CPAC 2013: Hearing from some of the possible next GOP standard bearers
We’re approaching the midpoint of CPAC 2013, and we’ve heard from about half of the people expected to be contenders in 2016 (at least, those who are on the agenda — and no, Donald Trump isn’t one of the people I have in mind). We can begin to see the ground these potential candidates are beginning to stake out.
The first of these possible candidates was Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida. Rubio covered the waterfront of long-held conservative beliefs, on both fiscal and social issues. “Our challenge,” he said, “is to create an agenda applying our principles.” The broad outlines of such an agenda from him mostly included conventionally conservative stuff. If there is one theme he wants to own, I’d say it is American exceptionalism.
He cited a different book: “The China Dream,” recently written by a Chinese army colonel. The gist, Rubio said, is that “China’s goals should be to surpass the United States as the world’s preeminent military and economic power,” and that the 21st century should pit China and America in “a race to see who should become the champion country to lead world progress.”
It was in that context that Rubio responded to criticism that the GOP was not promoting any new ideas (as opposed to those new-thinking Democrats who are still pursuing long-time goals such as universal publicly funded health care and gun control) by citing the hope America offers to the rest of the world, such as his parents who immigrated from Cuba.
“We don’t need a new idea,” he said. “There is an idea. It’s called America, and it still works. You want proof that it still works, look around the world today. Who are they copying? Not the former Soviet Union. Not Russia. They’re not even copying China. They’re copying us. They may claim to hate us, but they sure would like to be us.”
***
Immediately following Rubio was Sen. Rand Paul, the Kentuckian and son of former congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul. He took the stage to Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” and wearing a sports coat, tie and blue jeans. He was dressed like some college professors I had, and he launched into a constitutional semi-lecture that began with a discussion of his now-famous, 13-hour filibuster on the Senate floor about the Obama administration’s drone policies.
“We need to jealously guard all our liberties,” he said, before turning his message to one of those voter groups Republicans know they have to be more successful with.
“The Facebook generation can detect falseness and hypocrisy a mile away. I know, I have kids,” he said. “They are the core, though, of the leave-me-alone coalition. They doubt Social Security will be there for them. They worry about jobs and rent and student loans. They want leaders who won’t feed them a lot of crap or sell them short.
“Ask the Facebook generation whether we should put a kid in jail for the nonviolent crime of drug use, and you’ll hear a resounding ‘no.’ Ask the Facebook generation if they want to bail out too-big-to-fail banks with their tax dollars, and you’ll hear a ‘hell no.’ There is nothing constitutional about bailing out Wall Street. Likewise, there is nothing ‘progressive’ about loans to billionaires to build solar panels.”
As you might have expected, Paul is going to try to pull the GOP in a more libertarian direction. “The GOP of old has grown stale and moss-covered,” he summed it up. His speech didn’t receive as much consistent applause as Rubio’s did, but he had the audience in his hand by the end. Could the same thing happen in the 2016 primary?
***
Friday brought Rep. Paul Ryan to the conference, and the 2012 vice presidential candidate received a very warm welcome. As you might expect, the House Budget Committee chairman focused a lot on budget matters, but he wanted to talk not just about the numbers but the reasons balancing the budget is important.
“A debt crisis would be more than an economic event,” Ryan argued. “It would be a moral failure. By cheapening our currency, government would cheat us of our just rewards.”Even now we are hurting American working families. By living beyond our means, the government is sending us a message. It is saying, if you plan ahead, if you make sacrifices for your kids, if you saved, you’re a sucker. It is brazenly stealing from our children and from young adults, and it has to stop.”
He argued for restoring government to a more appropriate size, one that allows it to do certain things well while leaving other things to the people.
“We need to make room for community, for that vast middle ground between the government and the people,” he said. “They don’t find common ground through grim isolation or government fiat,” but through the connections they make themselves.
***
Later Friday and Saturday, we’ll hear from Rick Santorum (hey, he finished second last year, which was yet another year the GOP nomination went to the “next guy in line”), Bobby Jindal, Jeb Bush and Scott Walker. I’ll post thoughts about their speeches afterward.
