No time for verbiage, but I uploaded more pics from the Southern Republican Leadership Conference to my Flickr album.

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I attended the 8 pm session of the Southern Republican Leadership Conference. Security was much tighter than the afternoon session, although all they did was glance in my bag.

I’m far too tired to make a meaningful post of what was said and by whom, so I will only point you to my pics at flickr and say that Maverick McCain unbelievably supportive of George W. Bush. Captain’s Quarters has an excellent (and, I believe, correct) analysis of why McCain has suddenly become a Bush cheerleader.

Oh yeah, and I just wanted to say, “J.C. Watts for President!!!“

What a speaker!

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OK, going to listen to speakers all day with short breaks in between to kick out a story about it is hard. Damn hard. Especially if you want to put any analysis on the matter (which I’m doing little enough of).

I can’t imagine having to do this for a living — but I will admit that I would love to give it a try.

Sen. Frist spent quite a while pressing palms in the exhibition area after doing a radio interview (“radio row” is in the exhibit hall just as the bloggers are).

What was quite cool is that he came over to talk to the bloggers and encouraged us to ask questions. He was quite personable and didn’t rush us — he must have spent 10 minutes or more with the four of us (Mick from Mainstreet Journal, Rob from VOLuntarily Conservative and Adam from Tennessee Politics Blog).

Not being a journalist, this was my first opportunity to toss a question at a political figure in a professional capacity. And this wasn’t just any politician; the Senate Majority Leader dictates what legislation can come for a vote and what dies. He is arguably the most powerful man in the world. Yet strangly enough, I didn’t quite gibber like Dean on crack.

It was noisy so I couldn’t catch all that went on, but Mick
started with a question about Frist’s blogging activity. The Senator responded with a very reasoned answer about blogging changing political communication and conversation (I’m sure Mick will do a better job at reporting his answer — I was still a little awestruck).

Mick then jumped in with a question about the Patriot Act and the inclusion of a crackdown on domestic methamphetine production. The Senator talked about how it is a growing problem that is “ravaging a generation”. He admitted that the legislation could have been passed as a separate bill but that it needed to pass. [As Rob noted later, we always complain when Dems stick unrelated legislation onto bills so why should we do it too?]

During his answer he mentioned the Dubai situation, so I asked him what he thought about Dubai Ports World selling their American control to an American company soley because they were American. I don’t think that the Senator heard the implied critisism in the question (there was a lot of background noise) and replied that he had encouraged DPW to do so.

I followed up by asking if foreign ownership of port operations was going to be reviewed at other ports, given that the majority are operated by foreign interests, including China. The Senator admitted ignorance of the issue, saying he couldn’t respond because he didn’t have the background.

Gee, Senator, if foreign ownership of port operations is a concern because an Arab ally is involved, shouldn’t it also be a concern if a hostile near-superpower is involved? I was more than a little disappointed with his answer.

He then moved down the table and talked to Rob and Adam. I admit to not having caught any of that conversation.

I wish that I had had a recording device so I could more accurately reflect the verbiage as well as the tone of his answers (which were much longer than the distilled version that I have pulled from my memory). Even if I didn’t like all of his answers, talking to the Senator was a very pleasurable experience and his staff was unbelievably nice.

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Grand opening just took place. It was . . . interesting.

After the obligatory opening prayer, pledge of allegiance and singing of the national anthem (by a country star that I’m sure some people would know, but I don’t), Senator Lamar Alexander from Tennessee kicked things off by playing the piano and then was joined by the unknown singer (sorry, I’m more of a Metallica guy).

This was intended to fire up the crowd and to be truthful, Lamar is pretty good on the ivories.

Fortunately, he was an even better speaker (pictured at left). He did the usual rah-rah party stuff, made some decent jokes, and acted as MC, introducing each speaker.

RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman was next. Excellent speech (even though he was preaching to the choir) about how important this time in history really is and how important the next election will be. Judges, taxes, war on terror, homeland security — he probably hit all the talking points (read the text here). And had the flattest delivery in the history of political speechifying. He should have had a roaring crowd on their feet with his rhetoric, but didn’t.

But the AP proves its clairvoyance again: RCP Blog reports that they ran the story of Mehlman’s speech before the session began.

Next up was Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. Impressive. Very impressive.

I don’t really know a lot about Romney, other than he is a Republican governor of (as he put it) “the bluest state in the nation”, so I had no real expectations. He was animated, entertaining, and down-to-earth yet commanding.

