It is 11:30 PM, and I am once again exhausted, though ebullient after a powerhouse day. If you're reading this blog, I'm surmising that you probably caught the Fox simulcast of Rush Limbaugh's speech to CPAC tonight, so were able to see it firsthand. (I believe C-SPAN aired it later, at around 8:00.) I will wait until tomorrow evening when we have a 3 hour layover in Detroit to post on that, as well as some of the other afternoon speeches and closing events and news. What a conference!!! I truly wish I had the stamina to stay up and post now, but 1) I'm exceedingly weary and 2) we want to see a few sights in the morning before we fly out in the afternoon. So for now, here was my assessment of the first several events of the day:
12:10 PM—Things got in high gear very quickly this morning, as one of my heroes, former Senator Rick Santorum from Pennsylvania, kicked things off this morning with a fiery speech. Tim Goeglein, former press spokesman for Indiana’s former Senator Dan Coats, introduced Santorum with a story I had forgotten about, but I remember when it occurred. Back in the mid-90’s, Santorum was debating Barbara Boxer on the Senate floor on the issue of partial-birth abortion. Boxer’s thesis was that no person is a person until that person exits the womb. Santorum, half exasperated and half in disbelief, replied, “But it’s a BABY!!!” (No matter where it is, prior to or after emergence from the birth canal.) Just at that moment, against all odds, from the packed gallery, a baby cried out. Santorum later amended the story to drive home the point even further: Babies are not allowed in the Senate gallery. (Jed and I were just piecing the story together from our collective memories; apparently, a door to the gallery flew open at just the right moment for a baby’s cry to be audible from outside the entrance.) Santorum pulls no punches and the crowd ate it up. He was very vocal about the failures to communicate experienced by Republicans in the previous administration. While he was not discourteous to Obama, he did point out that we are in very dangerous times, yet “we have elected someone from the minor leagues” to lead this country. Santorum also articulated the threat the country faces from radical Islam more explicitly than anyone I had yet heard at this particular event. He voiced a rebuke that needs to be made more frequently: this is not a “War on Terror.” Terror is a tactic and a strategy, not a subject that can be narrowed down and defeated. The enemy is radicalized Islam, and we must be prepared to defend the country against it.
Governor Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota was next. Apparently, he feared the crowd would not be very familiar with him, but I didn’t notice anyone leaving the nearly full ballroom after Santorum was done. (The crowds are MASSIVE today.) Pawlenty delivered the goods; his style is a very different one from Santorum, for instance, but extremely effective. He has a very neighborly, engaging, conversational style to his speaking that I find very non-threatening, yet persuasive. You look at this man in action and you can’t help but think “Rising Star.” I think he has to be considered as potentially in the mix for 2012. Pawlenty comes, as I discovered today, from a very unlikely background for a Republican governor, yet this has proven to be his recipe for success. Several of his brothers are union members and he has a sister who is a Special Ed teacher in a public school; not exactly the standard CPAC constituency. Yet, he told the story of how he won most of them over and the questions he asked in the process of doing so: “Do you want more taxes? Do you want more regulation? Do you want your guns increasingly restricted, as well as your fishing rights?” Et cetera. Pawlenty’s speech was about the most wide-ranging, business-oriented talk I have heard from an executive politician the whole conference. This man knows whereof he speaks. Watch him. He will go places.
At 11:15, we were privileged to hear from a man whom I have admired for almost half my life. Bill Bennett is a giant in the conservative movement, and he was warmly welcomed by the crowd. He is not a flame throwing speechmaker, but has more of a teaching style, which I find very enjoyable. He revealed to the crowd that he has assembled a team of educational experts to make his two-volume work on American History (America: The Last Best Hope) into curriculum that is usable in schools. This curriculum has now been approved for use in Illinois, New York City and yes, INDIANA! Bennett also spoke at length on the threat of radical Islam. He told the story of a 50-something year old Islamic woman whose name I can’t recall at the moment who recruited 80-plus female suicide bombers for the cause of jihad. A little-known detail: this despicable piece of human debris also arranged for the rape of each of these women a while prior, so that in their disgrace, they would be amenable to the suggestion of martyrdom in order to regain admission to Paradise. Bennett’s quote: “We cannot and will not share the earth with such people.” (I am not really sure how I feel about that way of stating it. We can’t police the world, and similar things probably go on in countries that are our allies. We certainly should do everything we can to make sure such radical offenders to society are prosecuted and punished.)
2:23 PM—One of the most anticipated speakers of the day, yea, even the entire weekend, was clearly Ann Coulter. People had to be turned away at the door for her 1:00 PM speech. Tom Delay introduced Ann Coulter in this fashion: “I have people come up to me all the time, saying they appreciate so much that I say the things out loud that they’re thinking, but won’t say. Ann Coulter says the things out loud that I am thinking, but don’t dare say!”
I have gone from loving Ann Coulter to being disappointed in some of her rhetoric, back to a new appreciation of what she says and writes. Ann Coulter is a satirist. There is no public speaker today who does it better, as proved by the sellout crowds she draws on college campuses and the books she sells in the millions. The remark of which I disapproved was the one she made at CPAC 2007 about John Edwards, calling him a disparaging term for a homosexual. This has to be balanced by a couple of observations. First, all people say at least one unadvised thing a year, perhaps more. But even more to the essence, the same Media Matters-oriented crew that are up in arms constantly over Ann Coulter give a complete pass to the nasty bilge that spews daily from the likes of Al Franken, Lewis Black, Kathy Griffin, Rosie O’Donnell and Bill Maher (the latter of whom I will not watch for any reason at any time in any place). Jed was in 7th heaven with Ann Coulter on stage and got his book signed later! (My wife, who would never say a mean word to or about anyone, stood in line to get our Coulter book signed last year.) I won’t recount Ann’s wit for you; you can go to http://www.anncoulter.com/ and read her columns to your heart’s content and you’ll get the gist of what we heard for 30 minutes. She is a very gifted and funny woman, and supremely intelligent, which is very clear when you read her books, which are extensively footnoted and documented throughout.
Andrew Breitbart brought a panel on that was very interesting, about conservatism in Hollywood. David Horowitz, another of my movement heroes (his autobiography, Radical Son, is absolute must reading, if you want to comprehend the encroachment leftists have made in this country in the last 40 years) mentioned different conservatives and libertarians with whom he has interacted, including Kurt Russell, Dennis Miller and Gary Sinise. Robert Davi was also present; not a household name, but he is an actor whose face you might recognize if you plug his name into imdb.com.
The one wish I have is that I could have dared to leave the Regency to head to another panel session or two in the Ambassador Ballroom across the way. Seats, however, are a closely guarded commodity as I type today because of Rush Limbaugh’s pending arrival for the 5:00 closing speech. I did leave the room for a few minutes for a cup of Starbucks while asking my seatmates to guard my chair; I even left my laptop, which I wouldn’t dare request that complete strangers do anywhere else but here. (This was as much as I typed today; please come back for more tomorrow!)
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Friday, February 27, 2009
CPAC 2009: Day 2
I decided to try a different approach today, since I took my laptop along, even though I didn't have access to Wi Fi. I typed three posts at different times throughout the day, finishing the last one a few minutes ago. Enjoy!
11:15 AM—Today, on Friday, Day 2 of CPAC, there are noticeably larger crowds, though not everyone is as dedicated as Jed and I are. We were here and in our seats by shortly after 8:00 (after picking up the free medium coffee that was available at the nearby McDonald’s Monday-Friday, 5-9 AM) in time to see the first speaker of the Day, Senator John Cornyn from Texas. Cornyn is currently in charge of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which recruits candidates to run in U.S. Senate elections across the country. I have admired Cornyn for a number of years now, and it was good to hear him speak. He has a low-key style and is not a particularly dynamic speaker, but I can see how these very skills could make him an effective legislator. More and more, I believe it is more essential to have a long-term, persistent effectiveness at accomplishing good and keeping faulty legislation from passing than to have strong oratorical skills. I enjoy hearing all the nuts and bolts stuff anyway, so Cornyn and his successor, Jim DeMint from South Carolina, had no trouble at all holding my attention.
