Glenn Beck At CPAC 2010

See for yourself what all the complaints/hype was about.

I liked it.

If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

CPAC 2010 Day 3

Like any good conference, CPAC builds up to the the last day. The first speaker of the morning is Rick Santorum, beloved of social conservatives, hated by the left. After Santorum is Andrew Breitbart, scourge of Hollywood and ACORN. Then comes a panel with Jonah Goldberg and so on from there.

Last year Matt and I commuted from our friend Michele's place every day of the conference. I had pneumonia at the time and waking up early enough to make it to the conference (and keeping the late hours that we did) just about killed me. The combination of no pneumonia and staying on site has made for a much more pleasant experience. Even at that, we're all still tired.

Per usual, I'll update the blog throughout the day, but for the up-to-the-minute, blow-by-blow stuff, follow the various twitter feeds here, here, here, & here.

If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

CPAC 2010 Day 2 (UPDATED)

UPDATE 11:22p EST: You must watch these two videos of Andrew Breitbart. The man was one of my and Matt's favorite speakers last year at CPAC and he's had a great 2009, helping James O'Keefe & Hannah Giles to break the ACORN tapes. This video is classic Breitbart and exposes the liberal media.

UPDATE 6:29p EST: I'm just going to state right up front: I do not understand the appeal of Ron Paul. People chant "End the Fed" throughout his speech and... what do they propose to do once they accomplish this pipe dream? Ron Paul's speech? He revises the last 150 years of American history in favor of his brand of libertarianism/conservatism.

This isn't to say that there isn't some stuff to recommend Mr. Paul. For example: I stand with him in his defence of the Constitution. I just can't abide his more outlandish proposals, like ending the Fed.

The best speakers we listened to today were, in no particular order, Mike Pence, John Ashcroft, and Viet Dinh. Mike Pence delivered a speech that some people described as the best in CPAC history. I wouldn't go that far as there've been a lot of good speakers here over the year, but it was very good. Pence could very well run for and win the Presidency in 2012. I would not be shocked.

John Ashcroft (see my tweets) delivered a passionate defense of Bush-era legal handling of enemy combatants, etc. Given that Obama has mostly continued the Bush legal legacy, I'd say Ashcroft and co. have mostly been vindicated.

Viet Dinh was the man we did not know who delivered the goods. He was involved in a debate about relationship between liberty & security and he soundly (to my mind) whipped Bob Barr. Dinh's knowledge of relevant legislation and American legal history was on full display. I suggest you do a Google search and read what you can by Mr. Dinh.

The biggest disappointment, for me, was Tim Pawlenty. As the Old Man said, "the message was right, the delivery just left something to be desired." He did not have the charisma, presence, and speaking ability of Mitt Romney or Mike Pence. Granted, these largely superficial things are not everything, but it would be nice to have someone who can make a more compelling case for conservative principles. His speech was largely a rambling stream of consciousness that was at times too self congratulatory. This is the type of thing that bothers me from Obama. It bothers me no less when the person is a Republican. If a candidate is going to speak about his or her life, I want it to be in a self-deprecating manner. They should let someone else talk them up.

I begin today's CPAC blog post the same way I ended yesterday's, with a link to a Politico article about Mitt Romney.

Everyone who ever writes or talks about Romney's chances in 2012 always pounds on his Massachusetts healthcare plan and rightly so. It has elements of a government takeover of healthcare that conservatives to not like. Romney pitches it as an issue wherein states ought to be able to choose what they want to do, rather than the federal government. This is an interesting response, using the conservative argument for federalism to defend his unpopular-among-conservatives healthcare plan.

CPACers are a hard charging bunch. They conference hard during the day and party hard through the night and then somehow, many of them make it up the next morning in time for the 8:30a speaker.

Rather than going to one of the many CPAC-related soirees, we went to dinner at Pot Belly, a local's favorite sandwich establishment and followed that up with the Syracuse vs Georgetown men's college basketball game--a game won by Syracuse. We were collectively struck by how well Syracuse traveled for the game as they literally occupied the entire upper portion of the arena and the Orange was spread liberally throughout the rest of the Verizon Center. The only problem was, none of us AT&T users could get our cell phones to work. I don't know whether to blame Verizon or AT&T.

Like yesterday, the best CPAC coverage from us and everyone else is on that Twitter. Click here for me, here for Matt, and here for the #CPAC10 aggregator.

If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

CPAC 2010 Day 1 (UPDATED)

UPDATE 4:52p EST: Here's a good report by Ben Smith of Politico on Mitt's speech.

MATT UPDATE: 4:52p EST Before heading off to dinner and the Georgetown v. Syracuse basketball game with friends, we're finishing the day with Wayne LaPierre, NRA lobbyist extraordinaire.

