CPAC 2010 - Saturday Afternoon

Half the time I venture out to another venue here in this huge hotel, I get turned around. So much of both the hotel and this city are laid out in circular pattern and it's counterintuitive for me.

Coming into the home stretch now. Still to come are Newt Gingrich at 2:00 PM, the new Virginia Governor, Bob McDonnell after him, Colonel Allen West at 4:15, Then Glenn Beck at 6:00. Not sure I'll be staying for Beck - see how I'm feeling then. Two consecutive late nights in the lounge are taking their toll on me and I might call my old friend, Dave Morine, early. I'm going to have to find my way through the subway system to a certain stop and he'll pick me up. It's treacherous driving around this city with all the snow piled up everywhere. Many streets are down to one lane. I'm staying with Dave and his lovely wife, Ruth, in Great Falls, VA tonight and flying home tomorrow.Smitty and Crowder
Lots of people come and go here in the bloggers' lounge. PJTV's Kevin Crowder just came through and my new friend Smitty of "The Other McCain" blog asked me to take a picture with him and Crowder. Then someone obliged me to get a shot with him. I show a lot of "Louder with Crowder" clips to my students. He's a sketch.Me and Crowder
Gingrich will be coming on any minute. I remember last year, he didn't enter stage right or left. He came in with an entourage up the center aisle with "Eye of The Tiger" playing loudly - as if he were about to enter the ring and defend his title. It was great. We'll see what he does this year in a few seconds.Newt entering the room
Yup. He did it again.
Newt approaching the podium
The crowd sounds like it's booing, but it's shouting "Newt! Newt!" He isn't using the teleprompter and he's not using notes. He's the smartest Republican leader out there in my opinion. I would never want to be his opponent in a debate. I don't always agree with him, but I've got to respect him.He's drafting a "Contract From America" that, as of now, has 22 points. He's asking for feedback to bring it down to ten, like he did in his "Contract with America" back in 1994 when he took over the House.

Can't type fast enough. Among other things, he said the City of New York spends $50 million a year to maintain a "rubber room" of teachers who have been declared incompetent, but are waiting out the process of being fired by getting full pay and sitting in the rubber room every day reading books, knitting, or whatever. And each one is there an average of seven years, during which time they are accumulating larger pensions. Outrageous.

As I said yesterday, there are candidates coming through the bloggers' lounge all the time. Advance people come through first passing out literature. Patrick Murray is a recently-retired army colonel who happens to be running in Dave Morine's district nearby here.Me and Colonel Murray
I told him I was from Maine, but I'd be staying with a slightly left-of-center friend in his district tonight, and what could I say to him that might get him to consider voting for you? Well, he explained his position on deficit spending. He said we're now at the point where our interest payment on the debt - $600 billion annually - is exceeding the defense budget. Well, that nailed it. If there's anyone who might be cheaper than I am, it's Dave. He's most generous with family and friends, but quite frugal with everything else.

Colonel Murray knew the answer to my signature question I've asked six presidential candidates two years ago: "Who is the 12th imam, or "Mahdi"? Only two of the six knew it in 2008, but Murray answered it right off. He explained that Ahmadinejad believes he can bring the imam out of the well and rule over the world in the end times. Bravo Colonel Murray. He also chuckled when he read my business card with "Heterosexual White Guy Journalists Association" printed prominently in the middle. I'll make my pitch for Murray to Dave and Ruth over dinner tonight.Okay, Colonel Alan West - another good man running for congress in Florida - is addressing CPAC and the house is packed. "Join me in a dream that will preserve the legacy of this great republic for our children and our grandchildren," he just said, and the crowd responded vigorously. He's a very good speaker. The crowd likes him. I hope he wins.

As I go to iPhoto and download images for the past few days, I see a recent shot of my 5-month-old granddaughter, Claire, and my heart swells. I'm reminded of what the most important things are and that I'm a very lucky man.I love Claire
This is my fourth day in the city and I'm lonesome for home. It's exciting here, but I'm always reminded of why I left urban life 33 years ago. I love Maine and I'm homesick. Thinking now that I'll skip Glenn Beck and try to navigate the DC subway system before 10,000 people rush out of this building.

That's all from CPAC 2010. It's been grand.

