From suits to sweats, conservatives are out in full force for this year's CPAC conference at the Omni Shoreham Hotel. I have to admit, I felt a bit nervous when I walked in the door. There are quite a few people here, mostly students, rocking everything from Che Guevara-esque Reagan shirts to shirts supporting Condi for president in '08. I wandered around a bit while I waited for Conventionette to arrive, and within 5 minutes I knew I was in for a wild ride. In the exhibit hall I was particularly interested by two girls, one of whom was sporting a hot dog outfit, and the other all blinged out in an ostrich suit. I took a minute or two to browse some of the booths, and felt like I was on some kind of supermarket game show as I walked through nabbing all the free stuff I could carry. My head already spinning and my arms full, I headed out to find the room where many of the speakers and panels would be featured.

After meandering a bit through the winding halls of the hotel, I found the ballroom where the speakers would be appearing. As luck would have it, Reagan was being quoted as I walked in to find a table, leading me to start an immediate (and very official, if I do say so myself), Ronald Reagan "Quotometer." As I write this, I've been here for roughly three hours and between the speakers and people in the halls, I've heard Reagan quoted five times. Anyway, after listening to the primary speaker for a couple minutes, I headed up to the main lobby to meet up with Conventionette. After we were all set up we headed back to the speakers room to take in some rockin' panel action--and it didn't disappoint.

We arrived to the impassioned words of Congressman Tom Tancredo, who was getting fairly riled up over immigration and the tendency of America to do things to appease the international community and not our best interests, quipping "And by the way--GOD BLESS DENMARK." Indeed.

Shortly after, a panel discussion began on immigration, with a very Hannity and Colmes-structured panel consisting of Rep. J.D. Hayworth (who's widow's peak puts Eddie Munster to shame) and Chris Simcox favoring the "keep 'em the hell out of America" argument (such as barriers and stronger enforcement) while the slightly more reserved Pedro Celis, Ph.D. and Angela Maria Kelley of the group Advocacy of Immigration (who, incidentally, wasn't even listed on any of the speaker lists) making up the "we need to find practical solutions to this problem" side. In a response to one of Mrs. Kelley's comments about immigrants already in America, Rep. Hayworth classily labeled her argument "bass-ackward." You got served, immigration!

After another panel where the speakers droned on for way too long about guest worker programs (so long in fact, that people started to leave en masse about halfway through) Conventionette and I decided to head to Chipotle, which was rife with visitors from the convention. I couldn't help but smile at the fact that there were probably a few people in the room who cheered at Rep. Hayworth's comments about restricting immigration, and then happily marched over to a restaurant whose employees were predominantly Hispanic.

That's all for now, but as I'm finishing this the RR Quotometer officially hit 7--this guy gets quoted like gangbusters! Out of control. More to come…