As DeMint came to the stage to a rock star welcome, I had to think “Only at CPAC!” since probably outside of South Carolina, only a handful of the country’s citizens would even recognize his name, let alone his face. Well, we know him here! It would be a tossup between DeMint and Tom Coburn if I were asked who my favorite Senator is. When Larry Hart, Executive VP of the American Conservative Union, introduced DeMint, Hart told the crowd that DeMint had a 100% rating from the ACU. Senator Cornyn had told us that he was proud to be the #4 most conservative member of the Senate, which led me to ponder over who might hold the #1 ranking; I think I found my answer. DeMint, however, if you had the patience and interest level to follow him, gave a very deft comparison/contrast between the two parties, after referring to the State of the Union address 3 days ago as “the experience of watching the world’s best salesman of socialism address the nation.”
The energy level picked up a few minutes later as House Minority Leader John Boehner took the podium. Boehner comes from Cincinnati and was raised in a home with 11 brothers and sisters; his father was a bar owner, so he swept and mopped floors and tended bar all through his growing up years, dealing with “every character that walked in the door!” He got big laughs by following up this story with the comment that he had no idea how he would need all of these skills working in Congress later! Boehner is one of the stalwarts, and has fought against earmarks since the day he walked onto Capitol Hill. He told the crowd that “I didn’t come to Washington because I wanted to be a Congressman; I came because I wanted to preserve the opportunities I had so that my children and grandchildren could still take advantage of them.”
Boehner was followed by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. McConnell really surprised me! Maybe the crowd was more awake by then and the coffee had entered their bloodstream. This is another politician whom I would have characterized as a very skilled legislator, but not the most gifted speaker, based on what I had seen of him in the past. But, McConnell had the crowd with him from the get-go; he has a quick sense of wit, which really helped him. McConnell told some of the most interesting stories from 20+ years in politics that I have heard yet this conference. One of them was about what the landscape of Kentucky politics was when he came to the Senate in 1985. The governor was a Democrat, Kentucky had not sent a Republican to the Senate in decades and 7 out of 7 Congressional representatives were Democrats. Nine years later, the governor was a Republican, as were both Senators and 5 out of 7 Congressmen.
2:45 PM--Senator Tom Coburn was next. This is another hero to the American taxpayer, whether most of us know it or not. He has made his mark by doing what Obama promises to do, but doesn’t seem to have yet found the time to actually bring about: Going through the budget line by line, finding waste and irrespective of party, shining the light of day on it. Coburn is a true citizen/legislator, having served as a physician for years before coming into the House in the 1994 Revolution, staying true to his term-limits pledge and leaving in 2000, then returning as a Senator in 2004. He kept his prepared remarks brief, and mostly took questions.
The most rousing speech of CPAC so far came from a quarter I should have expected, but really hadn’t thought about. Wayne LaPierre, the Executive VP of the NRA, had the crowd on their feet repeatedly with a speech that was both energetic and interactive. LaPierre was the first speaker to use multi-media, interspersing his speech with clips from his appearances on multiple TV shows over the last couple of years. The clip that got the best response was from CNN, where LaPierre accuses a CNN reporter of faking a story, and contrasts CNN with the New York Times, who at least retracts their stories when they are proven false. The young blonde anchor interrupts LaPierre and declares that she can’t let him get away with accusing CNN of faking stories. LaPierre responds by simply repeating the charge, word for word, and the crowd went wild. (The clip ended at that point.) If any speech constituted a call to action from the attendees in a way that was simple and easy to follow, it was LaPierre’s. The portion that impressed me the most was one in which he explained what the fight against gun control was like prior to the establishment of the NRA. All the disparate factions who appreciate the Second Amendment (including hunters, target shooters, people who live in dangerous areas, older people and single women who need protection and many, many others) had no common cause around which to rally. The NRA has changed all of that. Probably since I have yet to own a gun, I had never considered these truths (although I have always appreciated the NRA), so this explanation was enlightening to me, above and beyond the Constitutional protections gun owners enjoy via the 2nd Amendment.
Jed & I and about 250 other students enjoyed a free grilled salmon and polenta lunch at noon today in the Palladian Ballroom, courtesy of the Young America’s Foundation, and got to hear columnist and author Tony Blankley speak to those in attendance. Blankley started in politics, as so many of those longtime conservatives did, in the Goldwater campaign of 1964. He later served as Gingrich’s press secretary when Gingrich was Speaker of the House, so he had many interesting stories to tell.
I sit here now listening to a panel of about 15 young people presenting “2 Minute Activist” testimonials, challenging all of us to further action to implement our beliefs. It is hard to explain the electricity and fervor here, unless you can physically see it. The one chief lack that I see here in this facility is the unavailability of Wi Fi, so that I can’t actually blog live without a wireless card. My bet is that CPAC moves to another facility that is more technologically friendly by at least 2011, the way it is growing; Dave Keene said last year that his goal is to outgrow this facility to the point where we need something bigger and I think with this year’s registration, we are well on the way there.
11:20 PM—I hope this is coherent because I am dog tired!!!
An unexpected highlight was the panel on “Entrepreneurialism under the Obama Presidency: Will Obama Tax Us to Death?” (I made up that title, but it was something along that line. What can I say? I’m exhausted and a little giddy…) One of the presenters was a visually impaired gentleman named Steve Lonegan, who, as it turns out, is running for the Republican nomination to oppose Jon Corzine in the New Jersey gubernatorial race. You would have had to be here to truly capture the scene. Mr. Lonegan walked rather slowly and unsurely, with guidance, to the podium, as any of us would if we couldn’t see where we were going. But then…the transformation! This man is a livewire when it comes to public speaking, and he had the crowd on their feet as he excoriated the excesses of the richest public servant in New Jersey history, who paid $60 million for his Senate seat in 2000, another $60 million for the governor’s race in 2005, and has virtually driven all new business from the state due to his unparalleled tax increases. It was beautiful to behold. Eric Singer was another speaker from this same panel whom we recognized as soon as he walked onto the stage because we had met him on the Metro yesterday! Turns out he has been in finance for some years and established a hedge fund last year called the Congressional Equality Fund. The principle behind the fund is that they only invest when Congress is NOT in session; when Congress is back in DC, they go to cash. Ever since they started, they have tracked at least 30% better than the market average. (In other words, they’ve still lost money, but not NEARLY as badly as everybody else.)
Ron Paul was up at 4:00 PM and by this point, the auditorium was jam packed with a line stretched endlessly outside the ballroom of those who wanted to enter, but couldn’t. (I actually wanted to make a restroom run a few minutes before this, but decided against it once I realized my odds of even making it back to my saved seat were nil if I exited the premises.) The young people love Ron Paul, and he gave them what they came to hear. I have come virtually full circle on Ron Paul myself since I first heard him in the Presidential debates 2 years ago. How can you not take the man at face value by now when virtually everything he was predicting and we were all laughing him to scorn for has now come true? We have adopted a Wilsonian foreign policy that is destined to fail when we have problems here at home that have gone unaddressed: an ever mounting debt, with no end of deficit spending in sight, monstrous bailouts, a totally uninhibited Federal Reserve who thinks that a river of paper money is eternally theirs to print and a Congress that is out of touch with the people, among other things. Ron Paul and his example have been a very convicting lesson for me, reminding me how so often in my life, I have judged people externally rather than by their character. It was easy 2 years ago to be dismissive of a somewhat diminutive, slightly hunched fellow with a high voice that got even pitchier when he got excited about a point he was making. But he has unwaveringly stood his ground, and sadly (I’m sure from his point of view, as well as mine) history has proved him right. Ron Paul stands tall in my book. I don’t think it is prudent to believe we can abolish the FBI, although I would love to get rid of the IRS. But Congressman Paul believes in the Constitution, and he is right.
