Conservative rallies still going strong despite drop-off after 2016 election

DENVER | So many conservative conferences dot the landscape that it would be impossible to attend them all. Ask Jordan Hess. He’s tried.

The 29-year-old Heritage Foundation staffer has attended most of the 18 events sponsored by the think-tank, bouncing across Denver last weekend, from the American Legislative Exchange Council annual meeting at the Hyatt Regency to the Western Conservative Summit at the city’s convention center.

In doing so, however, he had to miss another two major conferences: FreedomFest in Las Vegas and the Texas Homeschool Coalition Convention in The Woodlands, Texas, which also spilled into the weekend.

“We have four different conferences in three different cities this week,” said Mr. Hess, Heritage’s director of coalition relations, as he staffed the booth at the Colorado Convention Center.

Not that he’s complaining. “Conferences are a great place to do a lot of information gathering,” Mr. Hess said. “We see what’s succeeding, what’s going on in the states, and how we can plug into that with our policy experts.”

While anti-Trump resistance progressives take to the streets, their right-wing counterparts are doing what they’ve done for years: storming the nation’s hotels and convention centers for a packed schedule of confabs, summits and gatherings.

Such conferences exploded in popularity during the Obama administration, leading to questions about whether the right-wing rallies can maintain their momentum with Republicans in control of the White House and Congress.

At the Western Conservative Summit, billed as the largest such conference outside Washington, D.C., attendance slipped this year to 3,500, down from last year’s 4,000.

At the same time, such a drop-off was expected in the aftermath of the frenzied 2016 election, which saw conservative conferences set records as Republican Senate and presidential candidates made the rounds.

Another popular event, the RedState Gathering, which has been held annually during the summer since 2009, has yet to advertise a 2017 conference.

Elsewhere, however, such conferences continue to proliferate. Turning Point USA recently added three regional gatherings to complement its Young Latino Leadership Summit, High School Leadership Summit, and Young Women’s Leadership Summit.

The lack of a high-profile election failed to dampen the enthusiasm of 25-year-old Nick Castle, who worked the Turning Point exhibit at the WCS and said he’s on pace to attend eight conferences by the end of the year.

He said part of the appeal of such events is the opportunity to meet with people his age who hold conservative views, who are often thin on the ground in college and graduate school.

“A lot of our outreach is conservative millennials who don’t feel like they have a voice. It’s an opportunity for them to meet,” said Jennie Christensen of Turning Point. “Plus it’s a chance for them to make a difference rather than just screaming outside.”

Not that the left doesn’t have its own confabs. The big kahuna is Netroots Nation, known as the CPAC of the left, which is being held next month in Atlanta. The Center for American Progress held its 2017 Ideas Conference in May.

In terms of sheer numbers, however, it’s hard to top the right. The Young America’s Foundation alone holds nearly a confab a month, drawing thousands each year to its Reagan Ranch gatherings and National Student Conservative Conference, which starts next week at George Washington University.

Then there’s the Faith and Freedom Summit, the Value Voters Summit, the Young Republicans National Federation, the Conservative Leadership Conference, the Weekly Standard Summit, the National Review Institute Ideas Summit, and the Steamboat Institute Freedom Conference, to name but a few.

John Nothdurft, Heartland Institute government-relations director, ticked off the events on his calendar, including the 25th State Policy Network Annual Meeting in San Antonio and the Young Women’s Leadership Summit in Newport Beach.

Why so many? One theory is that top conservative donors like the Koch brothers tend to support think-tanks, while liberal funders like George Soros typically throw their financial backing to advocacy groups.

The result is that conservative organizations often emphasize policy while liberal groups place a premium on advocacy, a subtle but perhaps crucial distinction.

“There are obviously a lot more think-tanks on the right than the left, and conservatives would rather talk about policy than protest,” said Mr. Nothdurft, who manned the Heartland booth at the ALEC meeting at the Hyatt Regency Denver.

Choosing between protests or conferences was no contest for Katherine Thompson, who worked the Heritage booth with Mr. Hess.

“At protests, sure, you have a presence and you get your 15 minutes of fame,” said Ms. Thompson, “but are you really influencing policy? We’re sharing ideas, and by the time we leave, we’ve got something new to think about every time.”