LaPierre clearly knows how to argue guns. And although libs may claim he obfuscates the issues, certainly nobody better understands the unintended consequences of gun control. He is excellent, and worth every dollar he makes from the NRA.

As Jake mentioned, who could possibly make a surprise visit tomorrow that would surpass today's visits? Regardless, I'm looking forward to Tim Pawlenty and John Ashcroft tomorrow. I'll even admit some anticipation for Ron Paul, if only to snicker at his more outrageous proposals, and to hear a hundred "End the Fed!" shouts from the crowd. Those Paul people, they're crazy.

UPDATE 3:52p EST We're watching a video of John Boehner's greatest hits. The music? Kings of Leon. I can't imagine K of L are conservatives (or would like their music to be used by a Republican) but if so, good on them.

Matt and I just walked around the exhibition hall and ran into a person who looked like an overweight and short Michael Barone. He is Barone's doppleganger, right down to the signature glasses. The only reason we knew for sure it wasn't Barone is that we saw him last year.

Everybody is talking about Dick Cheney, Scott Brown, & Mitt Romney. Friday & Saturday have a lot of work to do to match today's performance.

I'm beginning to understand why so many writers tend to be overweight. There are all kinds of complementary drinks and snacks for media-types and they mostly consist of soda, chips, & cookies. The only thing that save me is that I have a year's worth of student living (& eating) between events.

UPDATE 2:27p EST I'm trying to update using my iPhone. Apologies in advance for any errors/typos (more than usual). Romney killed it today at CPAC. Matt and I were especially impressed with his command and narrative us of American history to link cnservative ideals to American Founders. The whole speech bears reading, that section in particular. At one point he called liberal democrats neo-monarchists for their desire to command and order more of American life. This was a particularly powerful historical allusion.

From a purely political calculation perspective: Linking with MA Senate winner Scott Brown is a good way to put Romeny squarely on the side of the Tea Party movement--no mean feat when you are the former governor of a liberal state.

UPDATE 11:51am EST: Rubio rocked, DeMint rocked, Jason Mattera drew applause, laughter, and offended the left and somehow, Dick Armey re-established himself in the center of the Tea Party and conservative movement. God Bless Texas.

Blogger registration opened 8 minutes ago. I guess that means it's time to get up and get ready. Last year I turned up at the site of CPAC 2009 the day before it began and the place was pretty dead. Yes, they broke attendance records, but like I told my dad yesterday (and my brother agreed), it was more about conservative commiseration than anything else.

We'd been beaten pretty badly and everybody just wanted to get together and trade stories and talk about how optimistic Ronald Reagan had always been and how he would have seen the light at the end of the tunnel.

CPAC 2010 is an entirely different atmosphere.

Yesterday when we arrived Matt saw Wayne Lapierre as we pulled up in our cab and the guy looked like he was spoiling for a fight. All the other CPAC 2010 attendees in the hotel were excited and pregnant with anticipation. Ditto every comment I've read in every blog and tweet and in all the email listservs.

What a difference a year makes.

Your first reading assignment is this Politico article, linked on Drudge. I'll be updating the blog throughout the day, but as I mentioned in my last post, the place to get the most up-to-the-minute information is on that Twitter. Click here for my stuff and here for Matt's. We'll attend every possible speaker and panel we can and post our quick reactions as fast as we can.

We wish you could be here, but since you aren't, we're glad to share our thoughts and impressions via the interweb.

If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

2012: 538 Looks At Sarah Palin Vs. Mitt Romney Vs. Mike Huckabee Vs. Field

It's posts like this one that keep me going back to FiveThirtyEight. This kind of electoral and poll analysis play to his statistical strength. The rest, wherein he invokes his liberal condescension and plays Obama apologist, makes me want to bang my head against the wall, repeatedly. There's nothing learned in those posts and the tone makes them practically unreadable.

Back to his 2012 Republican primary post: There is a lot about this race that is unknown, like, who's going to run? There are so many names out there, even guessing who might be in it in 2012 is a crapshoot. Now add to that the difficulty of analyzing the prospects of various candidates who may or may not be running in 2012.

Of the 3 mentioned in the post title, readers know my preference: Romney, then Palin, and I don't care for Huckabee at all, and I'd love to vote for General Petraeus, though it's unlikely he runs.

The whole post is worth reading, I'll just excerpt the part on Romney:

Conversely, Mitt Romney's paths might look something like this, and are probably somewhat more straightforward than Palin's.

Romney Plan A. Win Iowa. Win New Hampshire. Game over.