He is not my Presidential candidate for 2012, however. That man spoke last. Mitt Romney entered the Regency Ballroom at 4:35 to a welcome unlike any other I have seen at CPAC to date (though I expect Rush Limbaugh’s ovation will probably exceed even Mitt’s tomorrow night). Dave Keene introduced him (the only speaker Keene has introduced the whole conference), saying that this year, we welcome Mitt as “one of us, one of the family….someone whom we’ve never needed more than we do today” and Mitt walked out to thunderous applause, cameras flashing everywhere. The speech was good, very solid. I think everyone was tired, so the response was somewhat subdued throughout, although he had everyone on their feet several times. But the crowd was WITH him, no doubt about it. There really were not any standout moments; the thing I notice about Mitt is that he has that “it” factor, that presence that we haven’t seen in a Republican since Reagan (although the 2000 George W. Bush had it, to some extent). From my vantage point, at least judging by this conference, he has to be considered the frontrunner for 2012, at this point.
I may say more about Mitt’s speech tomorrow or maybe on a later blog post. Right now, bed is not just calling me, it is DEMANDING my presence! See you all tomorrow on Day 3 as we wrap up.
11:15 AM—Today, on Friday, Day 2 of CPAC, there are noticeably larger crowds, though not everyone is as dedicated as Jed and I are. We were here and in our seats by shortly after 8:00 (after picking up the free medium coffee that was available at the nearby McDonald’s Monday-Friday, 5-9 AM) in time to see the first speaker of the Day, Senator John Cornyn from Texas. Cornyn is currently in charge of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which recruits candidates to run in U.S. Senate elections across the country. I have admired Cornyn for a number of years now, and it was good to hear him speak. He has a low-key style and is not a particularly dynamic speaker, but I can see how these very skills could make him an effective legislator. More and more, I believe it is more essential to have a long-term, persistent effectiveness at accomplishing good and keeping faulty legislation from passing than to have strong oratorical skills. I enjoy hearing all the nuts and bolts stuff anyway, so Cornyn and his successor, Jim DeMint from South Carolina, had no trouble at all holding my attention.
As DeMint came to the stage to a rock star welcome, I had to think “Only at CPAC!” since probably outside of South Carolina, only a handful of the country’s citizens would even recognize his name, let alone his face. Well, we know him here! It would be a tossup between DeMint and Tom Coburn if I were asked who my favorite Senator is. When Larry Hart, Executive VP of the American Conservative Union, introduced DeMint, Hart told the crowd that DeMint had a 100% rating from the ACU. Senator Cornyn had told us that he was proud to be the #4 most conservative member of the Senate, which led me to ponder over who might hold the #1 ranking; I think I found my answer. DeMint, however, if you had the patience and interest level to follow him, gave a very deft comparison/contrast between the two parties, after referring to the State of the Union address 3 days ago as “the experience of watching the world’s best salesman of socialism address the nation.”
The energy level picked up a few minutes later as House Minority Leader John Boehner took the podium. Boehner comes from Cincinnati and was raised in a home with 11 brothers and sisters; his father was a bar owner, so he swept and mopped floors and tended bar all through his growing up years, dealing with “every character that walked in the door!” He got big laughs by following up this story with the comment that he had no idea how he would need all of these skills working in Congress later! Boehner is one of the stalwarts, and has fought against earmarks since the day he walked onto Capitol Hill. He told the crowd that “I didn’t come to Washington because I wanted to be a Congressman; I came because I wanted to preserve the opportunities I had so that my children and grandchildren could still take advantage of them.”
Boehner was followed by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. McConnell really surprised me! Maybe the crowd was more awake by then and the coffee had entered their bloodstream. This is another politician whom I would have characterized as a very skilled legislator, but not the most gifted speaker, based on what I had seen of him in the past. But, McConnell had the crowd with him from the get-go; he has a quick sense of wit, which really helped him. McConnell told some of the most interesting stories from 20+ years in politics that I have heard yet this conference. One of them was about what the landscape of Kentucky politics was when he came to the Senate in 1985. The governor was a Democrat, Kentucky had not sent a Republican to the Senate in decades and 7 out of 7 Congressional representatives were Democrats. Nine years later, the governor was a Republican, as were both Senators and 5 out of 7 Congressmen.
2:45 PM--Senator Tom Coburn was next. This is another hero to the American taxpayer, whether most of us know it or not. He has made his mark by doing what Obama promises to do, but doesn’t seem to have yet found the time to actually bring about: Going through the budget line by line, finding waste and irrespective of party, shining the light of day on it. Coburn is a true citizen/legislator, having served as a physician for years before coming into the House in the 1994 Revolution, staying true to his term-limits pledge and leaving in 2000, then returning as a Senator in 2004. He kept his prepared remarks brief, and mostly took questions.
The most rousing speech of CPAC so far came from a quarter I should have expected, but really hadn’t thought about. Wayne LaPierre, the Executive VP of the NRA, had the crowd on their feet repeatedly with a speech that was both energetic and interactive. LaPierre was the first speaker to use multi-media, interspersing his speech with clips from his appearances on multiple TV shows over the last couple of years. The clip that got the best response was from CNN, where LaPierre accuses a CNN reporter of faking a story, and contrasts CNN with the New York Times, who at least retracts their stories when they are proven false. The young blonde anchor interrupts LaPierre and declares that she can’t let him get away with accusing CNN of faking stories. LaPierre responds by simply repeating the charge, word for word, and the crowd went wild. (The clip ended at that point.) If any speech constituted a call to action from the attendees in a way that was simple and easy to follow, it was LaPierre’s. The portion that impressed me the most was one in which he explained what the fight against gun control was like prior to the establishment of the NRA. All the disparate factions who appreciate the Second Amendment (including hunters, target shooters, people who live in dangerous areas, older people and single women who need protection and many, many others) had no common cause around which to rally. The NRA has changed all of that. Probably since I have yet to own a gun, I had never considered these truths (although I have always appreciated the NRA), so this explanation was enlightening to me, above and beyond the Constitutional protections gun owners enjoy via the 2nd Amendment.
Jed & I and about 250 other students enjoyed a free grilled salmon and polenta lunch at noon today in the Palladian Ballroom, courtesy of the Young America’s Foundation, and got to hear columnist and author Tony Blankley speak to those in attendance. Blankley started in politics, as so many of those longtime conservatives did, in the Goldwater campaign of 1964. He later served as Gingrich’s press secretary when Gingrich was Speaker of the House, so he had many interesting stories to tell.
I sit here now listening to a panel of about 15 young people presenting “2 Minute Activist” testimonials, challenging all of us to further action to implement our beliefs. It is hard to explain the electricity and fervor here, unless you can physically see it. The one chief lack that I see here in this facility is the unavailability of Wi Fi, so that I can’t actually blog live without a wireless card. My bet is that CPAC moves to another facility that is more technologically friendly by at least 2011, the way it is growing; Dave Keene said last year that his goal is to outgrow this facility to the point where we need something bigger and I think with this year’s registration, we are well on the way there.
11:20 PM—I hope this is coherent because I am dog tired!!!
An unexpected highlight was the panel on “Entrepreneurialism under the Obama Presidency: Will Obama Tax Us to Death?” (I made up that title, but it was something along that line. What can I say? I’m exhausted and a little giddy…) One of the presenters was a visually impaired gentleman named Steve Lonegan, who, as it turns out, is running for the Republican nomination to oppose Jon Corzine in the New Jersey gubernatorial race. You would have had to be here to truly capture the scene. Mr. Lonegan walked rather slowly and unsurely, with guidance, to the podium, as any of us would if we couldn’t see where we were going. But then…the transformation! This man is a livewire when it comes to public speaking, and he had the crowd on their feet as he excoriated the excesses of the richest public servant in New Jersey history, who paid $60 million for his Senate seat in 2000, another $60 million for the governor’s race in 2005, and has virtually driven all new business from the state due to his unparalleled tax increases. It was beautiful to behold. Eric Singer was another speaker from this same panel whom we recognized as soon as he walked onto the stage because we had met him on the Metro yesterday! Turns out he has been in finance for some years and established a hedge fund last year called the Congressional Equality Fund. The principle behind the fund is that they only invest when Congress is NOT in session; when Congress is back in DC, they go to cash. Ever since they started, they have tracked at least 30% better than the market average. (In other words, they’ve still lost money, but not NEARLY as badly as everybody else.)
