Sigh. So...I'm here at the last day of CPAC, and the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel has been a great location again, except for one very glaring issue: slow and unreliable internet connection.
I can't say for sure, but it seems even worse than last year. The only bloggers I know who were able to consistently get online had their own aircards or similar devices. It's a little better today, but uploading a five minute video to YouTube took nearly half an hour...ugh. Not a good move for a conference filled with bloggers and new media people. Sigh...
Anyway, I have a LOT of great videos for you but will probably have to upload it and post over the next few days, so please be patient with me. Stay tuned for lots of great interviews with Marco Rubio, Sandy Adams, Allen West, Chuck Woolery (yes, really!), Ted Cruz, and more!
Besides the internet, we were once again faced by some seriously defective hippies (see my posts from Occupy Denver's sad and pathetic attempts to interrupt BlogCon here and here). The "Occupy" movement had been threatening all week to come "Occupy CPAC," but I never saw more than a few dozen protesters anywhere, they rarely managed to get inside the hotel, and they never disrupted the conference for more than a minute or so.
For the most part, the Occupiers were kept in a little clump at the bottom of the hill. Many CPAC attendees never even saw them. The protesters had signs calling us all racists and homophobes and the usual "Republicans are Haters!" nonsense, but no other clear message about why they were there or what they wanted. I went to a local diner for lunch today and it was snowing on the way back (this Floridian was very excited to see that!), so the little group of protesters was stuck outside in the cold.
Then, during Sarah Palin's speech (happening as I type this), some protesters tried their little "mic check!" routine but were immediately shouted down by the audience. Even Palin herself joined in chanting "USA! USA!" with them. The protesters were quickly dragged out to loud cheers from the crowd, and Palin quipped, "See? You won!" and pointed out how easy it was to defeat them. So pathetic. I'll say it again: the hippies of my generation are pathetically defective.
More reading on the Occupy silliness:
Also at RedState, Neil Stevens has photos showing how far away the Occupiers were kept from the hotel and some great comments:
“Hey, hey, ho, ho, CPAC has got to go?” Seriously? That’s the best you can do on Friday night, after the headline speakers all already spoke? As they said in the comic Wondermark, “It’s a good life, having idiots hate you.”
Oh, and just in case anyone was still suffering under the delusion that Occupy is a grassroots movement or has anything to do with the Tea Party...the Occupiers admitted they were paid $60 a day to come and protest at CPAC.
Also, don't miss Jim Treacher's HippieCam.
As usual, Andrew Breitbart's team has provided excellent coverage of all the Occupy nonsense. Check out here and here and here and here to start.
OK, while I've typed this, I've managed to get one...sigh...just one...video loaded up to YouTube. I'll keep at it. Stay tuned...
The CPAC straw poll results were a lot more satisfactory than the internet or disappointingly un-entertaining hippies. For the first time in a few years, the Campaign for Liberty did not buy a ton of tickets to bus in students to CPAC, so the straw poll was a more accurate snapshot of the attendees' preferences. Here's the results of the presidential race:
Mitt Romney - 38%
Rick Santorum - 31%
Newt Gingrich - 15%
Ron Paul - 12%
As Marc Caputo at the Miami Herald noted, while social issues are important to CPAC attendees, financial issues still dominate, which favors Romney.
Another result from the straw poll that will make sense to a lot of Floridians was the response to the question about who we preferred for vice president:
Senator Marco Rubio - 34%
Governor Chris Christie - 9%
Governor Bob McDonnell - 9%
Congressman Paul Ryan - 8%
Governor Mitch Daniels - 6%
See full results in the graphic below (click image to enlarge):
Wow. One more CPAC comes to a close. I'll keep working on my videos so make sure to check this blog over the next week. It's been another amazing, inspirational week and I can't wait to get to work to elect some great conservative fighters this year.
...November, here we come!
Every Occupier who protested CPAC is an American hero.
ReplyDeleteLadies & Gentlemen, meet the logic of the left. A few dozen protesters yelling obscenities at a peaceful conservative conference are "heroes." Unreal.
ReplyDelete