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.