CPAC 2010 - Saturday morning

Saw a great film "Atomic Jihad" this morning written and directed by fellow Family Security Matters contributing editor, Joel Gilbert. It'll be released Tuesday and I bought an advance copy. It's a great compilation of Islamic history and I'll definitely be using it in my classroom. I had to miss Andrew Breitbart's big speech to see it, but Joel is a great guy and I wanted to support him.

Ann Coulter is coming up next. She'll energize things and there's an overflow crowd down there. I'll get some pictures from the Bloggers' Lounge with my 270mm lens.She wrote a devastating speech. Started with Kevin Jennings, our Obama-appointed Safe Schools Czar "and his book: 'Queering Elementary Education.'" It's a whole series of one-liners.
She's referring to the Tea Party activists who are all over the place this year. "CNN is calling them 'Tea Baggers,' which is the gayest term since Anderson Cooper."
The crowd loves her. She ended her remarks with "Remember - Keith Olberman is a girl."

She's taking questions from the audience now and she's definitely fast on her feet. "Have you ever dated a liberal before?" some guy asked.

"Umm. They weren't liberal for long," she answered.

CPAC - Friday afternoon

Wish I could be in several places at once down here. Just came back to the main ballroom while Congresswoman Michelle Bachman was speaking and it was standing room only. She was reciting passages from the Declaration of Independence: ...deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed" and people were following along. I walked through the room and up to the bloggers' lounge to set up my work station again. Dang. Sorry I missed her.

John Ashcroft is at the podium now. Can't help but think about what a contrast he is with our present Attorney General, Eric Holder. Colonel Alan West
My mind is reeling, however, because from 10:00 AM until 12:30 PM, I attended Pam Geller's and Richard Spencer's "Freedom Defense Initiative." Colonel Alan West, Major Stephen Coughlin, Wafa Sultan, Simon Deng, and others.The room
It was the most powerful presentation of the conference so far as I suspected it would be.
Pam Geller
There's just too much to write about here. I'm going to need time to collect my thoughts and write a few columns on what I learned, and it's disturbing. Simon Deng is a human rights activist living in New York City right now, but...
Simon Deng
Congressman Dan Lundgren of California is speaking now in the Maine hall. We get video/audio feeds here in the bloggers' lounge. He's the former Atty General there - a measured speaker and he's talking about the Islamist threat. He's somber and the audience is too. So am I, after the Geller presentation.
Simon and me
... I went back to my room after that presentation which involved a circuitous walk through this huge hotel and, it turned out, Simon Deng's room is in the same tower and on the same floor as mine. We rode up together in the elevator, but we were talking so intently in the back that we rode it up and down several times while others came in and went out. Then we went out into the little lobby and talked some more. I have most of it recorded on my digital audio device and I'll be quoting from him in future pieces, but I'm going to have to do some more research on the history of Christians in southern Sudan where Simon grew up. His accent is still pretty thick and it was hard sometimes to follow all he was telling me.

Simon was kidnapped and sold into slavery for three-and-a-half years to Arab Muslim masters in the north...

Ovide Lamontagne just walked over and we talked about his race for the US Senate in New Hampshire. Seems like a good man. I recorded our interview. More later...

Now I just have to venture out and find a men's room. Back later...

CPAC - Friday Morning

Here I am back in the Bloggers' Lounge bright and early and Herman Cain is speaking. He's good. He's a businessman from Pennsylvania and a Fox business news contributor. Too bad there are so few people in the room. I'd never heard of this guy before. Wish they'd given him a different slot because he could have pumped up an audience.

Where is everybody? I was in the lounge drinking along with everybody else and I'm here. I went to bed a little after midnight, but maybe they didn't. I didn't start until late because I had to "appear" on a radio talk show in Florida at 9:00 PM with Andrea Shea King, whom I met last year here. She's a sketch and I wanted to float around to the various bloggers' receptions she always hears about.

Met so many great people from all over the country and we're all here for the same reason - we're conservatives. There were as many in the lounge alone as there are in all of Maine.
I attended an awards ceremony at Accuracy in Media (AIM) where Marc Morano got an award for his wonderful work on Climategate. Andrew Breitbart was getting one too for his expose of ACORN and it was a small venue. He's a pit bull with liberals. Love to watch him whenever I can. Both guys gave great presentations. AIM has picked up my pieces a few times in their "guest columns" section and I'm proud to be associated with them in a small way.
Got to get ready for Pam Geller's thing at 10:00. Don't want to miss that! More later.