He talked about a program in his state that paid for a hotel for people rather than turning him away from a homeless shelter. He figured that the word had gotten around as it was costing the state $20 million a year. He instituted one change: that person would be accepted into the shelter and the person that had been there the longest would be sent to the hotel. The hotel bill for the homeless has dropped to zero. Clever.

He talked about how we are no longer leading the world in turning out engineers and the like, and how this was affecting outsourcing and American jobs. Best quote:

I don’t want America to become the France of the 21st century.

Also clever.

He ended with a story about an Olympian medal winner carrying the flag that flew over the WTC on 9/11. It was such a touching story that I don’t see how he told it with tearing up (probably because he’s told it a thousand times, but it choked me up a little).

Next up was Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman. Again, I didn’t know anything about him except that he used to be a Democrat. Again, impressive speaker. Very personable and almost folksy. Lots of references to his Jewish heritage. Amazingly, his accent was almost JFK at times. Weird.

He claimed that the Democrat party had left him, just as it is leaving the majority of Democrats. He said it was very appropriate that the Clinton presidency overlapped the show Seinfeld. A presidency about nothing and a show about nothing

I loved it when he called for Kofi Annan to resign, saying that the real “blood for oil” was the “Oil for Food” program.

He had a stirring section about how the Republican Party is the party of reform and transformation. Tax reform, education reform, Medicare reform, Social Security reform, and the party that believes in transforming tyrannies to democracies.

Senator David Vitter from Louisiana and Beverly Davis, president of the National Federation of Republican Women, finished up the speaking program. Again, great content, flat delivery.

The session ended with a screening of a new ad called Find the Leader. The press says that the ad is on the GOP website but I haven’t been able to find it (except for the text).

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I went to my first session at the conference. Three very well-spoken women gave a very impressive presentation on the basics of fundraising. I got the distinct feeling that any one of them could have talked for an hour on any one of the PowerPoint slides.

There was too much information to even try and take meaningful notes (I gave up after a couple of minutes) so I went up after to see if I could get a copy of the presentation. They were, understandably, surrounded by people asking question.

When I finally got to ask one of them she took one look at my badge (the “media” one was showing), coldly informed me that this was a “closed event” (delegates only, no media allowed), immediately took three steps away and started talking to someone else.

I flipped my badge and got the attention of another of the presenters. She had heard the exchange and (much more kindly) told me that she couldn’t give the material to anyone in the media. I smiled and told her I wasn’t the “real” media, just a blogger, and received a sincere laugh in return. I promised that I wouldn’t publish their secrets on the internet so she took my card and promised to send it if they got permission to mail it out to the attendees.

This was my first experience at being treated poorly because of my job. It was almost as if I was the enemy and reminded me of another experience I had about ten years ago.

I was doing yard work in my front yard and watched as two black women worked their way up the street going door to door. When they got to my house they stopped and pleasently asked if they could talk to me about Jesus (they were either Mormon or Baptists, I don’t remember which). Not being in the mood for being converted that particular afternoon, a sudden inspiration moved me to say, “No thank you. I’m Jewish.” (I’m not, although I might be if I didn’t have to learn Hebrew. That’s hard.)

The woman actually took a step away from me, leaned back to literally look down her nose at me and, with the most contempt that I’ve ever heard in four words, said, “Oh. You’re a Jew.”

I was stunned. And insulted to my core, even though it wasn’t true. Never had I seen such hatred evoked so quickly. As she walked away I felt like yelling, “Oh yeah! Take your two hundred years of oppression and shove it! Two thousand years of hatred, baby. Stuff that in your pipe and smoke it!” (Actually my first instinct was only part of that and it got filled out later in my imagination, but you have to admit that it would have been cool.)

Anyway, I have the distinct feeling that I’ll never see that PowerPoint presentation.

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In spite of car troubles putting a severe kink in my plans (and greatly inconveniencing a friend as he ferried me back and forth between work and home), I was able to make it to the 2006 Southern Republican Leadership Conference registration and pick up my passes. That’s “pass” with a plural because I paid the conference fee and I registered as a blogger, so I get two little billboard-sized signs to wear around my neck:

This will be my first event as a “credentialed blogger”. It’s nice to be early enough into something that I still get excited about such things.

Downtown Memphis is a mess of construction and I don’t look forward to finding parking (I paid $10 for the privilege of parking for about an hour today). But the volunteers working the conference are the friendliest, nicest people you could ask for and willingly go out of their way to help you.

