Posted on 02/22/2010 2:44:35 PM PST by Steelfish
February 22, 2010 CPAC's Odd Ending By C. Edmund Wright What a Saturday at CPAC! Ron Paul out-polled Sarah Palin almost five to one, and keynoter Glenn Beck got huge ovations as he disavowed any conservative ascendancy within the Republican Party.
So someone please tell me -- just what the heck happened to a convention that was off to such a wonderful conservative start? Where is the momentum from the Marco Rubio speech and the Dick Cheney "Obama is a one-term president" moment?
Perhaps David Keene of the American Conservative Union will be a bit more careful when picking keynote speakers from now on. What happened was predictable, given that the man he picked uses a daily TV show to make it clear that he blames Republicans, Democrats, the left and the right, and politics in general all equally for America's woes.
While Beck has a huge audience, some of these thoughts are not exactly the consensus among American conservatives. They are not consistent with reality, either. Besides, CPAC stands for Conservative Political Action Committee.
Oh, I realize that in a ballroom jammed with a disproportionate share of Paul-supporters and Beck groupies, Keene is likely not aware of how conservatives across the country viewed this soiree. Not yet. I am also not swayed by the audience emotion. The keynote speaker had a lot to do with who did -- and did not -- show up.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
That's cuz he was at my birthday party...He likes chocolate cake better than tea.
I grabbed the youtube of Beck at CPAC because a number of FReepers were pretty excited about it. It was good - classic Beck.
The thought that Conservatism needs a convention or conference is freakin’ weird. CPAC seems to cause more problems than it solves.
everyone else complaining about what Beck said is getting it wrong.
As in the words of Beck"
"Progressiveisim is the cancer eating away at America
Bingo !!!
Ross Perot was not a conservative, especially on social issues he was pretty liberal. And he was a proponent of government solutions to many problems.
Beck's message was nothing like that...not to mention, he is NOT running for public office.
I think they have a convention to roundup and rope in the wild conservatives and tame them for the “system”.
>> keynoter Glenn Beck got huge ovations as he disavowed any conservative ascendancy within the Republican Party. <<
I though Beck was Promoting Conservative/Constitutionalists ascendancy in the Republican Party.
The Republicans have been DRUNK on power, we had both houses and senate but were paralyzed by RINOs like McCain and Specter and Graham, oh my.
We are the Republican party and WE HAVE A PROBLEM! That problem is that we are not sticking to the most dear ideals of Conservatism.
They attach ankle monitor devices to the true conservatives so they can track them and make sure they don’t corrupt any of the RINO’s.
kook-paul is a major buzz kill.
Okay, I’ll give you some of those points about Perot. True, true.
I’m not convinced though that Beck is as anti-government solutions as he says he is.
And he IS like Perot with all the homespun talk. TMI.
I didn’t like Perot’s playing to the LCD, and sometimes I think Beck is doing the same. Do we need chalkboards and dead frogs to help us understand every point?
::: shrug :::: Not sure.
Heck, reality IS a buzz kill. That’s why kids take drugs to party.
Is it OK if I don’t want to be lectured by someonr crazy enough to believe that someday he’ll have his own planet to rule, a planet that has slaves on it?
Ron Paul in his own words...
“There’s nobody in this world that could possibly attack us today. I mean, we could defend this country with a few good submarines.”
“Have you ever read about the reasons they attacked us? They attack us because we’ve been over there. We’ve been bombing Iraq for 10 years,”
“I know a lot of people believe that, and while I haven’t looked at their evidence in detail, there certainly are a lot of unanswered questions about 9/11 and we certainly need an honest and thorough investigation instead of a cover up.”
MR. RUSSERT: How many troops do we have overseas right now?
REP. PAUL: I don’t know the exact number, but more than we need. We don’t need any.
MR. RUSSERT: It’s 572,000. And you’d bring them all home?
REP. PAUL: As quickly as possible. We–they will not serve our interests to be overseas. They get us into trouble. And we can defend this country without troops in Germany, troops in Japan. How do they help our national defense? Doesn’t make any sense to me. Troops in Korea since I’ve been in high school?
MR. RUSSERT: So if Iran invaded Israel, what do we do?
REP. PAUL: Well, they’re not going to. That is like saying “Iran is about to invade Mars.” I mean, they have nothing. They don’t have an army or navy or air force. And Israelis have 300 nuclear weapons. Nobody would touch them. But, no, if, if it were in our national security interests and Congress says, “You know, this is very, very important, we have to declare war.” But presidents don’t have the authority to go to war
You have a better analogy? Seems to be a good fit in my opinion.
What a bunch of stupid crap in this article. C. Edmund Wright can't even get his facts right regarding the title of the conference.
CPAC = Conservative Political Action Conference
Geesh...
Doesn't seem to work for you, however us little people seem to get it, we are to dumb to know better I guess.
DO NOT put any stock in that ridiculous CPAC straw poll that they insist on doing year after year! It bugs me so much that the media takes this non-scientific poll so damn seriously.
CPAC has so many wonderful events going on simultaneously, and the majority of attendees who bother to take the significant amount of time out of their day to "vote" in that straw poll are students (usually young guys between the ages of 18-25). And the ones who vote (over and over again) are rabid about their candidate - this year it happened to be Ron Paul.
I see these young guys every year at the straw poll tables... tables monitored by students, btw. These kids start filling out the paper ballots at the beginning of the conference (before they even listen to any speeches), they vote multiple times and stuff the stupid cardboard boxes with their ballots. It's kind of like us "FReeping" a poll, to be honest.
And then the media goes crazy proclaiming "Conservatives pick Ron Paul as their favorite candidate for 2012! Wow!"
I hate that dumbass CPAC straw poll. I don't have any "clout" with the CPAC honchos, but my husband and I are going to write and request that they stop running this straw poll every year. This thing totally misrepresents the majority of attendees at the conference.
CPAC had over 10,000 attendees this year, and about 2,395 of them voted in the straw poll. 52% were male, and in the 18-25 age bracket. Or so the poll said... who knows if these were even honest answers?
BTW, just before Glenn Beck's closing keynote speech, the pollster - Tony Fabrizio - read the Ron Paul result, and the crowd of 10,000 loudly BOOed, and for a significant time. I was one of 'em! Over in a far corner, there were a few wimpy cheers in the student section. Yeah, you guessed it - the Paulestinians.
You can find the results of this silly poll here if you're interested:
If you get a chance, please see my post #37 below...
And I believe most mature politically engaged republican voters ignore those distractions anyway.
Not relevant
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