On Day One, CPAC 2010 served up a double helping of beefcake Bay Staters.
Sen. Scott Brown made a surprise appearance. The Marriott Ballroom roared when he introduced himself:I’m Scott Brown and I’m the newly elected Republican senator from Massachusetts … My truck is parked outside.
Brown said his victory “changed the course of politics in America.” He noted that when he started his campaign, his supporters “could have met in the phone booth.”
He was at CPAC to “introduce one of those guys who was in the phone booth with me” – former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.
Romney began by saying, “I’d take him anywhere I can take him.” He then got down to business:Romney said President Obama and congressional Democrats are responsible for “Obama’s lost year”:I’m not telling you something you don’t know when I say that our conservative movement took a real hit in the 2008 elections. The victors were not exactly gracious in their big win: Media legs were tingling. Time Magazine’s cover pictured the Republican elephant and declared it an endangered species. The new president himself promised change of biblical proportion. And given his filibuster-proof Senate and lopsided House, he had everything he needed to deliver it.
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I know that most of you have watched intently as the conservative comeback began in Virginia and exploded onto the scene in New Jersey. But as a Massachusetts man, who, like my fellow Bay-Staters, has over the years, been understandably regarded somewhat suspiciously in gatherings like this, let me take just a moment to exalt in a Scott Brown victory!
For that victory that stopped ObamaCare and turned back the Reid-Pelosi liberal tide, we have something to that you’d never think you’d hear at CPAC, “Thank you Massachusetts!”
So when it comes to pinning blame, pin the tail on the donkeys.He bashed Obama’s “liberal agenda for government” – cap-and-trade, healthcare reform and government bailouts.
A couple of people brought to my attention a New York Times’ piece about the “racial tones” of one of the speakers, Jason Mattera, a twenty-something from Brooklyn, NY.
In an interview with Ed Morrissey in the Bloggers Lounge, Mattera blasted the Times reporter.
The speakers focused on policy differences and used mocking tones to attack Obama. While this is my first CPAC, I’ve attended several Take Back America conferences, where George W. Bush was mocked unmercifully.
BTW, the lack of diversity at CPAC is proportionately no worse than that at progressives’ annual gathering.
Bottom line: Calling conservatives “racist,” “obstructionist” or “Party of No” is like water on a duck’s back. They are fired up and ready to go to the polls in November.