Ron Paul was up at 4:00 PM and by this point, the auditorium was jam packed with a line stretched endlessly outside the ballroom of those who wanted to enter, but couldn’t. (I actually wanted to make a restroom run a few minutes before this, but decided against it once I realized my odds of even making it back to my saved seat were nil if I exited the premises.) The young people love Ron Paul, and he gave them what they came to hear. I have come virtually full circle on Ron Paul myself since I first heard him in the Presidential debates 2 years ago. How can you not take the man at face value by now when virtually everything he was predicting and we were all laughing him to scorn for has now come true? We have adopted a Wilsonian foreign policy that is destined to fail when we have problems here at home that have gone unaddressed: an ever mounting debt, with no end of deficit spending in sight, monstrous bailouts, a totally uninhibited Federal Reserve who thinks that a river of paper money is eternally theirs to print and a Congress that is out of touch with the people, among other things. Ron Paul and his example have been a very convicting lesson for me, reminding me how so often in my life, I have judged people externally rather than by their character. It was easy 2 years ago to be dismissive of a somewhat diminutive, slightly hunched fellow with a high voice that got even pitchier when he got excited about a point he was making. But he has unwaveringly stood his ground, and sadly (I’m sure from his point of view, as well as mine) history has proved him right. Ron Paul stands tall in my book. I don’t think it is prudent to believe we can abolish the FBI, although I would love to get rid of the IRS. But Congressman Paul believes in the Constitution, and he is right.
He is not my Presidential candidate for 2012, however. That man spoke last. Mitt Romney entered the Regency Ballroom at 4:35 to a welcome unlike any other I have seen at CPAC to date (though I expect Rush Limbaugh’s ovation will probably exceed even Mitt’s tomorrow night). Dave Keene introduced him (the only speaker Keene has introduced the whole conference), saying that this year, we welcome Mitt as “one of us, one of the family….someone whom we’ve never needed more than we do today” and Mitt walked out to thunderous applause, cameras flashing everywhere. The speech was good, very solid. I think everyone was tired, so the response was somewhat subdued throughout, although he had everyone on their feet several times. But the crowd was WITH him, no doubt about it. There really were not any standout moments; the thing I notice about Mitt is that he has that “it” factor, that presence that we haven’t seen in a Republican since Reagan (although the 2000 George W. Bush had it, to some extent). From my vantage point, at least judging by this conference, he has to be considered the frontrunner for 2012, at this point.
I may say more about Mitt’s speech tomorrow or maybe on a later blog post. Right now, bed is not just calling me, it is DEMANDING my presence! See you all tomorrow on Day 3 as we wrap up.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
CPAC 2009: Day 1
The first day of CPAC 2009 is now history, and what a kickoff it has been! If you want to go straight to my rundown of today's events, go ahead and scroll down to the next paragraph after this one. But, if not, keep reading...
First, a little bit of runner-up info: My friend, Jed Hutchison and I landed at Baltimore International at about 11:30 yesterday morning, paid the $3.10 to ride the shuttle for 10-15 miles to the Greenbelt, MD Metro stop and bought our 7-day passes for the Metro. We had decided early on not to rent a car this time and it has definitely turned out to be the right judgment call. It is so much simpler to just hop on the Metro and motor all over town than to search agonizingly for parking places everywhere you go in this town. We had lunch at the Arlington Red, Hot & Blue, my favorite Tennessee barbecue joint in the country (there are branches in several states), and by the time we reached the Alexandria Comfort Inn to check in, it was nearly 4:00! We checked in, stowed our bags, then headed out and got back on the Metro. To get to the Omni Shoreham Hotel (where CPAC is held), you ride the Blue Line to the Metro Center stop, which is about 5 blocks due east of the Treasury Building, which sits on the east side of the White House. It was a beautiful evening, probably in the low 50's out, so we walked around the Willard Carlton Hotel, the White House and the Old Executive Office Building, Blair House, Lafayette Square and the Treasury Building, just enjoying the majesty of the epicenter of world power. While peering throught the fence in front of the famed West Wing, we glimpsed Fox News' Wendell Goler reporting live from the White House front lawn, probably on "Special Report with Bret Baier." We finally pulled ourselves away and went back to the Metro, where I spotted a Caribou Coffee shop. I like their coffee better than Starbucks, and we were both feeling weary, but not like sleeping, so we want in to grab some lattes. Our barrista (a young African-American guy with earrings in both ears) spotted Jed's Ann Coulter book and astonished us with effusive praise, "Oh, I LOVE her!" He asked if we were in town for CPAC and said he would be there as well; turned out he was a student at Catholic University. Just goes to show how erroneous stereotypes can be... :) We Metro'ed on over to the Omni where we did our early check-in and were done by 7:00. We hopped back on the Metro, hoping to take in the Lincoln Memorial and Vietnam Wall, as well. I made the mistake of leading us off the Metro at the Federal Triangle stop, which was not where we were supposed to be, so we walked all over creation before discovering we were completely on the wrong end of town, to my chagrin. Fortunately, Jed didn't hold it against me, although he probably regretted ceding control of the directions to me! After grabbing a sandwich at McDonalds and leaving early because of the muttering, malevolent looking homeless person sitting next to us, we Metro'ed over to the Capitol Building and walked down the street on the South side between the Capitol and the Library of Congress/Supreme Court building. The Capitol at night is something I had never beheld prior to yesterday evening. "Awesome" in the truest sense of the word. We were very weary indeed by this point (I had only slept for 3 hours the night before) so concluded our day's events and headed back to the Comfort Inn. Now to today...
We arrived at the Omni at 9:30 this morning and went straight to the Regency Ballroom, where our first celebrity sighting occurred: Fox News' Carl Cameron was in the Press section getting ready to cover the conference. The Omni is quite large and opulent, with a number of ballrooms, but the Regency is where most of the more well-known speakers at CPAC are heard. Dave Keene, the chairman of the American Conservative Union (which sponsors CPAC) opened the conference with a welcome to all of us at 9:45, and very enthusiastically shared some news that I feel is portentous of very positive things. Keene informed us that at the first CPAC in 1973, the speaker was Ronald Reagan and they managed to attract 125 people. Last year, a historic 7,000 attendees arrived for CPAC 2008, largely because of the presence of 4 leading Presidential candidates: Mike Huckabee, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney (who, as some of you may recall, astonished those in attendance by using his CPAC speech to withdraw from the race) and yes, John McCain (who is NOT here this year, to no one's great mystification). This year, however, all previous attendance records have been smashed with between 8500 and 9,000 expected to show up for a fine roster of events.
Heritage Foundation President Ed Feulner, Jr., introduced Congressman Paul Ryan right on schedule at 10:00. Ryan was on McCain's short list for VP last year, and it was easy to see why. Ryan is only 38 years old, but speaks with authority, as well as historical and political context. I noted with great pleasure that he referenced both The Federalist Papers (Ryan's paraphrase of one of the concepts in the book: "The laws of nature and nature's God are the only sure touchstones of right and wrong")and Frederick Hayek's The Road to Serfdom and not just in passing, either; it was clear that he was well acquainted with the contents. It can only bode well for conservatives if leaders like Ryan are being schooled in the great conservative minds of the past, as well as the Founders. Ryan also iterated a theme that I heard voiced honestly and repeatedly throughout the day, i.e., that Republicans had lost their way, and thus the elections of '06 and '08.
Former UN Ambassador John Bolton was next. The crowd was prepared for red meat and Bolton did not disappoint! He took the crowd on a rollicking tour of Obama's foreign policy, which Bolton does not seem to believe exists, at least in any coherent fashion. Bolton also discussed the threats from China, North Korea (which he called a "functionally criminal state") and Iran. I found several noteworth aspects of Bolton's speech. First, he spoke for a good 30 minutes in a wide-ranging foreign affairs tutorial, with no Teleprompter and seemingly no notes. The guy is brilliant. He also was not hesitant to criticize Bush administration policy, although his tone was a bit gentler in doing so and a little less wickedly humorous than when critiquing Team Obama. This was another motif I noticed this year; I heard no criticism of Bush last year that I can recall, though I was only there for Saturday then, so I can't speak for the first 2 days. Bolton himself said that we are better off in some ways not having to defend the Bush record anymore...and this is a man who worked for Bush! Nonetheless, truth is truth. Bolton looks to me like the most unlikely figure to give a rousing speech, with his bushy eyebrows and mustache, but he is amazingly effective and on game.
