Every year, the GOP gets gobs of media attention about their agenda - all viewable by their "base", via these "conferences" - "CPAC", "Values Voters", "Faith and Freedom", etc. CSPAN laps these up.
There was an interesting article making that point a few years ago -
Why Are There So Many Conservative Conferences?
Molly Ball Jun 18, 2012
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The past few years have seen an explosion of conservative get-togethers, a ceaseless national circuit of weekend meetups packed with speeches, strategy sessions, panel discussions, dinners and parties. The Faith and Freedom conference, now in its third year, in many ways duplicates the Values Voter Summit put on each fall by the Family Research Council. RightOnline, begun in 2008 to counter the liberal YearlyKos (now Netroots Nation), has analogues in the BlogCon and RedState gatherings. And upstart conventions put on by tea party groups or grassroots activists seem to spring up all the time. To make his appearance at CPAC Chicago earlier this month, Herman Cain had to cancel his appearance at the Conservative Leadership Conference in Las Vegas, while conservative news outlets found themselves pulled between those two and the concurrent Future of Journalism Summit being put on in Providence by the Heritage Foundation and the Franklin Center. "I can hardly keep up with them all," marveled Jerri Ann Henry, who handles digital outreach for the political PR firm JDA Frontline.
There are activist gatherings for the left -- Netroots is the big one, the liberal CPAC if there is one (this year's program featured Keith Olbermann and Elizabeth Warren). A nine-year-old progressive gathering, the Take Back the American Dream conference, was getting under way in Washington on Monday. But for Democrats, there has been nowhere near the proliferation of candidate cattle calls and ideologically oriented activist confabs recently seen on the right.
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The constant conferencing has some obvious upsides for the conservative movement. It helps keep the base engaged, enthused, and working to build the kind of grassroots organization that has historically been Democrats' stronger suit. And while the flood of invitations can be wearying for Republican politicians, who must carefully pick and choose appearances based on whom they wish to appeal to and what message they hope to send, it's also a valuable opportunity for officeholders with their eyes on bigger things to build a profile outside their home states.
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"We're not just playing around. We're not just shadowboxing," said Reed, whose rise as head of the Christian Coalition in the 1990s was derailed somewhat by his involvement in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal. The Faith and Freedom Coalition represents Reed's political comeback, and it's clear that his natural affinity for this type of work has not diminished.
"We're playing for keeps," he added. "We're playing for the biggest prize in the history of the human race -- that's the United States of America -- and we are not going to lose."
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/06/why-are-there-so-many-conservative-conferences/258637/
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