NATIONAL HARBOR, Md.—Last year, Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell looked very different to conservatives than he does today. At the start of an especially fiery speech on the Conservative Political Action Conference stage, McConnell gripped a rifle and lurched it into the air—his contract with conservatives that if they backed his re-election in November and sent a Republican majority to Capitol Hill, McConnell would block Obama's executive overreach and roll back Obamacare. When the going got tough, McConnell sent the signal he wouldn't back down.
Even then, the moment felt a little forced, a thinly-veiled attempt by the 30-year creature of Washington to appeal to the Second Amendment crowd. Many wondered if at his core, McConnell was still prepared to govern, not grandstand.
A year later, the CPAC crowd—the vocal base voters who show up to rallies, knock on doors for candidates, and make up the backbone of the party—have seen their worst doubts about McConnell realized.
"I would like Sen. McConnell to stand firm for the people who made him majority leader," says David Bossie, the president of Citizens United, a political activist group. "I believe that Mitch McConnell is a very smart and shrewd politician, but he has to listen to the people who put him in that position. Otherwise, it will be a short two years.
Wielding "Cruz Crew" buttons for Sen. Ted Cruz and proudly showing off a photograph with their favorite member of Congress and immigration hardliner, Rep. Louie Gohmert, husband and wife Susan and Mike Najvar balk at the suggestion that McConnell is even the majority leader at this point.
"He's letting Reid run everything right this minute. He's in the fetal position," Susan Najvar said. "Reid needs to go have some more eye surgery because he is running everything."
As the deadline looms to fund the Homeland Security Department, the political math has forced McConnell to succumb to Democrats' demands. But here at CPAC, McConnell is not catching a break. Even after four failed attempts to pass a DHS funding bill that blocked Obama's executive action on immigration, McConnell still is villainized by conservative activists for detangling the must-pass spending legislation from the controversial immigration rider.
"He's no leader," says CPAC attendee Wayne Mazza. "I'd rather put up with six years of a Democrat and have a chance of getting a true conservative than have an establishment candidate that doesn't care about the American people."
Attendees at CPAC accentuate McConnell and Boehner's bind. Like those in their conference who have urged them not to back down, not to bring a clean bill to the floor, many conservatives here in the grand ballroom, sporting "Run Ben Run" t-shirts that encourage retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson to embark on a presidential campaign, and waving popsicle sticks with Cruz's face glued on, don't believe shutting down DHS matters. What they want is for someone to stand up against Obama.
"Let's take the pain and preserve the Constitution," says Chris Phillips. "If you get blamed for upholding the Constitution, that is a worthy cause."
Public polling reveals a government shutdown could undermine Republicans' ability to show they have the propensity to govern. A CNN poll showed Republicans would be blamed when images of unpaid government workers lead the evening news.
But at CPAC, attendees are not buying it.
Ken Wood, a federal employee who lived through the Clinton-era government shut down, says narratives of unpaid TSA agents and terrorist warnings are overwrought and strategically dramatic in an effort to push conservatives into a corner to cave.
"I went to Disney World," Wood said of his memories of the shutdown in 1994. "We got paid. We always get paid eventually."
Many at CPAC are dubious that the massive DHS does much to begin with.
"The whole thing is designed to confuse everybody," CPAC attendee Tim Brown says. "They are not doing anything to protect us as far as I am concerned. It is just another government agency that is sucking the life out of us."
By Friday, Boehner will be forced to choose what side he is on—whether he's going to bring a clean DHS bill to the floor and outrage his right flank and their constituents, or whether he will defy his new Capitol Hill ally and reject McConnell's DHS bill. Boehner also is considering a third option: a continuing resolution that would fund DHS for a matter of days or weeks while his party grapples with its options.
Here at CPAC, however, Boehner doesn't have a track record that bodes much confidence that he will hold the line, however.
"Everybody is looking at Boehner to see what he is going to do, and he won't say, but we know he's going to cave too," says CPAC attendee Pat Cashman. "They should have kicked him out when they had the chance."
Boehner's tightly guarding his strategy at this point, even leaving members of his own conference guessing. Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., says the speaker has gotten an earful from members calling for him to stop McConnell's clean bill, but, one day out, she says she's still not certain what Boehner is going to do.
"That's a question you'll have to ask Speaker Boehner," Blackburn says.
But while CPAC attendees might be prepared for a shutdown, some of the party's top strategists are still holding out hope that Boehner will take the political risk and pass legislation before time expires.
"When I was a mother and my children were squabbling, I would take them into a room, close the door and say, 'work it out,' says KT McFarland, a GOP national security expert who is at CPAC. "My idea of how solve a shutdown? Get a room, put the top guys in the room, close the door and tell them they can come out when they have gotten some kind of common cause or we are all going to the emergency room."
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