Liberty Legal Alliance

CPAC2012 is the largest collection of conservative activists in the nation.  From February 9-11,  over 11,000 people,  many of them young and in college,  are meeting at the Marriott Shoreham Hotel in the Adams Morgan section of D.C. to discuss politics,  exchange ideas,  listen to candidates (Romney, Santorum, and Gingrich all spoke),  pundits (Ann Coulter, Andrew Breitbart and others) and each other.

Thursday was quiet.  A gaggle of four protestors stood outside the front door of the hotel,  a pathetic looking group. They needed a deck of cards and a card table.  No one paid them any attention.

On Friday,  Mitt Romney was scheduled to speak at 12:55.  The morning had been quiet,  but at noon, as I was leaving the main conference room I saw a member of the media,  a short woman with a backpack,  running out the front door,  shouting into her phone.  I knew something was up so I followed her.

On the street in front of the hotel there were now about a thousand protestors,  many carrying pre-printed signs saying “we are the 99%.”  Police sirens were screaming and I could hear over them the competing instructions of an Occupy leader on a bullhorn telling them to march on the hotel,  and the police on a loudspeaker advising them that they would be arrested if they trespassed. One of the men in the lead,  an black man in his thirties wearing a “Good Jobs, Better Baltimore” jacket  was telling the police that they wanted to pay to attend the conference.  The police were having none of it.

So who are these Occupy protesters?  They are about 75% African-American,  and the leadership,  at least today,  were all black.  They’ve set up about four pop-up tents between the sidewalk and the street and on the sidewalk are about twenty folding chairs for elderly protestors,  too old to stand or walk.  One aging black women holds a sign saying “Medicare is Sexy.”  She,  decidedly,  is not.

There are a couple of hand-drawn signs,  but even these appear to be centrally manufactured,  with neat,  even block lettering saying “If its not for the Greater Good,  It’s No Good” and “Corrupt Politicians And Criminals” a reference to CPAC.

The Sheet Metal Workers, Local 100, from Suitland-Silver Hill, Maryland brought a giant inflatable which stands about ten feet tall,  depicting an overfed cat in a three piece suit with one paw clutching a big cigar and the other around the neck of a small, thin white man who is clearly choking.  No one in the crowd resembles the choking victim though.  The one demographic missing from the Occupy crowd is white blue collar workers.

Many of the protestors, like the leader of the march on the entrance,  sported clothing identifying where they were from.  Many in the forefront had jackets from Good Jobs Better Baltimore which bills itself as “people in unions, churches, and in neighborhood groups” which formed in April of 2011.  There was a contingent of drummers,  all wearing blue stocking caps reading “Fight for Philly.”  Fight for Philly bills itself as a coalition of labor unions, community groups, neighborhood associations, and faith organizations.

The chants were unimaginative:  “A people united,  will never be divided;”  “Whose Street?  Our Street;”  and “Who Let the Dogs Out” were the most common.

Once the marchers decided not the risk arrest by moving closer to the door of the hotel,  they decided to sit down in the street.  A leader with a bull horn was telling them to just sit down,  but most of the crowd was not interested in planting their bottoms on the cold Washington pavement in February,  so they remained standing.

One loan bearded white man dressed all in black and carrying a large backpack decided to brave the cold and sit down,  using his backpack as a back rest.  As he clasped his hands behind his head,  an anxious reporter wearing dark classes and carrying a pad began asking him questions.  Apparently he liked the answers he was getting because shortly he had a big smile on his face and was nodding and scribbling rapidly.

It was time for me to go.  There would be no violence today,  and no arrests.  Mitt Romney was getting ready to go on the podium,  and I wanted to hear him speak.

Professor Rod Sullivan

Mitt Romney has the ability to be a great President.  Why do I say this?  First,  he is the only candidate with executive experience.  He can run the country and, in the long run of four to eight years,  isn’t that what’s important?

Second,  he can defeat Barack Obama.  Beating an incumbent President is tough.  In my lifetime it has only happened twice.  I think Mitt can be the third.

I’d like to tell you a story.  My mother told me that she could never vote for Romney.  Why?  “You now,  it’s the Mormon thing.”  I responded “Mom,  that makes you a bigot.”  She responded in horror “I am not.  Some of my best friends are Jews!”  I tell that story because in the back of some people’s minds in the religious question.  They may not talk about it,  but it’s there.  In 1968 Mitt Romney’s father,  George Romney ran for President too.  Back then,  over 40 years ago,  according to Wikipedia “Romney’s membership in the LDS church was scarcely mentioned at all during the campaign.”  Religion is mostly an accident of birth.  We are the religion we are because that is what our parents were.  Let’s show everyone that we have put behind us the things which divide us,  and that we will focus on those things which unite us.

I’m like you.  I want America to be great again.  Romney can help us achieve that.  Please give him your vote.  It would mean a lot to me.

Professor Sullivan with Justice Scalia

Justice Antonin Scalia is 74 years old and so is Justice Anthony Kennedy. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 78. Justice Stephen Breyer? He’s 72. The next President of the United States will have the opportunity to shape the future of the nation either for or against conservative principles. This is an historic opportunity.

Too often conservatives have been fooled. Republican Presidents have nominated judges to serve on the Supreme Court who said they believed in limited Constitutional government. Too often conservatives and Republican Presidents have found out too late that they didn’t.

Justice Earl Warren was a Republican. Justice William Brennan became one of the Court’s most liberal justices. Justice Harry Blackmun, the author of Roe v Wade was a Republican. All three of them were appointed by a Republican President. More recently, Justice John Paul Stevens, the liberal author of Massachusetts v. EPA, was appointed to the bench by President Gerald Ford, and Justice David Souter was appointed by George Bush.

Conservatives need to know what to look for in a Supreme Court Justice, and they need to be better educated on how to make those decisions.