Neither Christie nor McDonnell appears to be in the GOP sweet spot anymore. | AP Photos CPAC's absent GOP rock stars

Bob McDonnell and Chris Christie are two of the Republican Party’s big success stories: popular East Coast governors who have enacted conservative policies in states that President Barack Obama won twice. Elected together in 2009, the pair formed an advance guard for the 2010 Republican revolution.

And during the Conservative Political Action Conference this week, both governors find themselves on the political ash heap.


Neither McDonnell nor Christie was invited to speak at CPAC, one of the premier showcase events for national Republicans. The snub of Christie was more heavily covered —perceived as punishment for his post-Hurricane Sandy embrace of Obama — but both governors have run afoul of CPAC organizers in related ways.

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Officials with the American Conservative Union, which hosts CPAC, caution not to draw any dramatic conclusions from the fact that Christie and McDonnell didn’t make the cut this year. Both have spoken at CPAC in the past; the fact that Christie irked the right after Sandy and that McDonnell backed a tax-raising transportation bill this year doesn’t mean that they’ve been written out of the conservative movement altogether.

But in an age when conservative advocacy groups, right-leaning media and a white-hot Republican base tend to reward the most confrontational and theatrical politicians, neither Christie nor McDonnell appears to be in the GOP sweet spot anymore.

Instead, the heroes of the moment are a trio of senators with far fewer substantive accomplishments but a far tighter emotional bond with the GOP base: Marco Rubio of Florida, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Ted Cruz of Texas.

It all amounts to a jarringly rapid turn of events for the GOP’s rock stars of 2009, whose off-year victories in competitive gubernatorial elections brought cheer to a dejected Republican Party — and whose accomplishments since taking office set them near the head of the pack of conservatives nationwide.

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“McDonnell and Christie’s victories really showed that the tide was turning,” recalled Ralph Reed, the longtime Republican organizer who heads the Faith & Freedom Coalition.

Reed, who said he has “some disagreements” with both McDonnell and Christie, invited the Virginia governor to address his group’s Friday breakfast, which is taking place at the same venue as CPAC. He urged observers not to over-interpret what CPAC means to the governors’ political standing.

“I think there is a sense in which American politics is beginning to resemble, sort of, a reality show. There’s a little bit of an ‘American Idol’ quality to it. And right now, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul and Ted Cruz are arguably the hottest properties in the party,” Reed said. “But I still think Christie and Bob McDonnell are important figures.”

Aides to McDonnell and Christie declined to comment on their exclusion from this year’s CPAC gathering, which starts Thursday in National Harbor, Md. In a statement, ACU President Al Cardenas said the reality of scheduling such a packed event is that “it is impossible to invite everyone we would wish to the conference.”

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“This year, we have invited leaders who are focused on furthering conservative ideals, and we even invited a select number of those with whom we disagree,” Cardenas said.

Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist said the absence of invitations for Christie and McDonnell wasn’t some kind of elaborate rebuke. “The tax increase [McDonnell] got wrapped around the axle on really happened long after the invites went out,” Norquist offered, but he acknowledged that the formula for choosing featured speakers didn’t work out in the governors’ favor this year.

“CPAC has always had competing tensions. The guy who comes from Kansas [to attend CPAC] wants to see stars,” said Norquist, who sits on the ACU’s board. “Some of the stars aggressively wish to come and make that known. They make it easy to schedule them. … There are a lot of people who I think are stars of years to come who we wanted to get on the stage and just weren’t able to do it time-wise and schedule-wise.”

But Norquist also left little room for doubt about his feelings toward McDonnell, at least, joking of the Virginian’s planned event with the Faith & Freedom Coalition: “I think what they’ll probably be doing is having a laying on of hands to see if they can drive out the tax-increasing demons that have grabbed a hold of him.”

Other strategists associated with CPAC didn’t dispute the notion that Christie and McDonnell are more or less in the conservative doghouse these days — one for being insufficiently partisan at the height of the 2012 campaign, the other for cutting a historic deal on transportation funding that angered the GOP base.

That these two governors could be so quickly set aside as national conservative leaders — at least for now — is an object lesson in the transience of political power at a moment when rank-and-file Republican activists would rather hear from a silver-tongued ideologue who serves in a legislature than a conventional, deal-making politician who carries the burden of actually having to govern a state.

From a more traditional perspective, both Christie and McDonnell might be viewed as case studies of what conservative governance looks like in the Obama era. Both have cut taxes and spending on the state level: Christie enacted a major pension overhaul in union-heavy New Jersey, while McDonnell just last month advanced a key conservative priority by pushing through a bill that reforms teacher tenure and evaluation procedures.

Both are reliable social conservatives who have opposed abortion rights and gay marriage in states Obama won in 2012 while taking the opposite stance on both issues.

Their approval ratings put them high on the list of big-state Republican leaders nationwide. Christie recorded a 74 percent approval rating in a Quinnipiac University poll late last month, while both Quinnipiac and the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling measured McDonnell’s approval around the 50 percent mark and comfortably in net positive territory overall.

For Christie, who’s currently running for reelection in his Democratic-leaning home state, it might actually be easier to keep those numbers up by staying away from the activist spring break destination that is CPAC.

Peter Wehner, the former George W. Bush adviser, said the event’s lineup clearly shows a preference for flamboyant, combative personalities over substance — and not just with respect to McDonnell and Christie.

The lesson seems to be that “rhetorical posture is even more important than the record,” Wehner said. “Inviting Donald Trump and not inviting Christie is insane. Trump’s not a conservative. He’s a clown act.”

“There are certain people you need in a party who are, in principle, advocates. Both Rand Paul and Cruz are so new to the scene,” Wehner said. “If you’re in the minority in the Senate, a lot of times all you have is filibusters and committee hearings, congressional hearings. That’s different than being a governor, where you’re a chief executive and you have to govern.”

Norquist countered that at an event as enormous as CPAC, there’s nothing wrong with a good song and dance act to leaven the occasion.

“I think there’s always a combination of somebody’s in the big city [to attend CPAC] and wants to see people he only sees on TV in person — hence, bringing the guy who’s the flavor of the month, hence, somebody like Trump,” Norquist said. “Same thing with Sarah Palin. Is she running for something next week? No, but she’s famous.”