Trail To The Chief: The CPAC Effect Edition

This week, the field of hopefuls on the Republican side of the 2016 nomination circus faced a critical acid test -- the Conservative Political Action Conference, better known as CPAC. Every year, CPAC brings together the nation’s most engaged conservatives -- dedicated activists, media renegades, big-think specialists, and the college kids who all want to be a part of it. From there, their collective pull summons those in the Republican Party who most want to be its standard-bearer.

And this, in turn, presents every would-be presidential candidate with an interesting challenge. Because CPAC isn’t about gratifying party elites or wealthy Republican grandees. Neither is it about pleasing the Republican “base” -- by which we mean the masses of voters who prefer conservative policies. At CPAC, you try to satisfy the conservative movement itself -- whose members are most on the cutting edge of American conservatism, and always spoiling for a fight with anyone deemed to be lacking in purity.

So, we’re going to take another stab at ranking the GOP’s would-be nominees. However, this week we’re going to force ourselves to examine the field while looking through the CPAC prism -- a filter capable of making you question if the contender you thought was golden is really black and blue.

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