Michael Barone, senior writer for U.S. News & World Report and principal co-author of the "definitive" Almanac of American Politics, published by the self-described “nonpartisan” National Journal Group, was a featured speaker at the 2005 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), held February 17-19 in Washington. Speaking at a forum titled "2004: How the Good Guys Won," Barone accused Democrats in Washington state of trying to “steal a few more votes to put their governor candidate in,” claimed the “old media” “tried to defeat him [President Bush] in the worst way,” and said of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) and the 2008 presidential election: “She's already thrown her broom into the ring.”

The forum's moderator was Marc Rotterman, a senior fellow at the conservative John Locke Foundation and treasurer of the American Conservative Union, which hosted CPAC. Rotterman's media consulting firm, Rotterman & Associates, has worked for Republican campaigns that have used race- and gay-baiting political tactics, including that of former Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC), as well as for right-wing pundit David Horowitz's Center for the Study of Popular Culture, as Media Matters for America recently documented. The other panelist at the event was National Rifle Association president Kayne B. Robinson.

Here are a few highlights from Barone's presentation:

BARONE: Marc [Rotterman] has mentioned that we're going to be talking about 2004 this morning, but of course some people are already thinking ahead to 2008. I mean, you know, she's [Clinton] already thrown her broom into the ring.

[...]

Let me just speak briefly about the 2004 election and talk about something that not too many people talk about, and that is reading the election returns. Most people, most people don't read the election returns, most people don't read the numbers. Winning candidates, they have lots of work to do, they go on to other things. Losing candidates can't bear to look at the election returns, you know, it's “Oh, geez, I lost Polk County too, you know, oh yuck.” They can't bear to look at it. Political reporters, they're moving on to the next story of the day, trying to skewer the Bush administration any way they can. And the political scientists at the universities, they will get around to this in the next five or 10 years.

[...]

Total voter turnout -- and this was a number that really didn't appear on our screens on election night, and, you know, they were still getting votes in from the mail-in vote in California, the Democrats in Washington were still trying to scrounge a few more -- steal a few more votes to put their governor candidate in -- total voter turnout increased 16 percent from 2004, as compared to 2000. That is a big jump.

[...]

Let me just conclude by making one other point that I think is important, and that is this campaign also saw the eclipse of old media and the rise of new media. Old media -- [Applause] sounds like you know what I'm talking about. Old media is The New York Times, CBS, ABC, NBC, the old broadcast networks. I've been around Washington and in close touch with the people in old media for 32 years, I have never seen an attempt to try to defeat a political candidate the way old media tried to defeat Bush. They tried to defeat him in the worst way, and it ended up in the worst way for them. [Applause] They pulled out all the stops. They tried to suppress the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth story.

[...]

In any case, old media tried to destroy Bush and succeeded only in discrediting itself. There is a new ballgame out there. We are networking in all sorts of ways as Americans, and so there's a great -- the broad, sunny uplands are there in front of us, if we will take advantage of them. Thank you.

Conservatives like Barone have cited the 2004 Washington state governor's race as an example of alleged Democrat voter fraud. The initial vote count put Republican Dino Rossi 261 votes ahead of Democrat Christine Gregoire, but recounts conducted under state law made Gregoire the winner by 129 votes. Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund alleged that “creative counting” of votes took place, as Media Matters has noted. The Seattle Times has pointed out that while “the hand recount [upon which Gregoire was declared the winner] included votes that had been missed in the earlier machine recount ... each vote had to meet the same standards for validity as anything counted in the original tally.”

On February 22, Media Matters President and CEO David Brock sent a letter to John Fox Sullivan, president of National Journal Group, publisher of Barone's Almanac of American Politics, asking him to “consider the propriety of the author of a 'definitive' book on politics, published by a 'nonpartisan' media organization, speaking at a clearly partisan event such as CPAC and publicly deriding a U.S. senator as a witch.” The letter also noted several of Barone's past comments that “seem inconsistent with National Journal Group's commitment to 'nonpartisan' and 'reliable' services.”