Romney Plan B-1. (If Palin is knocked out) Lose Iowa. Win New Hampshire. Win Nevada. Sweep orange states on the basis of organizational strength. Veer slightly to the left, emphasizing electability and cleaning up in delegate-rich states like California and New York. You probably outlast a Southern opponent like Huckabee, perhaps even fairly easily. A Midwesterner that could win states like Ohio, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania might be more challenging.

Romney Plan B-2. (If Palin survives) Lose Iowa. Win New Hampshire. Win Nevada. Split orange states with Palin on the basis of organizational strength. Hope that gold or purple states came up next, in which case you should build up a substantial delegate lead. If so, the party infrastructure may start to close ranks around you. If green states come up instead, Palin is tougher and you're in for a war of attrition with flagging momentum.

I'm headed to CPAC next week and will get to listen to Romney and a number of the other potential Republican candidates in 2012. I'll also get a sense of base enthusiasm for 2010 and a number of other things.

Watch for lots of CPAC-related posts 18-20 February.

If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

Shelby Steele: The GOP & Minority Outreach

One of the panel discussions I attended at CPAC dealt with creating a conservative Hispanic coalition. Widely discussed were the many commonalities shared by traditional social conservatives and largely Catholic Hispanic minorities. On every issue--life, family, marriage--Hispanic minorities share the values of conservatives everywhere.

In fact, Hispanic Americans are more socially conservative than their white counterparts (that is, when you consider all white Americans together). Partnerships, at a minimum, based on these principles and shared goals seems like an obvious starting point.

But, of course, immigration raised its ugly head. I won't get into it here--it deserves its own series of posts--but I believe there is a workable solution to this problem, I'm just not entirely sure what it is.

The Conservative argument for resisting minority outreach/appeal is that we don't want to get into the grievance tribalism that afflicts the Left. We are not a party that promises a grab bag of goodies & favors if only your group helps us get elected. We are a party of principles--principles which we believe ought to appeal to people regardless of their race, gender, religion, whatever.

For the record, I believe that, 100%. One of conservatism's great promises is that it promises to view every individual the same way--it seeks the freedom of every individual.

However, within that framework, I believe there is ample room, ample opportunity, to form coalitions that seek common goals. If Hispanics are socially conservative, we can appeal to them with the principles of social conservatism. We cannot assume (wrongly, I believe) that these people somehow know that we see the world the same way they do and seek the same things they seek.

We can appeal to some of these groups without becoming tribal or abandoning our principles. We can and ought to reach out to them by using our principles and showing them how they apply in their lives and are shared by them and us.

In todays WSJ, Shelby Steele examines this question--Why the GOP can't win minorities. It is the most lucid discussion of this topic I have read in a long time. Read it all; here is an excerpt:

When redemption became a term of power, "redemptive liberalism" was born -- a new activist liberalism that gave itself a "redemptive" profile by focusing on social engineering rather than liberalism's classic focus on individual freedom. In the '60s there was no time to allow individual freedom to render up the social good. Redemptive liberalism would proactively engineer the good. Name a good like "integration," and then engineer it into being through a draconian regimen of school busing. If the busing did profound damage to public education in America, it gave liberals the right to say, "At least we did something!" In other words, we are activists

against America's old sin of segregation. Activism is moral authority in redemptive liberalism.

But conservatism sees moral authority more in a discipline of principles than in activism. It sees ideas of the good like "diversity" as mere pretext for the social engineering that always leads to unintended and oppressive consequences. Conservatism would enforce the principles that ensure individual freedom, and then allow "the good" to happen by "invisible hand."

And here is conservatism's great problem with minorities. In an era when even failed moral activism is redemptive -- and thus a source of moral authority and power -- conservatism stands flat-footed with only discipline to offer. It has only an invisible hand to compete with the activism of the left. So conservatism has no way to show itself redeemed of America's bigoted past, no way like the Great Society to engineer a grand display of its innocence, and no way to show deference to minorities for the oppression they endured. Thus it seems to be in league with that oppression.

Socially engineering society in order to assuage one's own guilt does not "redeem" the people you are trying to save (indeed, the unintended consequences of your shiny new program often worsen their condition), it is all about making yourself feel better.

Anyway, read the rest. You'll be pleased to find that Steele does not suggest some convoluted hybrid of leftist tribal politics blended with conservative principle.


If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

CPAC Day 3

Matt & I agree, Saturday was the best of the three days of CPAC. And that's how it should be: Good conferences ought to build, day to day, with the final day and the final speech being the best of all. Given that Rush Limbaugh gave a great final address, I'd say mission accomplished. For the text of that speech, click here.

For most of the day, we sat dead-center, about 20 rows back from the front.

The first speech we heard was Bill Bennett's. He was President Reagan's Secretary of Education and is the author of the Book of Virtues. He was reasonable and insistent on not calling Obama's policies socialist. He said they are from the extreme liberal left wing and that they were bad, but that they weren't socialist. Fair enough.