After picking up my packet and passes I got the lay of the land and found the blogger’s table in the exhibit hall. I also found “radio row” where the pros will be working from. I have no idea where Sean Hannity and Chris Matthews will be setting up shop.

While there I spotted Mick (aka Fishkite) who will be representing Main Street Journal (so he’s a legitimate journalist now, which is pretty cool — I just love a local-blogger-makes-the-big-time story). Mick has an interview with Sen. Frist in the morning so look for that posting tomorrow.

According to Mick, rumor has it that there will be 12 bloggers at the conference. Those that I know about are:

• Mick Wright of Fishkite, representing Main Street Journal.
• Adam Groves of Tennessee Politics Blog
• Rob Huddleston of VOLuntarilyConservative
• Nancy French of Nancy’s Niche (ht to VOLuntarilyConservative)

And, of course, me.

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If I can get my car out of the shop today I’ll be able to pick up my registration materials for the Southern Republican Leadership Conference this afternoon. Kickoff is tomorrow morning.

I was going to take a look at what the media is saying about the conference but Fishkite writing for Mainstreet Journal has an excellent roundup. And Americans for Dr. Rice are “gearing up”

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Every four years the political parties gather at their national conventions. In 2004 the Republicans came together to nominate George Dubya for the presidency. In 2008 they will do it again to nominate the next Republican presidential candidate. There is wall-to-wall coverage and everybody who’s anybody is there.

Every two years there are smaller, regional conventions. But this year is special: the Southern states and the Midwest states are combining so 26 states will be represented at the 2006 Southern Republican Leadership Conference held in Memphis.

About 2,000 attendees are expected. For comparisons sake, the largest SRLC to date was in Biloxi, Mississippi in ’98 and had a little more than 1,600 in attendance. The one two years ago was in Miami and only drew about 600.

The 2006 convention starts on Friday so it’s T minus 2 days and counting. Here’s what the LA Times has to say:

On Thursday, the Republican race will gain new prominence when more than 1,500 GOP activists gather in Memphis, Tenn., for three days of politicking and speeches. A highlight will be appearances by several of the party’s top presidential hopefuls, including Sen. John McCain of Arizona, an early front-runner for the Republican nod.

There will also be a straw poll of delegates to the Southern and Midwestern Leadership Conference, which is likely to draw wide notice as a test of strength and a gauge of early voter sentiments — even if similar straw polls have proved meaningless in the past.

Note that the “meaningless” straw poll in ’98 picked George Dubya even though earlier events like this had him trailing significantly and even though he was not in attendance. But no matter how you slice it, this poll will be important for a few reasons.

First, McCain is campaigning hard and earnestly courting Bush donors. It is expected that he will have a strong showing in the straw poll after speaking at the conference (he is on the schedule). After all, he took a strong second at CPAC and he wasn’t even there. If he fails to impress the party faithful of half the states (including some of the reddest) then he’ll have to rethink his message.

Second, Giuliani isn’t even going to be there. If he does well in the poll, he may be encouraged to run (he took third at CPAC).

Third, this is Bill Frist’s home state and Tennesseans should be well represented. If Frist can’t show well here after speaking (he is also on the schedule, although for late Saturday afternoon, well after the poll begins) then he should also rethink some things. He was fifth at CPAC with a dismal 6%.

Fourth, what if Condi does well? She wasn’t even invited to speak but Americans for Rice will be manning a booth and may even be running commercials on Fox News in the Memphis market. She garnered 10% of the vote at the CPAC, taking fourth place well ahead of Frist. Not bad for a non-candidate.

Ah well, I’ll be posting things as time and resources allow. I’ll have my camera but I’ll need an electrical outlet because my laptop battery gives very limited life. Hopefully this won’t be a problem because I’ve received an email confirmation that I am a credentialed blogger for the convention. The blogger table is next to the media table and rumor has it that Sean Hannity will be there. Maybe I’ll be able to get a pic of him, too.

As of this date, confirmed speakers are:

• U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander (Tenn.)
• U.S. Senator George Allen (Va.)
• Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour
• U.S. Congressman Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.)
• U.S. Senator Sam Brownback (Kan.)
• U.S. Senator Norm Coleman (Minn.)
• U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, M.D. (Tenn.)
• U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (S.C.)
• Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee
• Former U.S. Congressman Asa Hutchinson (Ark.)
• U.S. Senator Trent Lott (Miss.)
• U.S. Senator John McCain (Ariz.)
• Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney
• U.S. Senator David Vitter (La.)

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