Bizarre. Every time I try to describe what my two days at CPAC were like, I inevitably fall back on “bizarre,” which doesn’t really do it all justice.  The ridiculous array of groups, from Christian Zionists to Muslims for Freedom (who believe Bush is the true savior of their people), protectionists and anarcho-capitalists (they prefer being called Objectivists, but a spade is a spade), curious oxymoronic things like “Young” or “Black” Republicans, was only the tip of the iceberg.

Still, as I sought to make comparisons between conservative conferences and progressive equivalents (after all, any hotel filled with like-minded people is bound to produce a few colorful deviations from reason), I was most struck by the lack of a real progressive alternative. While Campus Progress’s summer student conferences might be the closest approximation, CPAC is a historical legacy, a monolith whose straw poll is expected to actually bear on the primary elections. Reagan’s 12 speeches at CPAC are no small part of their deification of the dullard and worship of his god-awful presidency. Sure, it’s hard to see how our movement would benefit from a 3-day festival of celebrity-mongering idiocy (Rep. Sensenbrenner’s speech was to a nearly empty banquet hall, while hundreds congregated in an absurdly long queue to be in Ms. Coulter’s demonic presence). But, if nothing else, this proximity between everyday “activists” and party-faithful and the biggest names on the right seemed to generate a sense of tangible reward or return for efforts, and undoubtedly helped keep the movement charged up.

(For a summary of the especially surreal moments, scroll down below the jump). 

 The conservative movement showed itself to be, as ever, an un-intellectual (if not deliberately anti-intellectual), but ultimately very savvy, ends-driven political machine. Obviously reeling from the results of the midterm elections, often caught in the same tired defenses of indefensible policies (the media just won’t show the good things that happen in Iraq!), they nonetheless seemed to energize the soldiers and the donors with this tired old tripe. Taxes must be cut, flattened. The War must be won. The sanctity of life and family must be protected. Meanwhile, the tax code is regressive as ever, the middle class suffers, the war is lost, and economic insecurity probably does more to wreck the American family than the gay couple living down the street.

The comfort in all their sadly reality-detached absurdity, I guess, is that this is exactly how conservatives charged to their own defeat in the last election cycle, and it's how they'll probably do it all over again.

Every time I went for a photo-op with some detestable conservative, some hack whose mindless screeds have caused me to take time out my busy day to repudiate, I still managed to keep up the jovial banter.

Laura Ingraham would be the exception. Maybe I was tired, because it was the end of day two, but really, I was just stunned.

"Hi, Ms. Ingraham, I'm Niral Shah, from Dartmouth College. Could I get my picture with you really quickly?"

 "Oh man, from Dartmouth? Wah hoo wah, way to go man." 

"Wah hoo wah" is a cherished (only by borderline senile white, male alumni, and the Dartmouth Review staffers whose otherwise unread publication is funded by them) cheer, that harkens back to the days of the Dartmouth Injun being the school's unofficial, never-sanctioned though since banned (three decades ago) mascot. The cheer is often accompanied by a rowdy cry of "scalp 'em."

Maybe she assumed I was a review staffer, in which case, an odd mix of racism and false nostalgia (the Indian mascot was discontinued before the Review was even founded) is a totally appropirate way to greet someone. Maybe she's just clinging to that one time she offended enough people to pretend she was part of a meaningful opposition to anything (just like that time in the 80s that she published a list of gay students from a private support-group meeting).

Maybe she tapped into my larger annoyance with her successors on campus, (but they'd have to be somewhat relevant for me to actually be annoyed), maybe she was too much of a joke to indulge myself in conversation (on the other hand, I chatted up Michelle Malkin.) Who knows. Regardless, I just walked away this time.

A few concluding observations about the conservative as a social and political animal. First, the evidence.  

In what was probably a brilliant leftist prank, there was a hotel-wide fire alarm during the Ronald Reagan banquet, the much-anticipated climax of CPAC. As everyone milled around outside, a group of young conservatives started a collective sing-along to "(Bye Bye) Miss American Pie," delivered until they got past the first verse and the chorus and forgot the words. Cool, guys. I'm glad you have the pop culture sensibility of baby boomers. At least my 59 year-old father knows some of the words. Then the fire department showed up and everyone cheered loudly (note: there was no fire). 

