Conservatives were jubilant just a month ago at the Conservative Political Action Conference, hailing President Trump as a conquering hero who would advance the cause of conservatism and potentially even redefine it. Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president, declared that CPAC could practically be renamed “TPAC,” dropping the “conservative” and switching it out for “Trump.”
But a month later, many who have built their careers on conservative “purity” are on a collision course with a president who is beloved in their districts and who proved in his primary victory that the Republican Party’s center of gravity may not be about doctrinaire conservatism after all. And the survival of the new healthcare reform bill in the short run may depend quite a bit on whether or not it becomes known as “Trumpcare.”
