A combination of exhaustion and…well, exhaustion…will make this the equivalent of short shrift Friday. This is less a column than a quick report.
I am attending CPAC for the first time, and there have been positives and negatives.
I got to perform at an event Thursday night which was fun. The next couple days I will transition from performer to vendor. The pace is intense.
On the positive front I made new friends I will have for life and ran into friends I have not seen in ages and ages. It is like nothing changed.
From a business standpoint, the networking is fantastic.
Among the politicos I got to see who I have met before were Speaker Newt Gingrich and Congresswoman Michele Bachmann. I actually began the day running into Mary Katharine Ham. She is as nice as ever.
I met Andrea Tantaros for the first time. She is incredibly nice, smart, and friendly. I recently interviewed her by email, but it was nice to meet her in person.
I was interviewed by CNN, and by the New Republic. Time will tell if those are a pair of hatchet jobs.
Yet one big negative hangs over CPAC, and that is the Paulbots.
They make me ill. It is not that they support Ron Paul, who I agree with on economics but disagree with on foreign policy. It is that they blindly follow him. They are lemmings. They are a cult.
Most of them are young people who are easily malleable.
I am at CPAC for business. The Paulbots for me are the worst of all possible worlds. They have no money, they don’t buy books, and they like to argue. I am not there for debates. I am there for commerce. Either buy my book, or get the heck away from my table. I paid money to be a vendor. Thankfully the NRA table is nearby in case I need to get medieval.
No, not really.
Yet the Paulbots are relentless. They are buying the straw poll, which will be meaningless once they win.
The Paulbots are a bunch of people talking to each other insisting that the world agrees with them. If that were the case, Ron Paul would have one at least one delegate in 2008. He won nothing.
The Paulbots are basically the equivalent of Lyndon Larouche in the Democratic Party. They are a fringe.
This is a problem for CPAC because Ronald Reagan would weep today if he saw that the conservative conference he made famous was being invaded by armies of isolationists and protectionists.
The “liberty caucus” signs are everywhere. It is frightening.
Luckily the politicians seem to be ignoring them, treating them like the gadflys they are.
Nevertheless, while to me they don’t matter, I fear for the Republican Party if any mainstream politician ever decides that they do matter.
I hope that like most young people, they will quit and leave early, and allow CPAC to get back to what it should be…real conservatism.
eric
If they would stay in their own spaceship I would not mind,
WOW ! NO WAY !!
You finally got to met Mary K ?
I’m so happy for you I could almost cry
yeah, ever since Paul blamed our presence for radical actions I cant stomach his foreign policy stances.
My buddy from Right Pundits “Warner Todd Huston” was there.
Maybe you ran into each other ?
http://www.rightpundits.com/?p=8225&cp=all#comments
I know a young “Paulbot.” Smart, well-meaning kid. I too get the feeling that most of Paul’s supporters are young libertarians.
The only thing worse than a young libertarian is no young at all. ;) (You can use that if you like – just tell me if it does good! JMJ)
I met another guy, some years ago, who was a “Paulbot.” He was some kind of contractor, as I recall, and smart, and committed to the cause.
I disagree with them, but they are smart, affable people. Just a little misguided.
Reading lots of “Paulbot” stuff, on top of my anecdotes, leads me to believe there is a strong movement in Conservative America – beyond just the “Paulbots” – to decrease the size of the military estate. They have a fair point – it’s extremely expensive and not very profitable.
Here’s a plain fact: We have engaged in two extremely unprofitable military expeditions in the last decade.
If you are a moral and reasonable capitalist, you should find this offensely stupid. Moral and reasonable capitalists are rational people who make moral, rational decisions with all the various hazards in mind, and without imposing too many rules to avoid the hazards. That’s the whole idea. If you engage in wars with no clear outcome, without proper funding, is that rational, smart, moral?
I understand why the “Paulbots” are “Paulbots,” and I agree with most of your critique of them.
There’s a big world out there, and these folks are going to have to accept that.
But guys like you and I have to be realistic as well. For now, let’s just focus on Egypt and hope Obama et al can make sure the miltary over there keeps things the status quo with Israel. Right?
This has very serious consequences. Egypt may be rising again, so anyone who knows anything about history should know what that means. Egypt has historically played a significant role in the West. They may well be coming back. We have to be ready for that. I wish the Obama administration to give us good fortune in this historic event, and I know you’d agree.
What the “Paulbots” would say about all that?
Not much.
When they get older, they’ll get more realitistic. ;)
JMJ
“Here’s a plain fact: We have engaged in two extremely unprofitable military expeditions in the last decade.”
hey Einstein…
It depends how you define “unprofitable”