– By Kyle Wingfield
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357 comments Add your comment
getalife
March 15th, 2013
2:50 pm
The red State guvs decided to raise your taxes so enjoy your mindless self defeatism and slobbering on the wealthy.
Aesop's Fables and other Lib Economic Theories
March 15th, 2013
2:52 pm
WASHINGTON — Following President Obama’s lunch meeting with Senate Republicans on Capitol Hill, Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins described the food served and said the president was not able to eat since his “taster” was not present.
President Obama has a food taster? This guy really is Nero.
Dusty
March 15th, 2013
2:55 pm
getalife
Nobody was slobbering until you got here. Please refrain.
Aesop's Fables and other Lib Economic Theories
March 15th, 2013
3:01 pm
McConnell spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference next to a tower of 20,000 pages of health care rules and regulations. He calls it a “monument to liberalism” and says Republicans will not back down from the fight.
Now that would be a spending cut.
Politico
March 15th, 2013
3:02 pm
“and says Republicans will not back down from the fight.”
As several Republican Governors announce their acceptance of the funds……
bwhahahahahaha
Politico
March 15th, 2013
3:05 pm
Why does Ryan’s budget eliminate state the elimination ACA but not the various taxes that are listed within the ACA?
Politico
March 15th, 2013
3:08 pm
state the elimination …………..
JDW
March 15th, 2013
3:15 pm
@LBB…”And yet it was Democrats who ran the House at the dawn of Obozo’s trillion dollar deficit era.”
Last debt crisis was summer of 2012, courtesy of the….House Republicans.
JohnS
March 15th, 2013
3:16 pm
I was looking for TV coverage of CPAC. It was not on either Comedy central or the SciFi channel. I could not think where else to look.
splavistic
March 15th, 2013
3:16 pm
Nazi plebecites? So, the UK, Hong Kong, Switzerland, et al. are all not becoming Nazi regimes because of us? Aesop, keep up the fables.
splavistic
March 15th, 2013
3:17 pm
All president’s have food tasters, munch.
Just Saying..
March 15th, 2013
3:19 pm
“Just for the record, Republicans won more elections for federal office last time than did Democrats.”
Well, Barry, your Party’s doing great then.
Don’t change a thing…
southpaw
March 15th, 2013
3:21 pm
JohnS
Which cable company do you have? I want to be sure NOT to subscribe to that one, as they clearly have a lousy program guide.
indigo
March 15th, 2013
3:23 pm
Republicans have two options:
1. They can nominate a sensible candidate like Christie or, possibly, Jeb Bush. If these candidates signal a move towards the center, the Party might have a chance to get back the White House.
2. They can nominate a far-right Tea Party nut job and spend the entire campaign blaming everything on those Socialist liberals.
I’m betting on number 2.
Just Saying..
March 15th, 2013
3:28 pm
Kyle, is the photo I’m seeing on CNN current?
CPAC invited Donald Trump to speak from the podium?
Oh, the credibility…
Politico
March 15th, 2013
3:29 pm
“Well, Barry, your Party’s doing great then.
Don’t change a thing…”
Well he is the little fella that posted over and over about a Romney win and what President Romney would be doing or not doing, saying or not saying……
Not much else needs to be said
USC-69
March 15th, 2013
3:36 pm
I see another loaded word that the conservatives like is CENSORSHIP. Kyle, you might as well find another occupation.
Rafe Hollister
March 15th, 2013
3:43 pm
USC-69 Censorship- like what the government approved media does to stories on Benghazi, Fast/Furious, problems implementing Obamacare, and the potential impact of our debt- makes the stories disappear.
Matz
March 15th, 2013
3:54 pm
In-a-nutshell brilliance by JamVet:
“Your message stinks on ice. Ask mainstream America.”
Indeed. Let the games begin! Ryan, Rubio, Paul, Sanctorum, Jindal, Walker, and good ol’ Jeb can start their debates now, as far as I’m concerned. The more they spread their stinky message to the people, the sooner it will be disinfected and deodorized in the light of day.
Thomas Heyward Jr
March 15th, 2013
3:57 pm
The more intelligent of the youth and the old codgers and everyone in between…. aren’t interested in the Democrat’s welfare/warfare state.
