CPAC Day 2 recap

Let me start this post off by saying I realize I’m starting my CPAC recap at day 2 mainly because i wanted to primarily cover the presidential candidates as it would have been a wall of text. It would have been  really hard to cover and analyze every single speech and then I would have had to pick and choose who to cover, not to mention all the other goings on in the political world like Romney’s stunt he pulled yesterday and the debate

That being said, what a day to begin recapping! Dana Loesch did a fantastic job opening this morning. I loved the 80/20 analogy she made. She’s right, a person you 80% agree with politically is not 20% your enemy. What the left does not understand is, the Republican party is very diverse. You have believers, non believers, libertarians and hardline conservatives. We are not each others enemy, we are an enemy of the the left and everything the stand for. This is not a time to for purism, this is a time to destroy Hillary Clinton and send her to the big house where she belongs! Well said Dana and on a side note, that red and black dress was on point.

After Dana set the stage so beautifully for a great day at CPAC, somebody somewhere got Mark Levin out from deep in his underground bunker and what a speech he gave as only Mark Levin knows how. He made a phenomenal case for conservatism and spoke about everybody’s favorite conservative icon, Ronald Reagan. The only problem I had with what Dana Loesch said was that we basically compare other candidates to Reagan and look to him as the gold standard of conservatism. But that’s just what Reagan was, the gold standard. Reaganism is what keeps conservatives in check. Just as Reagan spoke about America being a shining city on a hill, that is what Reagan was to conservatism and even after all these years after him, he still remains the shining light for conservatives.

Out of all the candidates former and current, I thought Ted Cruz gave a great speech. He was fired up and definitely took advantage of Donald Trump cancelling his speech tomorrow. I absolutely loved Ben Carson’s speech. The dignity and humility of that man is unmatched. He got a standing ovation when he announced he was suspending his campaign and that just goes to show you how much respect people have for him and how much people value his input. He said in his speech that he will now focus his energy into motivating evangelicals to get out and vote as that was a sizable chunk of the base that Romney failed to motivate. Something tells me he will be insurmountably more competent than Romney ever wishes he could be. I commend him for running a hard fought, ethical campaign and he brought, and continues to brig a lot to the table.

Now for the 800 lbs elephant in the room. Yes, you guess it, Mr. Donald Trump. I was very upset to learn that he had cancelled his speech at CPAC as I would have loved to hear what he had to say at a conference conservatives hold to such high regards. Now he says that the reason was he was campaigning. I don’t buy it. He knew full well he would be campaigning and he was aware of the schedule when he booked the speech. I think it was because a large majority  of the crowd was very hostile towards him. He received a lot of boo’s when his name was mentioned and I think he realized that especially when he was live on Hannity last night and a lot of the crowed boo’d him.

One of the criticisms of Trump is that he isn’t thick skinned and I think that was proven correct by his cancellation. His poll numbers might be really high but he still has to face the fact that his unfavorable rating is alarmingly high. The highest of any presidential candidate in US history in fact. He absolutely has to get those numbers to drop considerably if he wants to get the nomination and skipping the largest conservative conference of the year isn’t how to go about that. I gave up saying something he does or says is going to hurt him because I’m always proven wrong but the only thing that has hurt him, albeit slightly, was him skipping the Iowa debate before the caucus. Voters felt dissed and taken for granted as they have felt politicians have done for way too long so I don’t think standing up the base at CPAC was the brightest idea but what do I know? I guess we’ll see in the primaries and caucuses tomorrow.

Overall one of the best days at CPAC that i have seen. There won’t be too much to cover tomorrow since Trump dropped out but I’m still looking forward to the few speeches left and really hope to check CPAC off my bucket list one day and actually be there in person with some of you crazy hardcore conservatives.

Keep It RIGHT. America!