On education, he said it is important that we teach children American history--that we teach them to be patriotic. Of course, I agree with all of this.

Ann Coulter is the funniest woman I have ever heard. She could be a straight stand-up comedian. She is all the more enjoyable because she skewers liberals. Sure, lots of what she says is inflammatory. But it's no worse, indeed, much less offensive, than what many on the left do to those on the right. She doesn't, for instance, use four letter words. Ace has got preliminary video of Coulter's speech.

Incidentally, it is one of my disappointments that I did not get to meet Mr. Ace O'Spades. There's always next CPAC.

The afternoon had panels on education reform (read: more choice--also a pet interest of ours), energy policy, and culture/Hollywood. Robert Davi, of Goonies & James Bond fame, participated in the latter panel and was fantastic. We also enjoyed an Irish couple who presented on their film which decries the human cost of global warming hysteria.

Before Rush, we got the results of the CPAC straw poll. For the 3rd year in a row, my guy, Mitt Romney, won the day. CPAC loves Mitt.

So, yeah, we came away optimistic, enthusiastic, having made a few more friends & contacts, have learned a little more about a few more issues, and with an improved vision of what we can and ought to do as conservatives in America.


If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

CPAC Day 1

6:04pm: Just got done with a lengthy panel about 'building a conservative Hispanic coalition. This is a tough one--lots of ad hom attacks going on on both sides. Generally, we need secure borders, but everyone who wants to come here, live & abide by the law, ought to be able to come. I think part of the solution here is coming up with an easier legal way to immigrate.

And honestly, we're not going to deport or force people to deport themselves. Even if it were possible (which I doubt) we would lose a valuable ally--especially on moral & family issues--life, marriage, etc.

2:44pm: Word is that CPAC attendance is up 40% over last year--9000 vs. 7000. This affirms my earlier, superficial observation that people seemed to have recovered from the bad news of November 2008.

And they love Huck. From where I'm seated on blogger row, I can see the line stretched around the exhibition hall of people waiting, book in hand, to get it signed by the honorable former governor of Arkansas.

It will be interesting to see what sort of reception Mitt gets. IIRC, he won the straw poll here last year.

2:36pm EST: Just got done listening to Mike Huckabee & Mike Pence. Gotta get all the Mikes out of the way.

Huck knows how to work a crowd. He made a pretty compelling argument against those who have argued that fiscal, social, & foreign policy--what he called, "fiscal, family, & freedom conservatives"--can and should remain together because collectively, they hold great appeal to a majority of Americans--that it was enough for a governing majority.

Pointed out that even in states Obama won, affirmation of marriage carried the day--Florida & California being the obvious ones.

After a bit of a late start, I'm on the ground at CPAC. This place is packed with conservatives of all ages. It seems as though most people have gotten over the 2008 Presidential election hangover as enthusiasm is high. I know I say this all the time, but we are happy warriors, after all. Sorry, Barry, conservatives have always been the party of optimism.

The first speaker I had a chance to hear was Michael Barone. Like everyone else, he thinks there's a good chance Republicans pick up some seats in 2010. He also believes that Republicans have a chance a knocking off New Jersey Governor, Jon Corzine, in 2009.

Matt arrives late tonight. I'm going to see if I can get him to add his own updates tomorrow & Saturday.

Per my RNC model, check back for regular updates throughout the day.


If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

Mitt Romney Bows Out

Just watched Mitt Romney's speech to CPAC where he announced that he will drop out of the race. Click here for the transcript.

They're reporting on Fox News that Romney initially decided to continue the race, but as he worked on his CPAC speech, it occurred to him that to fight on would hurt the conservative and Republican cause and more importantly, it would hurt America.

As our father said, "what else would you expect from Romney. He's the man we thought he was."

And so he is.

You can question whether or not his current positions are genuine--we don't, not anymore--but you can't doubt his love of country.

Mark Halperin at time.com has a list of 10 suggestions of things Romney could have done differently to perhaps win the nomination.

We've laid out very plainly our problems with McCain--primarily here and here. We hope he seizes the opportunity to appeal to conservatives and assure them he will fight for the things that are important to them.

If he continues to appear dismissive or disdainful of the Reagan coalition, in favor of his independent, liberal, and media friends, he will not have a snowballs' chance of beating Hillary or Barack. His contemptuous and condescending attitude towards conservatives won't win him many votes.

We will vote for the Republican candidate for President, because as Mitt Romney said in his speech, "we cannot allow the next President of the United States to retreat in the face of evil extremism."

*UPDATE 12:18pm MST: Romney to try again in 2012.


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