A group of Cornell Republicans returned from CPAC late last night. While we did not stay until the bitter end to catch keynote speaker Glenn Beck, we were still treated by the likes of Ann Coulter, Newt Gingrich, many other lesser knowns who were still enlightening none the less. Best was the wide variety of conservatism. There was not simply Reag-a-mania unbridled individualistic conservatism available for consumption–Burkeanism, Hamiltonianism, and of course neo-conservative were all on display from the many speakers. While some of the attendees were a bit hypocritical when accusing Obama supporters of being zombies (many of them applauded mindlessly when a speaker quoted Ronald Reagan), it was still nice to be able to speak one’s mind on the issues and not have to worry about a tenured professor eating you.
In fact, academic freedom was a key topic this year, which was quite appropriate considering that over half the attendees were university students. The best idea to solve the imbalance at universities likely was the creation of an organization that would cultivate conservative professors. It was stated that the best way to solve the problem was to simply get more conservative professors hired, instead of whining and complaining–quite the idea.
In more incidental news, Ron Paul won the straw poll. This was more the result of his supporters voting for him no matter what and others voting for the slew of other mainline conservative participants. The reason this should not be taken as an endorsement for Paul by the conservative wing of the GOP is because when it was announced that Paul won, over half the crowd booed! But perhaps this should be taken with a grain of salt, as this was the same crowd that seemed to think Don Devine had referred to Ronald Reagan as a weak president in his speech (Devine said that Reagan was tough but smart on foreign policy, all while implicitly referring to the foreign policy of President Bush, which he explained to be tough but hard-headed).
Either way, this year’s CPAC certainly had a greater spirit of optimism than last year, when Rush Limbaugh had to lift everyone’s spirits with an historic speech after the pounding the Repubs took in 2008.
This year, Glenn Beck did not have to try and fire up an entire convention (speech is on Google). He simply did what he had to not screw up what was a momentum continuing conference.
As a first time CPAC attendee, I was happy I went and would recommend going to at least once in your time as a college student.