Likewise………………..they’re not interested in the Republican Warfare/welfare state.
.
We only want to be left alone.
Lil' Barry Bailout - OBAMAPHONE!!!
March 15th, 2013
4:04 pm
JDW: Last debt crisis was summer of 2012, courtesy of the….House Republicans.
——–
If you meant debt LIMIT crisis, perhaps that’s what you should have said.
Obozo’s DEBT crisis is a different thing altogether.
Lil' Barry Bailout - OBAMAPHONE!!!
March 15th, 2013
4:07 pm
And the debt limit “crisis” produced a big win for Real Americans…actual cuts in spending.
Kyle Wingfield
March 15th, 2013
4:19 pm
USC-69: I have explained to you before why not all of your comments show up here. It’s something you’re doing wrong, not anything I’m doing to keep your comments from appearing. If you can’t bother to avoid that problem, I’m not going to worry about it either.
Rafe Hollister
March 15th, 2013
4:26 pm
getalife, Finn, JDW, go on with your belief that austerity is harmful, they will not believe you in Latvia or Germany. Krugman is such a know it all klutz, too bad Barry still listens to him. Reported on Liberal CNBC, so it has to be true!!!!!!!! whodda thunk it?
http://www.cnbc.com/id/100558455
Latvia’s Prime Minister hit back on Friday at Paul Krugman’s criticism of Latvia’s austerity measures, saying the Nobel Prize-winning economist has “difficulty admitting his own mistake.”
“Krugman famously said back in December 2008 that Latvia is the new Argentina, it will inevitably go bankrupt, and now he has difficulty apparently admitting he was wrong and so he tries to seek some problems in how Latvia is recovering from the economic crisis,” Latvian leader Valdis Dombrovskis told CNBC in an interview at the EU summit in Brussels.
“But I think that the mere fact that for the last two years we are enjoying rapid growth shows that it was probably the right strategy.”
Ol' Timer
March 15th, 2013
4:27 pm
If CPAC is a vision of 2016, then the GOP is sunk again. Period.
Rafe Hollister
March 15th, 2013
4:40 pm
Kyle, I liked the Rand Paul comment that I think bears listening to, that is if you are for Freedom you have to be consistently for Freedom. We know Dems claim to be for choice, but that is limited to reproductive choice only, they fail on school choice and health care choice. We should try and be more consistent in always being for Freedom in whatever form it appears.
Rafe Hollister
March 15th, 2013
4:48 pm
USC you spoke of Censorship, was that what the government approved media do to stories on Benghazi, Fast/Furious, problems implementing Obamacare, lingering unemployment, homelessness, and the long term implications of our national debt. They make those stories disappear in order to protect the man they worked so hard to elect.
Cherokee
March 15th, 2013
5:06 pm
Just Saying..
March 15th, 2013
3:28 pm
Kyle, is the photo I’m seeing on CNN current?
CPAC invited Donald Trump to speak from the podium?
Oh, the credibility…
Yeah, seems they invited Trump, but dissed Chris Christie…
Too funny.
And poor Kyle is laboring away thinking that one of these clowns might be our next President.
Cherokee
March 15th, 2013
5:07 pm
Latvia? You’re all worked up about Latvia?
Aesop's Fables and other Lib Economic Theories
March 15th, 2013
5:16 pm
Right now, we’re spending more money to pay interest on debt than we’ll spend on education, homeland security, transportation and veterans’ benefits combined this year. Surely, there’s something better to spend that money on. And those interest payments are a significant tax on Americans — a debt tax that Washington doesn’t want to talk about. And just wait until interest rates rise, because at some point they will.
And guess what’s going to happen when interest rates go up.
Politico
March 15th, 2013
5:18 pm
“Latvia? You’re all worked up about Latvia?”
When you are jonesing for a comeback you will take anything that you think might fit the narrative
Politico
March 15th, 2013
5:21 pm
Kyle
Is your boy Newt at the “Clown Posing as Cons” convention?
If so, is he still pushing condos on the moon? And did you put down your earnest money for the 5th floor corner unit?
