CPAC Event Focuses on More Than Just Politics

Many of the attendees at the RPOFs Presidency 5 event in Orlando stood in line to vote in the U.S. Senate straw poll held by the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Friday afternoon -- and have a hint as to why the annual CPAC event in the Beltway is a happening for many right-of-center activists.

Businessman Herman Cain sat at a table set up by his presidential campaign, signing books for supporters. Gov. Rick Scott was appearing on the Ed Dean Radio Show -- which your humble blogger was fortunate enough to appear on on Thursday -- while excited Republicans applauded him.

At a booth set up by the iconic conservative group Intercollegiate Studies Institute, a star of a different sort was holding court. George Nash, who has a Ph.D. in history from Harvard, is best known for being one of the chief scholars on the American conservative movement. His The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945 remains a classic 35 years after it was first published. His three-volume biography on Herbert Hoover remains the definitive look at the rise of that enigmatic, but important, figure in American history. Nashs Reappraising the Right: The Past and Future of American Conservatism that came out in 2009 was an important touchstone on the current state of the conservative movement.

While CPAC focuses on politics, Nashs attendance serves as a reminder that there is much more to the conservative movement than winning elections.