A panel discussion followed on "The Future of the Conservative Movement", featuring Bay Buchanan (Pat's little sister), Steve Moore of the Wall Street Journal (who is on Fox regularly with Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and the like) and Van Hipp (whom I had never heard of). Bay has a very spirited style, just like her brother. The portion that stuck with me from her few minutes was the assertion that it is in the states that the truly positive changes resulting from waves of popular support/opposition are taking place. She cited new border controls in Arizona, as well as a couple of other initiatives I can't recall right now. Steve Moore's specialty is finance, and of course, he is deeply troubled by all of the bailouts, but he is a happy warrior kind of fellow and fun to listen to. One question that he got in the Q & A afterwards (those are the most interesting portions of the panel discussion sometimes!) was how Republicans can evade being labeled as the "Party of NO"; Moore's response was a chuckle and "What's wrong with THAT?"
My favorite panel discussion of the day was on "The Key to Victory? Listen to Conservatives", which was led by Michael Barone. He opened with a comedic line rife with implication: "I've known Chris Matthews for 30 years, and Barack Obama is the first male that could make a tingle go up Matthew's leg!" Barone is a political genius; the man can break down every constituency in every precinct across every state in this nation and explain what the voting patterns are, of what the demographics consist and countless other arcane pieces of information which I find fascinating. One of his key theses today was that Republicans need to copy Rahm Emanuel's strategy of 2006 and start tactically planning to seriously contest races in 2010 that might not normally be considered friendly turf for Republicans. He cited both the Governorship in New Jersey (the current Democrat Governor, Jon Corzine, recently paid off his ex-girlfriend's $450,000 mortgage out of state funds or something of that nature, according to Barone; my details may be slightly off, but the gist is there) and Chris Dodd's Senate Seat, which suggestion was heartily received! Barone was followed by Aaron Schock, is the youngest person in the Congress. What an inspiration! A 28-year old Republican Congressman from a predominantly African-American district with heavily Democratic voting patterns (Illinois has 2 Democrat Senators, a Democrat governor and the 2 houses of the legislature are both in Democrat hands) and he won the old-fashioned way; he went out and told his story to people and asked for their vote. He won re-election in 2008 even after voting against the minimum wage increase of early 2007, right after his first election. When asked why by his constituents, he accurately and forthrightly explained that minimum wage increases lead to rising prices across the board that effectively cancel out the wage increase. He dared to be upfront with the voters rather than searching for an expedient answer. Makes you want to cheer!
Congressman Mike Pence was the highlight of my day. I love this man. He brought the crowd to their feet over and over again with his rousing call to return to conservative principles and traditional values. This man is fearless. You cannot listen to him and not be inspired. He told the story about a town hall meeting he held in New Castle, Indiana last week where a voter who had just lost his job thanked him for voting against the bailout and said, "Congressman, I can find another job, but I won't be able to find another country if we ruin this one." Pence was the only speaker, I believe, all day to specifically reference the power of prayer, saying that "it is good at times to remember what our knees are for."
The room had filled close to capacity when Sarah Huckabee came to the podium to introduce her father in a warm and touching tribute. Mike Huckabee gave a good speech. I like Governor Huckabee, but being a Romney supporter, I'm certainly not on the bandwagon, especially since I sense a rematch in the making in the 2012 primary. Huckabee punctuated his entire speech with jokes and stories, about 2/3 of which were funny and effective. I enjoyed being able to see him up close and in action. He certainly has a sense of empathy and timing that the crowd clearly enjoyed.
The closing event of the day was supposed to be a panel discussion of the Fairness Doctrine by former Congressman Joe Scarborough (now host of "Morning Joe" on MSNBC), radio host Roger Hedgecock and Tucker Carlson (formerly of CNN's "Crossfire" and also MSNBC's "Tucker"). I'm not sure if this had anything to do with what actually happened, but the news came to us all that afternoon that Senator Jim DeMint had forced a vote on the Fairness Doctrine and the Senate had voted to say "No" to it 87-12. Scarborough came out to rollicking applause, told the crowd he opposed the Fairness Doctrine then proceeded to talk to us about what "I feel like talking about" which was the unlikely story of his election to Congress in 1994, with no money or name ID, defeating a 16-year good-old-boy incumbent, whom he successfully tied to Clinton.
Roger Hedgecock talked about the Fairness Doctrine in a very interesting lecture-type speech; his thesis is that Obama/Reid/Pelosi will try to force localism on radio stations rather than bringing back the Fairness Doctrine.
Tucker Carlson had the crowd in stitches with a very funny, wide-ranging, opinionated speech. His schtick is to overtly encourage interruptions from the crowd, virtually begging for opposition. It was a very different speech from what I thought he would give; not just a name-dropping funfest at all, but a lot of serious political policy discussion combined with the humor and sarcasm. The strand that ran through his talk was that there is nothing wrong with being a negatively oriented party, which Republicans are often accused of. He compared this to parenthood and life in general, asserting that much of life is about saying "NO" to people and helping stop bad things from occurring. He did say, though, that this must be coupled with putting a leader front and center in the party who knows how to communicate ARTICULATELY. He had the crowd roaring with guffaws when he hilariously, but not maliciously compared George W. Bush giving a speech to watching an inebriated friend try to cross a busy street: "You really feel for the guy and you're rooting for him to make it across (or to the end of the sentence), but you just don't know if he's capable of it!" My favorite line of the whole day came from the section of Tucker's speech where he talked about the media's love affair with Obama: "The kind of love the press feels for Barack Obama is the kind you have to be a 14-year-old boy to understand."
What a fun day! And tomorrow we go back for more...Hope to have a series of video clips up first thing in the morning.
First, a little bit of runner-up info: My friend, Jed Hutchison and I landed at Baltimore International at about 11:30 yesterday morning, paid the $3.10 to ride the shuttle for 10-15 miles to the Greenbelt, MD Metro stop and bought our 7-day passes for the Metro. We had decided early on not to rent a car this time and it has definitely turned out to be the right judgment call. It is so much simpler to just hop on the Metro and motor all over town than to search agonizingly for parking places everywhere you go in this town. We had lunch at the Arlington Red, Hot & Blue, my favorite Tennessee barbecue joint in the country (there are branches in several states), and by the time we reached the Alexandria Comfort Inn to check in, it was nearly 4:00! We checked in, stowed our bags, then headed out and got back on the Metro. To get to the Omni Shoreham Hotel (where CPAC is held), you ride the Blue Line to the Metro Center stop, which is about 5 blocks due east of the Treasury Building, which sits on the east side of the White House. It was a beautiful evening, probably in the low 50's out, so we walked around the Willard Carlton Hotel, the White House and the Old Executive Office Building, Blair House, Lafayette Square and the Treasury Building, just enjoying the majesty of the epicenter of world power. While peering throught the fence in front of the famed West Wing, we glimpsed Fox News' Wendell Goler reporting live from the White House front lawn, probably on "Special Report with Bret Baier." We finally pulled ourselves away and went back to the Metro, where I spotted a Caribou Coffee shop. I like their coffee better than Starbucks, and we were both feeling weary, but not like sleeping, so we want in to grab some lattes. Our barrista (a young African-American guy with earrings in both ears) spotted Jed's Ann Coulter book and astonished us with effusive praise, "Oh, I LOVE her!" He asked if we were in town for CPAC and said he would be there as well; turned out he was a student at Catholic University. Just goes to show how erroneous stereotypes can be... :) We Metro'ed on over to the Omni where we did our early check-in and were done by 7:00. We hopped back on the Metro, hoping to take in the Lincoln Memorial and Vietnam Wall, as well. I made the mistake of leading us off the Metro at the Federal Triangle stop, which was not where we were supposed to be, so we walked all over creation before discovering we were completely on the wrong end of town, to my chagrin. Fortunately, Jed didn't hold it against me, although he probably regretted ceding control of the directions to me! After grabbing a sandwich at McDonalds and leaving early because of the muttering, malevolent looking homeless person sitting next to us, we Metro'ed over to the Capitol Building and walked down the street on the South side between the Capitol and the Library of Congress/Supreme Court building. The Capitol at night is something I had never beheld prior to yesterday evening. "Awesome" in the truest sense of the word. We were very weary indeed by this point (I had only slept for 3 hours the night before) so concluded our day's events and headed back to the Comfort Inn. Now to today...
