Can Pompeo step up out of Trump’s shadow? CPAC appearance highlights hurdles for 2024

To get to the ballroom where former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made his speech at CPAC on Friday afternoon, one had to push through a large crowd.

Past people with stickers saying “stop woke” and hats saying “cancel me.” Past women wearing shirts with a picture of Ashli Babbitt, the woman who was shot by Capitol Police while attempting to climb through a door to access the U.S. House during the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Past someone dressed like George Washington and someone dressed like a king.

But from the stage, in a rambling, mild-mannered speech that received lukewarm applause, Pompeo argued for a more serious Republican Party. He said that there is a crisis facing the conservative movement as Americans have lost confidence in it.

“We lost three elections in a row. The popular vote in seven of the last eight,” Pompeo said. “There are many reasons for this, but one is because I think they’ve lost trust in the conservative ideas. And this is the task that’s in front of us.”

Pompeo, a former Kansas congressman who is seen as a likely presidential candidate in 2024, brought up the midterm elections last year, where Republicans lost the Senate but won a narrow majority in the House. He said the party lost “winnable races” despite having a message he believed resonated with voters.

While the focus on 2022 could have been seen as a subtle jab at former President Donald Trump, who was blamed for supporting candidates that weren’t competitive in general elections, it was an unusual message for a candidate who is figuring out how to build enough support among the Republican base to defeat his former boss.

CPAC is an annual conference of conservative activists hosted by the American Conservative Union. It is as known for uplifting and welcoming some of the fringe ideas in the Republican Party as it is for attracting speeches from prominent conservatives.

Many in the conference were firmly supporting Trump. There were a number of Make America Great Again hats and in the speech before Pompeo, Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump got a large round of applause after asking if people were excited for Trump’s speech Saturday.

Though Pompeo referenced Trump in his speech, he never mentioned him by name. Instead, his speech could be seen as a call for new leadership, pointing out that Republicans have struggled to win popular support in a number of elections.

But in a place where resentment politics of the party was on full display there appeared to be little appetite for Pompeo’s call for a more pragmatic and serious tone of conservatism.

While conference leaders kicked out Nick Fuentes, a well-known white nationalist, the panels highlighted some of the more radical ideas in the party, from denying the results of the 2020 presidential election to claiming Fox News is no longer conservative enough because it isn’t supporting Trump.

“The culture war issues are where Trump’s going, where DeSantis is going. And these other candidates, if they want to compete, really have to do that as well,” said Jon Schweppe, the policy director of the American Principles Project, a political organization that supports culturally conservative candidates.

Pompeo also touched on the culture war, denouncing teachers unions and criticizing the military and schools over their stance on transgender rights. But his speech contained fewer lines about cultural issues than former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, who has already announced her presidential campaign. Both Haley and Pompeo served in Trump’s cabinet.

In a version of her stump speech, Haley called “woke culture” a virus and got applause for saying that as the first woman of color elected as governor in the country, she didn’t believe the country is racist.

While Haley argued for a new generation of leadership, Pompeo argued that conservatives need serious candidates who will be able to make a credible case to the American people about the need for conservative policies.

“Earning back that trust will be hard work. It won’t just be a campaign speech, it won’t just be talking about it,” Pompeo said. “We need demonstrated seriousness, people who will explain to the American people and their kids and grand kids why this matters. These will require tough choices, difficult choices, but the risks required are worthy.”

Pompeo has largely made that argument through his foreign policy credentials as a former CIA director and secretary of state. Earlier this week, he authored an op-ed last week arguing the Biden administration wasn’t doing enough to help the country defend itself.

His stance appeared slightly out of step with the conference, where many speakers indicated a deep skepticism about U.S. financial support for Ukraine. One event on Thursday, featuring former Trump deputy national security adviser K. T. McFarland, compared the country’s involvement in the war to the movie “Dr. Strangelove,” a 1960s film that ends in nuclear apocalypse.

A day later, Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia delivered a blistering speech aimed at Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy, arguing the United States should end its involvement in the conflict.

“What the United States is doing is we are actually accelerating a war there,” Greene told reporters after her speech. “And this war should be over. We should be promoting peace.”

In his speech, Pompeo largely avoided talking about Ukraine, aside from mentioning how the war contributed to the rising cost of fertilizer in Kansas. Instead he focused on China, a popular theme at the conference, where there was a booth with people warning about the Chinese Communist Party.

“This challenge that we all hear so much about from the Chinese Communist Party, this challenge threatens every aspect of our lives,” Pompeo said. “The real challenge from China is that they’re inside the gates.”