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Last weekend, the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington D.C., hosted the annual Conservative Political Action Conference. This year’s three-day gathering of America’s right-wing from across the country took place in the political context of recent electoral setbacks for Republicans including losing the Presidency to a Democrat. David Keene, conference founder and President of the American Conservative Union, opened CPAC this year by attempting to characterize such losses as primarily a result of abandoning conservative principles by Republican politicians. Keene went on to predict a comeback of conservatism based on a new generation of leaders. As for the more pressing question of who will lead the GOP in the immediate future, the conference became a flashpoint for the discussion. In a taped interview on CNN that aired last weekend during CPAC, Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele asserted that he, and not Rush Limbaugh, was the de facto leader of the party, calling the conservative talk show host “an entertainer.” Limbaugh, for his part, was the speaker chosen to close this year’s CPAC gathering, and used the nationally televised opportunity to speak to conservatives reassuring them that they need only to nominate the right candidate for president in order to stage a political comeback.

GUEST: Bill Berkowitz, regular contributor to www.religiondispatches.org