I used the mass confusion to sneak us into the Banquet (see previous blog post for the verbal detritus that was spewed there). Afterwards, though I was already feeling the stolen chardonnay, I was determined to infiltrate the young conservative social scene. I ended up bumming a cigarette off two dudes from Kentucky (I don't smoke, but being from Virginia, tobacco and both our states' economic dependence on it provided a convenient topic of conversation). These guys talked about state politics and the strategy of their career trajectories with the zeal and careful calculation of fanatics rattling off inane baseball stats--I gotta work on this campaign to get that job with this guy's cabinet, "If Fletcher wins in '07, McConnell will look bad for '08," etc. There was zero talk about actual political issues, just the politics of career advancement IN politics. They were expertly acquainted with everyone who was anyone in the college conservative political hierarchy scene--we winked at the cute chair from Tennessee (thoughts on conservative girls coming soon). 

I followed them up to a room party thrown by the rep from Minnesota (my heart goes out to that girl). It was too small for me not to be snickered at as "random guy," and I quickly realized I didn't have the heart or endurance for this endeavor. With the bad music and the collective stick up everyone's butt, it's no wonder Stephen Glass made up that story about hanging out with drunk Republicans. I drew a (not so) healthy amount of their rum into my Dixie cup, which was my way of telling myself I hadn't totally admitted defeat, and made haste to the lobby.

On the way I had a funny experience with a friendly fellow Conference attendee, as we slowly revealed to each other that we were both leftist social imposters. He told me about how a girl at the party asked him where he worked and he told her "the Democratic Caucus." What? she asked, not hearing him over the shitty R&B playing. "The Caucus!" he tactfully abbreviated. She misheard him again and slapped him. Just kidding- anti-feminist conservative girls are way harder to offend with inappropriate jocular references to your penis.

After being so generously snuck into the Reagan banquet by some people, I turned up the shmooze to levels unheard of - even by the resume-padding, bowtie-wearing Young Conservatives that stalked the earlier career fair.

Once I heard that Tom "The Hammer" DeLay, the disgraced personification of conservative lobbying scandals and perhaps all that is wrong with K Street era DC, was in the room, there was no stopping me. Deftly slipping past some ungracefully-aged and over-botoxed senior Conservative women, through a horde of eager acolytes that actually respected this man, I stepped up and shoved my right hand out.

"Mr. DeLay," (I wasn't going to call him a Congressman) "my name is Niral Shah, from Dartmouth College."

"A real live conservative from Dartmouth College, eh? I didn't know there were any," Mr. DeLay said as he excitedly pumped my hand.

"Well sir, there's not a lot, but there's a few," I said, trying not to wrongly identify myself as one of those seersucker-wearing bastards.

 We chatted for a while, but unfortunately, I had left my camera behind. But then, hours later, as we were leaving the Omni Hotel, we saw Mr. DeLay once again. The crowd this time was smaller, but still, it took some skill to get in there.

"Mr. DeLay, could I get a quick picture with you?"

A 40-something, and reasonably fit woman interjects, explaining that she's a blogger, and defended (the now indicted) DeLay "against all those looney accusations from the left," stepping close to him, pawing at him even, lamenting that "nobody even talks about the ranch." (Actually, people do. His ranch-based charity for children is also under investigation.)

I had to wait a little longer ("always gotta make time for a pretty lady," the ex-Congressman told me)

In the past two days, I have had some of the most surreal interactions in my life. Unfortunately, left out of the pictures are some of the especially great moments. Hopefully, I'll get to those a bit later. Until then, here it is. (More after the jump)

Your former UN Ambassador with your fearless, intrepid, undercover blogger:

I chatted with Michelle Malkin for nearly a half hour yesterday, and for a few minutes today as well. Look for more on this in the near future

I had serious moral quandries about writing this blog post, because I think that Ann Coulter is the last person who deserves more attention from anyone in the media, regardless of how insignificant. But now I've come to accept Ann for what she is--the Right's best comedian. She's not a pundit, she's not a policy person...she's just an entertainer. Forget the "1/2 Hour News Hour"; she is the conservatives' conduit of comedy. Unfortunately her humor is the schtickiest there is. Un-P.C.-ness is her one trick pony, which is why liberals don't find her funny...and in turn why she is a smashing success with begrieved conservatives.