We arrived at the Omni at 9:30 this morning and went straight to the Regency Ballroom, where our first celebrity sighting occurred: Fox News' Carl Cameron was in the Press section getting ready to cover the conference. The Omni is quite large and opulent, with a number of ballrooms, but the Regency is where most of the more well-known speakers at CPAC are heard. Dave Keene, the chairman of the American Conservative Union (which sponsors CPAC) opened the conference with a welcome to all of us at 9:45, and very enthusiastically shared some news that I feel is portentous of very positive things. Keene informed us that at the first CPAC in 1973, the speaker was Ronald Reagan and they managed to attract 125 people. Last year, a historic 7,000 attendees arrived for CPAC 2008, largely because of the presence of 4 leading Presidential candidates: Mike Huckabee, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney (who, as some of you may recall, astonished those in attendance by using his CPAC speech to withdraw from the race) and yes, John McCain (who is NOT here this year, to no one's great mystification). This year, however, all previous attendance records have been smashed with between 8500 and 9,000 expected to show up for a fine roster of events.
Heritage Foundation President Ed Feulner, Jr., introduced Congressman Paul Ryan right on schedule at 10:00. Ryan was on McCain's short list for VP last year, and it was easy to see why. Ryan is only 38 years old, but speaks with authority, as well as historical and political context. I noted with great pleasure that he referenced both The Federalist Papers (Ryan's paraphrase of one of the concepts in the book: "The laws of nature and nature's God are the only sure touchstones of right and wrong")and Frederick Hayek's The Road to Serfdom and not just in passing, either; it was clear that he was well acquainted with the contents. It can only bode well for conservatives if leaders like Ryan are being schooled in the great conservative minds of the past, as well as the Founders. Ryan also iterated a theme that I heard voiced honestly and repeatedly throughout the day, i.e., that Republicans had lost their way, and thus the elections of '06 and '08.
Former UN Ambassador John Bolton was next. The crowd was prepared for red meat and Bolton did not disappoint! He took the crowd on a rollicking tour of Obama's foreign policy, which Bolton does not seem to believe exists, at least in any coherent fashion. Bolton also discussed the threats from China, North Korea (which he called a "functionally criminal state") and Iran. I found several noteworth aspects of Bolton's speech. First, he spoke for a good 30 minutes in a wide-ranging foreign affairs tutorial, with no Teleprompter and seemingly no notes. The guy is brilliant. He also was not hesitant to criticize Bush administration policy, although his tone was a bit gentler in doing so and a little less wickedly humorous than when critiquing Team Obama. This was another motif I noticed this year; I heard no criticism of Bush last year that I can recall, though I was only there for Saturday then, so I can't speak for the first 2 days. Bolton himself said that we are better off in some ways not having to defend the Bush record anymore...and this is a man who worked for Bush! Nonetheless, truth is truth. Bolton looks to me like the most unlikely figure to give a rousing speech, with his bushy eyebrows and mustache, but he is amazingly effective and on game.
A panel discussion followed on "The Future of the Conservative Movement", featuring Bay Buchanan (Pat's little sister), Steve Moore of the Wall Street Journal (who is on Fox regularly with Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and the like) and Van Hipp (whom I had never heard of). Bay has a very spirited style, just like her brother. The portion that stuck with me from her few minutes was the assertion that it is in the states that the truly positive changes resulting from waves of popular support/opposition are taking place. She cited new border controls in Arizona, as well as a couple of other initiatives I can't recall right now. Steve Moore's specialty is finance, and of course, he is deeply troubled by all of the bailouts, but he is a happy warrior kind of fellow and fun to listen to. One question that he got in the Q & A afterwards (those are the most interesting portions of the panel discussion sometimes!) was how Republicans can evade being labeled as the "Party of NO"; Moore's response was a chuckle and "What's wrong with THAT?"
My favorite panel discussion of the day was on "The Key to Victory? Listen to Conservatives", which was led by Michael Barone. He opened with a comedic line rife with implication: "I've known Chris Matthews for 30 years, and Barack Obama is the first male that could make a tingle go up Matthew's leg!" Barone is a political genius; the man can break down every constituency in every precinct across every state in this nation and explain what the voting patterns are, of what the demographics consist and countless other arcane pieces of information which I find fascinating. One of his key theses today was that Republicans need to copy Rahm Emanuel's strategy of 2006 and start tactically planning to seriously contest races in 2010 that might not normally be considered friendly turf for Republicans. He cited both the Governorship in New Jersey (the current Democrat Governor, Jon Corzine, recently paid off his ex-girlfriend's $450,000 mortgage out of state funds or something of that nature, according to Barone; my details may be slightly off, but the gist is there) and Chris Dodd's Senate Seat, which suggestion was heartily received! Barone was followed by Aaron Schock, is the youngest person in the Congress. What an inspiration! A 28-year old Republican Congressman from a predominantly African-American district with heavily Democratic voting patterns (Illinois has 2 Democrat Senators, a Democrat governor and the 2 houses of the legislature are both in Democrat hands) and he won the old-fashioned way; he went out and told his story to people and asked for their vote. He won re-election in 2008 even after voting against the minimum wage increase of early 2007, right after his first election. When asked why by his constituents, he accurately and forthrightly explained that minimum wage increases lead to rising prices across the board that effectively cancel out the wage increase. He dared to be upfront with the voters rather than searching for an expedient answer. Makes you want to cheer!
Congressman Mike Pence was the highlight of my day. I love this man. He brought the crowd to their feet over and over again with his rousing call to return to conservative principles and traditional values. This man is fearless. You cannot listen to him and not be inspired. He told the story about a town hall meeting he held in New Castle, Indiana last week where a voter who had just lost his job thanked him for voting against the bailout and said, "Congressman, I can find another job, but I won't be able to find another country if we ruin this one." Pence was the only speaker, I believe, all day to specifically reference the power of prayer, saying that "it is good at times to remember what our knees are for."
The room had filled close to capacity when Sarah Huckabee came to the podium to introduce her father in a warm and touching tribute. Mike Huckabee gave a good speech. I like Governor Huckabee, but being a Romney supporter, I'm certainly not on the bandwagon, especially since I sense a rematch in the making in the 2012 primary. Huckabee punctuated his entire speech with jokes and stories, about 2/3 of which were funny and effective. I enjoyed being able to see him up close and in action. He certainly has a sense of empathy and timing that the crowd clearly enjoyed.
The closing event of the day was supposed to be a panel discussion of the Fairness Doctrine by former Congressman Joe Scarborough (now host of "Morning Joe" on MSNBC), radio host Roger Hedgecock and Tucker Carlson (formerly of CNN's "Crossfire" and also MSNBC's "Tucker"). I'm not sure if this had anything to do with what actually happened, but the news came to us all that afternoon that Senator Jim DeMint had forced a vote on the Fairness Doctrine and the Senate had voted to say "No" to it 87-12. Scarborough came out to rollicking applause, told the crowd he opposed the Fairness Doctrine then proceeded to talk to us about what "I feel like talking about" which was the unlikely story of his election to Congress in 1994, with no money or name ID, defeating a 16-year good-old-boy incumbent, whom he successfully tied to Clinton.
Roger Hedgecock talked about the Fairness Doctrine in a very interesting lecture-type speech; his thesis is that Obama/Reid/Pelosi will try to force localism on radio stations rather than bringing back the Fairness Doctrine.
