From this morning's Earlybird:

• "The American Conservative Union" today "will kick off the 37th annual Conservative Political Action Conference -- an event long known for red-meat rhetoric and patriotic fervor," Roll Call (subscription) reports.

• On the eve of the conference, "several well-known Republicans, including Edwin Meese III, the former attorney general, have signed a new document called the Mount Vernon Statement," the New York Times reports.

• "Since Richard Nixon was president," CPAC "has provided the American Right with an annual occasion for self-evaluation," Politico reports. Today, "when some 10,000 activists gather in Washington for this year's conference, they will find themselves part of a conservative movement significantly different than it was during the Bush administration, or even in 2009."