Perhaps nothing sums up the current state of the conservative movement like seeing a Hummer back into a limousine in the parking lot outside the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) and seeing Mitt Romney beat John McCain in the CPAC straw poll on the question of “If the election were held today to decide the Republican Nominee for President in 2008, for whom would you vote?” despite having appeared at the conference only to drop out of the race. And while attendees were asked not to boo McCain, it didn’t stop them from doing so when he spoke … or whenever his name was mentioned by any of the other speakers.
Aside from the weirdness of Mike Huckabee basing his entire on speech on Phyllis Schlafly’s “A Choice, Not an Echo” despite the fact that Schlafly hates him and the sense of overwhelming despair at the possibility of a McCain nomination, the rest of CPAC consisted of typical right-wing fare, such as Joseph Farah of WorldNetDaily delineating the dangers of the Fairness Doctrine, warning that if Democrats take control of the White House and Congress, “there will be no stopping these people” who operate with a “neo-fascist mentality,” only to be followed by David Horowitz who ranted about “fair-minded” conservatives being oppressed by liberals who want to “exterminate us.” Or, as he put it, when liberals control the universities, they merely send conservatives to sensitivity training, but when “they control they state, they shoot you.”
But it wasn’t all fear-mongering. There was some good news too, such as the announcement by the National Black Republican Association that they were slowly becoming a force to be reckoned with, because last year their website received over one thousand visitors. Of course, the NBRA might be even more of a force within the GOP if their panels weren’t relegated to a tiny room at the back of the convention
Though the event appeared to be less-well attended than in previous years, there was no shortage of red meat for those in attendance, as demonstrated by the hundreds of convention-goers who lined up hours in advance to get in to hear Ann Coulter
But despite the seeming disarray of the right-wing movement at the present, there still appears to be at least one thing that can unify them in this country: hatred of Hillary Clinton
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