Tucker Carlson had the crowd in stitches with a very funny, wide-ranging, opinionated speech. His schtick is to overtly encourage interruptions from the crowd, virtually begging for opposition. It was a very different speech from what I thought he would give; not just a name-dropping funfest at all, but a lot of serious political policy discussion combined with the humor and sarcasm. The strand that ran through his talk was that there is nothing wrong with being a negatively oriented party, which Republicans are often accused of. He compared this to parenthood and life in general, asserting that much of life is about saying "NO" to people and helping stop bad things from occurring. He did say, though, that this must be coupled with putting a leader front and center in the party who knows how to communicate ARTICULATELY. He had the crowd roaring with guffaws when he hilariously, but not maliciously compared George W. Bush giving a speech to watching an inebriated friend try to cross a busy street: "You really feel for the guy and you're rooting for him to make it across (or to the end of the sentence), but you just don't know if he's capable of it!" My favorite line of the whole day came from the section of Tucker's speech where he talked about the media's love affair with Obama: "The kind of love the press feels for Barack Obama is the kind you have to be a 14-year-old boy to understand."
What a fun day! And tomorrow we go back for more...Hope to have a series of video clips up first thing in the morning.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
I'm on HBO
Well, not all over the network, thank goodness.
But remember my post last October about the Sarah Palin rally? Just as I suspected, Alexandra Pelosi was covering the McCain campaign for a documentary that premiered on HBO on President's Day (last Monday, in case you missed observing the holiday). It is called Right America: Feeling Wronged. I was messaged by a friend a few minutes ago who says that Pam, Maddy and I are in it, at least for a few seconds.
I have not been informed what the slant of the documentary is, but I have a pretty good idea...
But remember my post last October about the Sarah Palin rally? Just as I suspected, Alexandra Pelosi was covering the McCain campaign for a documentary that premiered on HBO on President's Day (last Monday, in case you missed observing the holiday). It is called Right America: Feeling Wronged. I was messaged by a friend a few minutes ago who says that Pam, Maddy and I are in it, at least for a few seconds.
I have not been informed what the slant of the documentary is, but I have a pretty good idea...
Monday, February 23, 2009
Conservative Political Action Conference 2009
I have had to let this last week, complete with the passage of the stimulus monstrosity, pass me by because CPAC 2009 IS ALMOST HERE!!! As a result, I've had to work ahead in my graduate studies and get all kinds of other things in order so that I can be out of town for 5 days.
I will more than compensate for this by blogging each night of the three days of the conference, this Thursday, Friday and Saturday. We just may have some video clips here as well, since my friend, Jed Hutchison, is accompanying me to the conference, so we'll have opportunities for all sorts of postings. We'll see what works.
If you want to see who the speakers are and what panel sessions will be offered this year, go to www.cpac.org and click on "Agenda."
In the meantime...while driving to the gym on Saturday, I turned on the radio and caught a few minutes of Mike McConnell's weekend show. He was playing this clip from Phil Donahue's interview of Milton Friedman in 1979. This is Free Market Economics 101 explained in a way that is entertaining, but hard-hitting and truthful. I am not tech-savvy enough to post a little video screen below, with an arrow for you to click on, so I'll just post the link here. Enjoy and share with your friends:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWsx1X8PV_A&feature=related
I will more than compensate for this by blogging each night of the three days of the conference, this Thursday, Friday and Saturday. We just may have some video clips here as well, since my friend, Jed Hutchison, is accompanying me to the conference, so we'll have opportunities for all sorts of postings. We'll see what works.
If you want to see who the speakers are and what panel sessions will be offered this year, go to www.cpac.org and click on "Agenda."
In the meantime...while driving to the gym on Saturday, I turned on the radio and caught a few minutes of Mike McConnell's weekend show. He was playing this clip from Phil Donahue's interview of Milton Friedman in 1979. This is Free Market Economics 101 explained in a way that is entertaining, but hard-hitting and truthful. I am not tech-savvy enough to post a little video screen below, with an arrow for you to click on, so I'll just post the link here. Enjoy and share with your friends:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWsx1X8PV_A&feature=related
Saturday, February 14, 2009
From Thomas Sowell:
Thomas Sowell is my favorite columnist. I read everything he writes, and own many of his books. Every so often, he writes a column full of what he dubs "Random thoughts on the passing scene." This was one of his gems in the most recent one:
I realized how far behind the times I am when I saw a TV commercial for some weight-loss product, showing Marie Osmond "before" and "after." I thought she looked great "before."
On a more serious note, here is another:
Our economic problems worry me much less than our political solutions, which have a far worse track record.
I'll leave you with one more that is a bit more lengthy:
More frightening to me than any policy or politician is the ease with which the public is played for fools with words. The latest example is the "Employee Freedom of Choice Act," a bill that will do away with secret ballot elections among workers voting on whether to be represented by a union. It is an open invitation to intimidation-- which is to say, loss of freedom of choice.
Thomas Sowell is an economist from the Hoover Institution-Stanford University. If, say, a million more Americans read him on a regular basis, I think this country would be a different and better place...certainly more informed. YOU can find his columns on townhall.com or at his own website, thomassowell.com, where they are archived going back for years.
I realized how far behind the times I am when I saw a TV commercial for some weight-loss product, showing Marie Osmond "before" and "after." I thought she looked great "before."
On a more serious note, here is another:
Our economic problems worry me much less than our political solutions, which have a far worse track record.
I'll leave you with one more that is a bit more lengthy:
More frightening to me than any policy or politician is the ease with which the public is played for fools with words. The latest example is the "Employee Freedom of Choice Act," a bill that will do away with secret ballot elections among workers voting on whether to be represented by a union. It is an open invitation to intimidation-- which is to say, loss of freedom of choice.
Thomas Sowell is an economist from the Hoover Institution-Stanford University. If, say, a million more Americans read him on a regular basis, I think this country would be a different and better place...certainly more informed. YOU can find his columns on townhall.com or at his own website, thomassowell.com, where they are archived going back for years.
Judd Gregg, the stimulus and all the other news
I was reading Bret Baier's blog the other day (Bret replaced Brit Hume around the first of this year on Fox News' "Special Report", for those of you who don't watch). Bret wrote that trying to follow the news in the last few weeks is comparable to drinking from a fire hose. Boy, is he right.
It is a full-time blogger's dream! For someone who enjoys doing it as a hobby and addition to all my other duties, though...I feel overwhelmed just trying to keep up with everything, let alone write about it.
So on Thursday evening, the news broke that Judd Gregg had withdrawn his nomination as Obama's Commerce Secretary due to irresolvable conflicts with the administration. As the news trickled out over the next few hours, it became clear that a key sticking point was the census and the tinkering Obama's people are engaging in with it. It is also abundantly obvious by now that the Obama administration has no intention of learning any lessons from fiscal conservatives. From what I know of Gregg's record, he has not always been immune to the seduction of pork to take home to his district, but he has done pretty well over the years, especially in comparison to some others. What has been done in the past is not the whole point right now, though: the question at hand is or should be, what will really help the country? And it certainly isn't spending ourselves into oblivion with money we don't have, adding trillions of dollars in deficits for our grandchildren and great-grandchildren to absorb.
It has been interesting to watch the battle lines get drawn (so quickly) over Obama's first month as President. I don't know that it could be any other way in these times. It is an era that certainly demands action, but it has never been more crucial that the RIGHT action be taken. And a $600 check per person is not something that can work, no matter how assertively the Democrats may declare that it will.
It is a full-time blogger's dream! For someone who enjoys doing it as a hobby and addition to all my other duties, though...I feel overwhelmed just trying to keep up with everything, let alone write about it.
So on Thursday evening, the news broke that Judd Gregg had withdrawn his nomination as Obama's Commerce Secretary due to irresolvable conflicts with the administration. As the news trickled out over the next few hours, it became clear that a key sticking point was the census and the tinkering Obama's people are engaging in with it. It is also abundantly obvious by now that the Obama administration has no intention of learning any lessons from fiscal conservatives. From what I know of Gregg's record, he has not always been immune to the seduction of pork to take home to his district, but he has done pretty well over the years, especially in comparison to some others. What has been done in the past is not the whole point right now, though: the question at hand is or should be, what will really help the country? And it certainly isn't spending ourselves into oblivion with money we don't have, adding trillions of dollars in deficits for our grandchildren and great-grandchildren to absorb.
