Skip to content
Link copied to clipboard

Ballots, bongs, and a ‘Freedom Breakfast’: On the agenda for Pa.’s conservative conference

Senate candidate Dave McCormick and other Pa. Republicans are attending the conference, which will feature a speech from election denier Dinesh D’Souza.

Senate candidate Dave McCormick is among the prominent Pennsylvania Republicans attending the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference, a conservative gathering in Camp Hill.
Senate candidate Dave McCormick is among the prominent Pennsylvania Republicans attending the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference, a conservative gathering in Camp Hill.Read moreTyger Williams / Staff Photographer
    by Anna Orso
    Published 

What do Dave McCormick, Vivek Ramaswamy, books, and bongs have in common?

Besides all being what Clout would like to see at a party, those people and discussion topics can be found on the agenda for this weekend’s Pennsylvania Leadership Conference, the state’s own version of the Conservative Political Action Conference, a.k.a. CPAC.

Today and tomorrow at a hotel in Camp Hill, conservatives will gather to schmooze at networking events with titles like “Freedom Breakfast” and learn at panels called things like “Books, Bongs, and Abortion: Protecting Children from the Left’s Agenda in PA.”

There are some big names in the state GOP on the schedule, include U.S. Reps. Scott Perry and Dan Meuser, treasurer Stacy Garrity, and attorney general contenders Dave Sunday and Craig Williams. McCormick, the presumed GOP nominee for Senate, is the most high-profile candidate scheduled to attend and will speak this afternoon.

Much of the rest of lineup comes from the decidedly MAGA wing of the party, and the agenda features a number of speakers who are big in the election denial movement, including Heather Honey, an activist whose erroneous work has been cited by national figures, including former President Donald Trump.

In fact, McCormick speaks right before Dinesh D’Souza, the right-wing provocateur who peddled a documentary and book filled with 2020 election disinformation. He alleged a conspiracy of “ballot trafficking” and wrongly claimed groups were stuffing vote-by-mail drop boxes with fake ballots.

Also scheduled to attend is Ramaswamy, the erstwhile presidential candidate who has called for “single day voting,” meaning no more early voting or mail ballots.

McCormick’s view is ... not that. The Senate candidate has said he’s supportive of a large effort to encourage mail voting in battleground states, and Politico recently reported that McCormick said on a call with other campaigns that Trump is “gonna have to come out” in support of mail voting more forcefully.

Clout provides often irreverent news and analysis about people, power, and politics.