At her speech today, which had less substance than cotton candy, she heralded Mitt Romney as the best Republican presidential candidate, because Giuliani and McCain are too liberal. Then she criticized the RNC for denouncing NYU and U. Michigan's "Catch an Illegal Immigrant" game. During the Q&A, after some guy said that "Godless" was second only to the Bible as the best book he'd ever read, she really let loose the zingers:

"College Republicans are like conservatives in North Korea."

On how to obliterate apathy on a college campus: "Start a Joe McCarthy Club."

On girls involved in conservative campus activism: "Unlike in the liberal movements, you might actually meet a nice heterosexual boy."

"I was going to say something about John Edwards, but I heard that if you use the word 'faggot' you end up in rehab." (I would find this funny, if I was homophobic). 

"Democrats don't like blacks, yet blacks keep voting for them!...Our blacks are more impressive than their blacks" (Are we fighting over toys here?).

"Why aren't all gays conservative? We're anti-tax and anti-crime. Gays make tons of money and are victims of crimes!"



That's all I got. Thank you, you've been a great audience, don't forget to tip your waitress.

Well, CPAC managed to gather all four of the black people at this Conference and put them on stage together, for "Conservative Solutions for Urban America."

All the usual gripes and outrage of the more conservative contingency of the black middle class were heard--we can't blame problems on the color of our skin, we must live now and forget the history of oppression, BET is ruining our youth, etc. "Antebellum rednecks have got nothing on MTV and BET, the minstrel show that is pumped into our children's brains daily," said the Congress for Racial Equality's Niger Innis. 

Some of these complaints represent common ground with people on the left--for instance, when Campus Progress hosted a showing of "Beyond Beats and Rhymes" in Los Angeles not three weeks ago, the panel including "conscious" rapper Talib Kweli spent much time ridiculing BET's founder Bob Johnson, who Innis maligned by name at this CPAC panel. In fact, Innis even critiqued Fox News for focusing their (albeit negative) coverage on figures like P. Diddy, and the media in general for presenting a warped and narrow vision of black people, as indication of their totally skewed priorities. "We care more about Anna Nicole Smith and what Britney is shaving or not wearing than a war being fought by our young people." I certainly couldn't argue with that.

When they did choose to focus on the past is where they lost me. Mychal Massie, of the National Center for Public Policy: "Slavery is over." Sure. "The civil rights struggle is over." Okay, maybe. Then, "we went from Martin Luther King to Superfly." Weird...what happened to the Black Panthers? Apparently they were part of a "militant movement that glorified a motherland that never existed" and ridiculed Martin Luther King. Not surprisingly, there was no mention of how King did get more aggressive and spoke out against the Vietnam War at the end of his life. "We went from Duke Ellington to Snoop Dogg," and, most interestingly, "we went from Shirley Chisolm to Barack Obama." Did I miss something? I guess Obama is a lamentable candidate because his father is from Africa, which doesn't exist.

When the Romney supporters start chanting "Romney," the Brownback supporters start chanting "flip-flop." Its a charming display of intra-party discourse in action.

So, straight from the lion's den, here are some pictures. (If a Lion's den was a hilariously inconsistent place that handed out pamphlets and used candy as a lure for attention, that is.)

Lonely lonely Tom DeLay. His PAC, despite an unbearably crowded room around it, did not even get a single visitor. It might be that he's disgraced his movement, or that they didn't bring candy

Ideological Consistency: The American Protectionist and The Libertarian Party side by side

More After the Jump! 

This is a story about Elly and Fill, and more marginally, dancing. Their names are changed to protect their confidentiality. Elly is a young, college-aged student organizer. Fill, who looks, talks, and acts like (and might actually be) this character from Syriana, is a generic operative.

Elly: Do you know about Students for Saving Social Security?

Me: I guess, generally.

Elly: See, President Bush put in a thing for having private accounts, and Congress wants to take it out –

(Fill, who I had seen yucking it up at another table minutes before, appears out of nowhere) 

Fill: Hi [looks at nametag] Elly, we haven’t met yet, I’m sorry to interrupt. You can’t say private accounts, you gotta say personal accounts. When you say private, people think corporate, like corporations are gonna control their money, they think of prisons and things in their towns being privatized, and they aren't going to control their money anymore. You gotta say personal accounts.

It's sort of difficult to not give oneself away without lying (I had to remove the Books not Bombs sticker from my laptop), but so far so good. I even found my way into last night's NRA banquet, and have had quite a few interesting (if sort of one-way, I prefer not to answer questions) conversations.

