events. So unless you are a Fox TV superstar, a big-name politician or some other conservative celebrity, getting onto the CPAC program is largely a function of your having a sponsoring organization that will push for your inclusion. And I don’t, so I’m not included. QED.

One always hears post-CPAC complaints and grumbles: “Why was so-and-so asked to speak instead of such-and-such?” And it always comes down to this basic explanation: The person who was included had a sponsor/advocate and the person who wasn’t included did not.

The internal processes behind CPAC are seldom discussed very frankly in public. It’s almost like Fight Club — the first rule of CPAC planning is that nobody talks about CPAC planning. But certainly, anyone who uses their CPAC appearance to disparage CPAC will be persona non grata thenceforth.

Good-bye, Ryan Sorba, you graceless douchebag.

He got 4% in the CPAC straw poll — which was won by Ron Paul — and suddenly decides that a gathering of 10,000 conservative activists is a bad thing:

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee blasted the Conservative Political Action Conference Saturday as outdated, nearly corrupt and unrepresentative of the conservative movement. . . .
“CPAC has becoming increasingly more libertarian and less Republican over the last years, one of the reasons I didn’t go this year,” Huckabee said in an interview with Fox News, where he is a paid analyst and has his own show. . . .
Huckabee said the rise of the tea party movement had “taken all of the oxygen out of the room,” rendering the venerable conference far less relevant than it had been in previous years.
“Where CPAC was historically the event, the tea parties are having their own events all over the country and a lot more truly grassroots people are getting involved because of the tea parties,” said the former governor.
And, goaded by Fox Host Geraldo Rivera, Huckabee went even further.
“Because of the way that it solicits sponsors, it’s almost becomes a pay-for-play,” he said. “It’s kind of like, who will pay money to be able to be a sponsor and get time in the program. That’s one of the things that has hurt its credibility in the last couple of years.”

Heh. So now that he’s got his own Fox News show, Huckabee’s too good for CPAC? I’m thinking of calling Lisa De Pasquale and suggesting that next year’s CPAC feature the Mike Huckabee Award for Outstanding Douchebaggery.

UPDATE: Speaking of which, apparently some douchebag at CPAC was trying to impress chicks by impersonating Glenn Reynolds. I’m probably not tall enough to impersonate the professor, but you’ll know if I try it when you see a guy’s blog post titled, “Why Was Instapundit Looking Down My Girlfriend’s Blouse?”