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.

Rock bottom, for me, probably came during an encounter with Barbara Howard, an enthusiastic audience member of the Black Republicans panel discussion and possible former Florida representative (nobody, or google, can clarify this for me). After introducing myself, a likely intoxicated Ms. Howard (an African-American woman in her late 50s or early 60s, sporting a few stray chin-hairs) invaded my personal space. Stepping close to me, she told me that bringing the conservative message to my campus would make me “da man.” She told me this as she stroked my face. I felt unclean. I withdrew from the encounter as quickly as I could. For the remainder of the night, I shuddered and quickly turned away anytime I might have been in her line of sight.

Equally bizarre would be Thursday evening. Having just seen Michelle Malkin receive her Accuracy in Media Award, I was caught off-guard. Only moments after fire-breathing condemnations of certain leftists for having the gall to criticize the war just being they served in the armed forces, and proclaiming the necessity to “fight not just Al-Jazeera, but Al-Reuters as well,” she seemed entirely approachable. As I sat with Michael in the lobby, I listened and occasionally chimed in on a conversation between Malkin, her Hot Air producer (yes, they actually named their online video channel Hot Air) Bryan Preston, and some guy whose business card bills him as a counterterrorism consultant named Daveed Gartenstein-Ross. Again, without revealing myself as the godless communist I am, we chatted about Romney’s prospects, the flip-flopping dolphin, McCain’s unforgivable snub of the event, and the difficulty of saying something funny about Steven Hawking that isn’t mean. I was struck by how she could switch from being such a battle-axe to being genial. Michael found her, mood-change aside, similarly vapid in either setting. The next day, finding myself blogging on a lobby couch alongside Malkin once again, I came to agree with Michael.

And then, of course, there was the conversation with Tom DeLay. Or noting that David Horowitz, when asked for a picture, is as much of dick in real life as you'd expected him to be. (Just look at that happy, smiley face).