Well, I'd love to stay and chat, but I think its my turn to play Dance Dance Revolution. Anything for the cause! 

It’s the early afternoon, it’s hot in here, and things have devolved into something those of us in the conference-infiltrating profession refer to as a shitshow. After a massive line formed for Gov. Romney’s appearance, the hordes of star-struck conservatives, of every age and (not really) color have been unable to return to normal panel-attending mode. Ann Coulter, who either has not appeared yet or is already doing book signings, has apparently caused a similarly massive line to form. Because of this, I’m missing out on the conservative journalism and blogger awards, sure to be a simultaneously disheartening and hilarious exercise in irony. (Yesterday, Michelle Malkin received an “accuracy in media” award). While I wait to get some idea of the updated schedule, I figure it’s as good a time for some general reflections.

The straw poll: They take this really seriously, each campaign choosing it’s most attractive and bubbly female operatives to hand out stickers, posters, and while flirting, suggest you attend their speech and vote for them. Also, there is one person shrilly screaming something about “John Cox for President.” Nobody knows what to make of it. Similarly, they seem to be inconsolably offended by John McCain’s snub of CPAC.

The Attendees: It seems to be an even split between old folks and students, or maybe a 60/40 split. The students are often found meandering through the halls, the exhibition booths, and the lobby, but are less well-represented in actual panel discussion audiences. In fact, yesterday’s Grover Norquist-headlined flat-tax-fiesta seemed entirely populated by men who could be Dick Cheney’s body doubles.  

Random observations: In a completely packed room full of tables, the Tom DeLay exhibit was sadly desolate and ignored. That girl yelling something about someone named John Cox will be the death of me. It is really difficult to come up with good reasons why one can't sumbit his email address to your crazy list. Mitt Romney is being accused of flip-floppery in increasingly creative ways, first with actual Romney “flip-flops” being handed out, later with a man in a full-body dolphin suit with “Flip Romney” written on it.

Also, while I may mock some of these kids for being star-struck, I have to admit, I’m not above it either. Stay tuned for more photos, but for now, here's a peak (after the jump) at the hip-crowd at the Young Republican's table.

“Plato said something like what I’m about to say….that if he wanted to govern a nation, and he had the option to use politics or art, he would choose art. While politics can govern the laws of men, art dictates their minds and their hearts, how they think and how they work.”

No less than Plato provided the dominant philosophy of CPAC’s panel on Hollywood, “The Power of the Box Office: Getting the Pro-Life Message to the Masses.” With this title and the fact that two of the scheduled speakers were reality star Tarek from “The Apprentice” and Miss America 2001, I did not expect much. Thankfully, Tarek and the beauty queen did not show up, and so the audience was treated to a substantive discussion between a set of conservative entrepreneurs, producers, and filmmakers. The prevailing message: not all is lost in Hollywood for conservatives.

While the talking heads on Fox News might have you believe that Hollywood, with its godless tales of homosexual cowboys and alarmist propaganda about global warming, is a lost battle in the culture war, these execs preached a message of hope. Joe Giganti, who was introduced as having a “secular” radio and TV background and who had worked on “Passion of the Christ,” informed the crowd that these days, “New Media” and/or “Alternate Media” is, in fact, Conservative Media. And he’s sort of right—while progressives think of grassroots media on the internet as something inherently theirs, Giganti pointed to talk radio as proof that “the Revolution has taken place!” In the middle is Hollywood, where what Giganti and other conservative or non-secular filmmakers aim to promote is truly alternative; they see themselves as launching a veritable insurgency in Tinseltown. Theirs is a different kind of culture war—not a war between cultures but a war with cultural items as weapons. “The battle of ideas,” as one of them put it, “…and we have the benefit of the Truth!” Spoken like a true revolutionary.

I pushed open the doors to the tabling area at America's biggest conservative conference. Behold, a veritable cave of wonders.

Every organization that could remotely appeal to anyone on the right side of the political spectrum was there, in full force, and with candy. 



All the usual suspects were there--the NRA, the anti-feminist Independent Women's Forum, and a variety of right wing radio hosts. Naturally, there was a worship of all things Reagan--old campaign buttons, posters, dolls....I snagged a 2007 calendar of Reagan in provacative diplomatic poses with prominent world leaders. There was a NASCAR car, and even the Truckers' Association. 



