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.

With that frame of reference, it was interesting to investigate which more eccentric strains of the movement reared their heads at the tabling event. There were the Ayn Rand fanatics from the Atlas Society, peddling their magazine "The New Individualist." An article in this publication--"A 12-Step Cure for Big Government Conservatives"--echoed the sentiments of the book being promoted one table over, "Conservatives Betrayed: How Bush and Big Government Hijacked the Conservative Cause." 

 
More interesting were the Muslims for America, the young representative of which told me they used to be Muslims for Bush until the election; however, their newsletter's leading headline is still "Bush is Savior for Muslim World." When I asked him what his group stood for, he stated as example the denunciation of one right-wing Congressman's plan to wiretap mosques. Pressed for an example of an equivalent offense from the left, he came up dry. He was, though, quick to tell me that he has no problem with the FBI wiretapping ("That's their job!").

Also worth talking to (despite no candy!) was an old Jewish man from the Americans for a Safe Israel, and his coalition of similarly minded Christian lobbyist groups. He decried any road map for peace that would lead to a two-state solution, citing the Bible as a legitimate modern rationale for politely kicking all the "Moo-slims" out of Israel. When I introduced Iraq by noting that the war there could put Israel at more of a risk because of an empowered Iran, he stated that he was against the escalation, that we should abandon Baghdad and redeploy to the borders. This guy kind of makes sense, I thought....and then he handed me a book that proudly proclaimed "Christians are the antidote to anti-Semitism!"

And of course there were the fringe elements. The ACLU, for instance. They hawked flyers inscribed with things like "The ACLU is Not Evil," written by a Christian, and even "The ACLU is the Home for Real Conservatives." The weird infantilization of the Conference attendees indicated by the plethora of candy available continued with the abundance of video games. Seriously. There was Dance Dance Revolution, that game where you play guitars, and an XBox at the Americans for Technology Leadership booth. 



I didn't need any Jolly Ranchers, as this cornucopia of conservatism provided me with plenty of eye candy.