To be fair, it is difficult to blame Priebus for failing to confront CPAC.
It's who won't be making the trek to Maryland that has made CPAC headlines so far.
Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell also may have designs on the White House, but he is not addressing CPAC.
Back in 1981, Ronald Reagan made a triumphant appearance at CPAC, giving one of his first speeches as president.
And Friday night former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who lately has openly discussed 2016, will keynote a CPAC dinner.
Senators Rand Paul and Marco Rubio gave "big" speeches at CPAC that were slathered in news coverage and punditry.
McDonnell, a top Mitt Romney liaison with conservatives just a few months ago, was not invited to speak at CPAC.
This time around there are 23 names on the straw poll ballot, including some who were not invited to CPAC.
But there's also been plenty of criticism in recent years that the CPAC straw poll is not the indicator it once was.
But Clinton-bashing was to be expected at events like the CPAC conference.
When Breitbart lashed out at Occupy Wall Street protesters during CPAC, his outburst was readily available thanks to camera phones and YouTube.
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In a speech last month at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Richard Fisher, President of the Dallas Federal Reserve, made an eloquent plea for action on TBTF.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, the potential candidate the press corps seems to like most for now, wasn't invited to CPAC and that, of course, is an enormous story.
As a professional reporter, I had frequently had occasion to skewer Republicans, exposing the hypocrisies of the religious Right -- many of whose leaders figured prominently at the CPAC conference.
His speech at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) is notable as many of the grass-roots activists were sceptical of his conservative credentials in the run-up to the presidential election.
Finally, the conservative intellectual pillar Charles Murray took the CPAC stage to argue that the conservative movement must accept same-sex marriage if it wishes to win elections in the future.
McCain also asked the audience to forgive him for his absence from last year's CPAC, when he was the only major Republican candidate to reject an invitation to speak at the conference.
Indeed, the stakes are nothing less than the future of America, whose best hope is that a new, stronger and more dynamic Reagan conservative coalition will emerge from the divisions papered over at CPAC 2011.
In fact, earlier this year, an array of organizations and individuals representing virtually the entire conservative movement joined a press conference at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) to release their own letter to Sen.
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