Many tables served to promote books, such as "The Truth about Muhammad," "The un-P.C. Guide to Science," and "Liberal Lies and Conservative Comebacks" (which sounds like a desperate right -winger's book of Yo Mama jokes). The makeshift book store held nothing surprising, with the occasional exception (i.e. "The American Myth of Religious Freedom"), and interesting juxtaposition ("Terror in the Skies" next to Ted Nugent's "Kill It and Grill It").


Campus Progress' rivals were in full force. There was the Luce Institute, whose Horowitzian hate for liberal professors' "soapbox performances" fuels its effort to counter universities' shameful waste of YOUR tuition money on leftists speakers by hosting patriotic conservative ones. The Leadership Institute ("for conservatives who want to win!") gave me a pamphlet in which they anxiously encourage me to "Conduct Exciting Events!" next to a picture of a student in a giant chicken costume, complete with a sign that reads "Chirac, Le Chicken." This is meaningful student activism. They are hosting a blogging workshop, and, seemingly stuck in the earlier part of the decade, they plug it with "Learn how to start a blog and get people to read it!"

I focused my perusal on items and tables that revealed the unexpected fissures in the Conservative movement. Essential reading was the widely dispersed pamphlet "He's No Ronald Reagan: Why Conservatives Should Not Vote for John McCain," as well as several fellow attendees with "No Rudy McRomney" stickers. This isn't exactly surprising; McCain publicly declined to attend the conference, and perceived centrists like he and Guliani do not have the ground support here that Sam Brownback ("Support a true conservative") and even Jim Gilmore have. Similarly, it is a testament to the disunity of the Right that here at their biggest annual event, they chose as opening speaker one Dick Cheney--a figure most conservatives would place on the margins of their movement.

Do we hate all Muslims, or just some of them? The conservative mind today is confronted with difficult and troubling quandaries. With the lock-step obedience within the conservative movement and general ideological uniformity, disagreements among “pundits” on the right are typically rare. When they do occur, the results are bizarre and hilarious.

Dinesh D’Souza, the formerly anti-PC crusader turned pro-Muslim, anti-secularism cultural relativist, was put on a panel against Robert Spencer, author of popular bigotry-fodder book “The Truth About Muhammed.” Pitting these two hacks against each other led to perplexing results, as they each set up straw men of each other’s already ludicrous positions and clawed at them with weak and often contradictory logic.

Not used to having to digest shades of grey and complexity, the audience could not figure out whether to cheer or boo. When D’Souza pointed out that portions of the Koran and the Old Testament are hostile to non-believers, the response was definitely a boo. However, they seemed to agree both with Spencer’s assertion that Islam is inherently violent and Mohammed was himself essentially a terrorist, and D’Souza’s assertion that vilification of all Muslims will radicalize moderate Muslims. They wanted to believe, they want to love the Muslims, but, oh they're just so evil!

With D’Souza’s latest Islamist-apologizing tripe roundly denounced across the political spectrum, and Spencer’s cherry-picked piece of bigotry so poorly argued as to not even warrant serious analysis, perhaps one young attendee’s sentiments, addressed to me in incredulous response to D’Souza, express the confusion best: “but we can’t work with them! They want to shoot us in the face!”

“Does everybody here think conservatives have good ideas? Good. And does everybody here think liberals have bad ideas. Well you better, this is the Conservative Political Action Conference, we’ll just throw you out.”

And with that, The Leadership Institute’s seminar on conservative college activism departed from the battle for young minds, and became a case study in the irrelevance of conservatism to young people. The Institute’s Director of Student Publications, Jeff Fulcher’s, maintained the philosophy was that, if your ideas are good, all you need is money to win. Convincing ones peers seemed beside the point, and the words “college campus” were never mentioned. He did, however, frequently repeat that the “average donor is 77 years old.” The training was about how to get checks.

The audience, just barely kept engaged by weak humor and the occasional toss of a Starburst (a bizarre Pavlovian reward for any response not totally off-base), seemed to turn on only when the lecturer mentioned one group that received a $300,000 check. The lecture, which took an entire hour to cover all the minutia of direct mailing, from the appropriate choices of envelope, paper stock, and stamp assortment, to the proper length of sentences (18 words) and paragraphs (under 6 lines), was grueling.

The seminar wasn't much of a skill-session. It was a demonstration that the single-minded pursuit of money and appeasement of old white men is not just the conservative political platform, but their entire political strategy as well.