It has been interesting to watch the battle lines get drawn (so quickly) over Obama's first month as President. I don't know that it could be any other way in these times. It is an era that certainly demands action, but it has never been more crucial that the RIGHT action be taken. And a $600 check per person is not something that can work, no matter how assertively the Democrats may declare that it will.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Daschle's dropout fallout
I was listening to Mark Steyn fill in for Rush yesterday when, in mid-discussion of Daschle's difficulties, Steyn announced the Breaking News that Daschle had withdrawn. I suppose when the New York Times editorializes that you need to withdraw your nomination, it's time to pull the plug; your support, shall we say, is cratering.
Of course, the analysis and the White House spin both commenced immediately. The most interesting few minutes of the day for me, though, were Chris Wallace's interview of Obama later that afternoon, that aired on "Special Report with Bret Baier" last night. Two points:
First, it was clear, even though Obama wouldn't outright admit it (but he did tacitly) that he and Daschle had come to some sort of understanding that Daschle had to withdraw, in spite of the fact that Obama had declared he "absolutely" supported Daschle just the day before. The only way I can explain this is that Obama and Daschle were clearly more friendly than Obama and Bill Richardson, for instance.
Really, what Daschle did or failed to do was not unforgivable in itself, if you ask me. If I ever make the money that Daschle has in the last couple of years, I would be helpless without an accountant and would certainly rely on him heavily! I'm sure Daschle is no different; yet, given that very situation, extra caution is constantly warranted, which Daschle clearly failed to exercise. THAT is what should disqualify him. If he can't be careful enough to manage his own personal finances, he shouldn't be running an entire cabinet agency. Pure and simple.
Back to the Wallace interview. I saw again last night how formidable the PR task of the GOP really is. I agree with Barack Obama on virtually nothing. But, he has such a deft touch and comes across as so likeable that in a media-oriented age, it is very difficult to combat. So different from the choleric Bill Clinton who lashed out at Rush Limbaugh in 1994, saying there was no "truth detector" to help him connect with the people while Rush had 3 unfiltered hours every day. Wallace questioned Obama about Obama's own Limbaugh comment a week or so ago, as well as a tossaway line on Fox News (something about "I can go home later tonight and watch Fox News and feel bad about myself"). Obama chuckled and questioned the wording on the former, but admitted that he had uttered the sentiment about Fox, then went on to say that he probably didn't get his most positive coverage on Fox, but this is the way democracy works, etc., etc. You cannot help but like him when you see him.
I realized last night what makes Obama effective. His media savvy is not contrived. He is a natural. Certainly, he has worked on his public speaking skills over the years, as many of us have and do. But, he has a natural gift for communication and personal relationship that makes him shine in these settings.
It is easy to see why talk radio will be an important asset to the conservative cause in the years ahead, as an unfiltered auditory medium. It is also incumbent on talk radio hosts to be sure to present arguments in context and in truth. And the ones I listen to (mostly Rush and Beck) rarely fail to do both, with a good amount of humor thrown into the mix!
Of course, the analysis and the White House spin both commenced immediately. The most interesting few minutes of the day for me, though, were Chris Wallace's interview of Obama later that afternoon, that aired on "Special Report with Bret Baier" last night. Two points:
First, it was clear, even though Obama wouldn't outright admit it (but he did tacitly) that he and Daschle had come to some sort of understanding that Daschle had to withdraw, in spite of the fact that Obama had declared he "absolutely" supported Daschle just the day before. The only way I can explain this is that Obama and Daschle were clearly more friendly than Obama and Bill Richardson, for instance.
Really, what Daschle did or failed to do was not unforgivable in itself, if you ask me. If I ever make the money that Daschle has in the last couple of years, I would be helpless without an accountant and would certainly rely on him heavily! I'm sure Daschle is no different; yet, given that very situation, extra caution is constantly warranted, which Daschle clearly failed to exercise. THAT is what should disqualify him. If he can't be careful enough to manage his own personal finances, he shouldn't be running an entire cabinet agency. Pure and simple.
Back to the Wallace interview. I saw again last night how formidable the PR task of the GOP really is. I agree with Barack Obama on virtually nothing. But, he has such a deft touch and comes across as so likeable that in a media-oriented age, it is very difficult to combat. So different from the choleric Bill Clinton who lashed out at Rush Limbaugh in 1994, saying there was no "truth detector" to help him connect with the people while Rush had 3 unfiltered hours every day. Wallace questioned Obama about Obama's own Limbaugh comment a week or so ago, as well as a tossaway line on Fox News (something about "I can go home later tonight and watch Fox News and feel bad about myself"). Obama chuckled and questioned the wording on the former, but admitted that he had uttered the sentiment about Fox, then went on to say that he probably didn't get his most positive coverage on Fox, but this is the way democracy works, etc., etc. You cannot help but like him when you see him.
I realized last night what makes Obama effective. His media savvy is not contrived. He is a natural. Certainly, he has worked on his public speaking skills over the years, as many of us have and do. But, he has a natural gift for communication and personal relationship that makes him shine in these settings.
It is easy to see why talk radio will be an important asset to the conservative cause in the years ahead, as an unfiltered auditory medium. It is also incumbent on talk radio hosts to be sure to present arguments in context and in truth. And the ones I listen to (mostly Rush and Beck) rarely fail to do both, with a good amount of humor thrown into the mix!
Monday, February 2, 2009
Holder, Geithner, Daschle...
Are you detecting a pattern here? So much for setting all kinds of new records in ethics.
Tom Daschle not only failed to pay $128,000 in taxes; he also neglected to disclose this quite pertinent fact to Obama's vetting team. Nicely done, Tom. Yet, I suppose, if he falls short of confirmation, the media will still chalk it all up to nasty Republican partisanship. It shouldn't, though; even the Swampland blog (or Twitter page, whichever it is) on Time.com notes that they feel Daschle's failure to inform Obama's people about the back taxes he owed poses a real problem for confirmation. Swampland is about the furthest thing from conservative in tone.
But, Daschle's problems go even further than that. He has also been paid $200,000 within the last year, in his role as an employee of a lobbying firm (though not a registered lobbyist himself), for making speeches to groups that he will now be expected to oversee.
Rush is so right. For so many Democrats, it appears that there really are no rules, only customs. Obama announces that no lobbyists will serve in his administration, then immediately exempts William Lynn and several others who have been longtime lobbyists. For the record, I don't know how you form a Washington team without using someone at some point, if not a goodly number of personnel, who have worked at some point for a lobbying firm. But it was Obama that castigated John McCain and others all through his campaign for using lobbyists. We know now it was just rhetoric, wasn't it?
Tom Daschle not only failed to pay $128,000 in taxes; he also neglected to disclose this quite pertinent fact to Obama's vetting team. Nicely done, Tom. Yet, I suppose, if he falls short of confirmation, the media will still chalk it all up to nasty Republican partisanship. It shouldn't, though; even the Swampland blog (or Twitter page, whichever it is) on Time.com notes that they feel Daschle's failure to inform Obama's people about the back taxes he owed poses a real problem for confirmation. Swampland is about the furthest thing from conservative in tone.
But, Daschle's problems go even further than that. He has also been paid $200,000 within the last year, in his role as an employee of a lobbying firm (though not a registered lobbyist himself), for making speeches to groups that he will now be expected to oversee.
Rush is so right. For so many Democrats, it appears that there really are no rules, only customs. Obama announces that no lobbyists will serve in his administration, then immediately exempts William Lynn and several others who have been longtime lobbyists. For the record, I don't know how you form a Washington team without using someone at some point, if not a goodly number of personnel, who have worked at some point for a lobbying firm. But it was Obama that castigated John McCain and others all through his campaign for using lobbyists. We know now it was just rhetoric, wasn't it?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