More Surprises at CPAC

Scott Brown just showed up to introduce Mitt Romney. He wasn’t on the program either. Said he had his pickup truck right outside - and he’ll need it to get around this city. There’s way more snow here than there was in Lovell, Maine when I left yesterday.
Romney said, “Whoever thought you’d hear anyone say at CPAC: Thank you Massachusetts!”

Then he said that Leanne Smith has to give back her medal because, as it turns out, “Barack Obama has been going downhill faster than she has.”

Those are good lines and Romney is a good guy. I've heard him speak many times - at every one of these conferences I've attended - and I've interviewed him once at The Conway Daily Sun. He seems to have everything but one essential thing - fire in the belly. He has never convinced me that he's got steel in him. I just don't sense it and that's something the next president is going to need desperately. Colonel West has it as you can see if you clicked on the link in the post above (sorry I didn't add it until just now). West has steel. He has fire in his belly. I don't know him well enough yet as to his positions on other issues, but I'll find out and I'll be watching him.

Author Richard Spencer and blogger Pam Geller of Atlas Shrugs just passed me a reminder of their presentation tomorrow at which West will be speaking along with Stephen Coughlin, Wafa Sultan, and other luminaries who raise public awareness of our battle against Radical Islam. Looking forward to that one. More tomorrow.

Thaddeus McCotter, congressman from Michigan is talking. I like him. He's smart, and a low-key kind of guy. He's a good Catholic and a scholar. Someone said he can play the guitar behind his head, but that's tough to visualize while I listen to him speak.

Having so much fun I haven't eaten anything all day. Supper is going to taste good tonight.

CPAC 2010 - There's Energy Here

I'm at CPAC again and I'm stoked. I'm recharged already and it's only been three hours. It's worth the time, the expense, and the bother to get here each year. This is my fourth and I've finally gotten smart about how to operate. Got my bloggers credentials and I'm writing from "Bloggers Row." Got wireless access, a table to work on - they even pass out candy to us. I recognize other bloggers from around the country. I'm loving this.
Marco Rubio is genuine. He's about to become the next senator from Florida and he's a real conservative. Charlie Crist thought he was going to walk into the senate seat the way Martha Coakley thought she was going to walk into her's in Massachusetts, but Marco Rubio got in the way. He was 30 points behind a few months ago. He's 10 points ahead now.

He was introduced by Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina, who alone has a 100% conservative rating in the US Senate. He said, "I'd rather have 30 senators like Marco Rubio than 60 like Arlen Spector." Here here. Are you listening Olympia Snowe?

Rubio is real. I was seated close to the podium to tell and he never set off my BS alarm. It never even peeped. He’s the genuine article. There was a crack behind his voice when he talked about where he came from that wasn’t staged. I've heard a lot of politicians tell their stories and darned few passed my gut test. "This guy really believes what he’s saying," I was thinking, and the audience picked that up bigtime. He's going to do great things.

"I was raised by [Cuban] exiles," he said, "by people who know what it’s like to lose their country. I’m one generation removed from a very different life. [I live in] a country that recognizes that our rights come from God and not from anybody else. Americans chose a limited government to protect our rights, not grant them."
He said more things than I had time to type (I've got to get faster), and these quotes aren't necessarily in the order he said them, but say they he did. This guy is good and he's only 39.

"[The] 2010 [election] is a referendum on the very identity of our nation. People get it. They understand that if we get this wrong, there may not be any turning back for America. [Our leaders] are asking us to abandon the things that separate us from the rest of the world."

I love this guy.
This is a Tea Party guy I met in the lobby early this morning. He led the September 12th March on Washington last fall. It was only about 7:00 AM and very few people were around, so he posed for me.

I walked around the lounge last night after unpacking in my room, but didn't sit down and order a glass of wine. The trip exhausted me and I decided to go to bed early. Tonight will be different though. I have to speak on The Andrea Shea King radio talk show in Florida at 9:00 PM. Met Andrea last year and she introduced me to Colonel Alan West - a candidate for Congress from Florida and an Iraq veteran. He's speaking later in the conference and I very much recommend you click on this link to one of his speeches. Good people down there in Florida, huh?

Oh my. Dick Cheney just walked to the podium. He wasn't on the program. His daughter, Liz, was speaking and she brought him along. "As 'arm candy' her father said. Then he said, 'I think Barack Obama is going to be a one-term president."

Here here. I believe he's right.

More updates later. Got to go to the bathroom.