Aesop's Fables and other Lib Economic Theories
March 15th, 2013
5:31 pm
Well, I see obozo has knocked off the outreach and is back to insanely spending every penny he can steal from our children -
LEMONT, Ill. (AP) — Envisioning cars that can go “coast to coast without using a drop of oil,” President Barack Obama on Friday urged Congress to authorize spending $2 billion over the next decade to expand research into electric cars and biofuels to wean automobiles off gasoline.
Total whackjob. None of it works. Never will. Basic engineering says it’s impossible. What don’t you understand about that? Even dhimmi karter finally caught on.
We are located on top of a sea of oil and what America needs is jobs to extract it and the revenue form exporting it. Why are you liberals so against progress?
Aesop's Fables and other Lib Economic Theories
March 15th, 2013
5:37 pm
Does anybody else not know how much energy it takes to create biofuels out of plant matter? Energy that is only available now through oil and gas? It’s entirely insane and a total boondoggle. Has anyone seen what the liberals and their insanity is doing to the Gulf of Mexico, with all the fertilizer runoff? It’s a total disaster but it’s their disaster so you hear nothing about it.
This is a blowed oil platform times 100 million and nothing but silence, dead fish, dead manatees, vast areas devoid of life, who cares?
Lil' Barry Bailout - OBAMAPHONE!!!
March 15th, 2013
5:54 pm
Rafe: Krugman
————–
You misspelled “Former Enron adviser Krugman”.
MarkV
March 15th, 2013
5:55 pm
I have not heard Rubio’s speech, and I wonder if he gave examples of the countries ‘around the world” he had in mind when he said, according to Kyle: “Who are they copying? Not the former Soviet Union. Not Russia. They’re not even copying China. They’re copying us. They may claim to hate us, but they sure would like to be us.”
What are they copying? Certainly not our wasteful, inadequate health care system. Certainly not our gun culture. Not our safety net – many of them have a better one. They enjoy American popular culture and fast food, but somehow I have a feeling that was not what Rubio had in mind.
Lil' Barry Bailout - OBAMAPHONE!!!
March 15th, 2013
5:56 pm
Maybe that’s why they’re not Numero Uno, like us.
MarkV
March 15th, 2013
5:57 pm
I hope Rand Paul will be the 2016 Republican nominee. We need some fun, and after the stuffed shirt Romney, Paul would be a welcome comic relief.
Lil' Barry Bailout - OBAMAPHONE!!!
March 15th, 2013
6:03 pm
What are they copying?
—————
Probably our venture capital model. Private property rights. Patent and IP protections. Accounting standards. Our embrace of creative destruction.
You know, all those things lame Democrats fear and loathe.
Politico
March 15th, 2013
6:06 pm
Krugman worked for Reagan as well, so what is your point?
Politico
March 15th, 2013
6:08 pm
How typical and humorous that the little fella only knew to spout the Krugman and Enron talking point…….
bwhahahahahahaha
Politico
March 15th, 2013
6:11 pm
82 to 83 if the AmSpec, dailycaller, wnd, Fox, theblaze, etc forgot to mention that when they provided you the Enron talking point
bwhahahahaha
getalife
March 15th, 2013
6:17 pm
trump was hilarious
I do enjoy the circus back in town with clowns pretending to act like cons.
indigo
March 15th, 2013
6:23 pm
Aesop – 5:31
It’s called long-term planning, something you cons and your Big Business idols care nothing about.
And, what is this “sea of oil” you speak of? If that were true, American oil companies would be drilling like mad to get it.
And, don’t say Obama is stopping them from doing it. After all, according to you, he’s the most ineffective President in our history. You don’t believe he’s capable of even wiping his nose properly.
getalife
March 15th, 2013
6:29 pm
The oil will be too high to buy and run out.
Then what cons?
You are worried about 16 when you should worry about 14.
Are you really going to hand over the house to President Obama?
He would have a rubber stamp congress with Speaker Pelosi.
ND
March 15th, 2013
6:29 pm
I don’t agree with Rand Paul very often, but his comments here sound pretty intelligent.
alittlecommosense
March 15th, 2013
6:39 pm
“Seriously, someone needs to ask Rand Paul who was the billionaire that got a loan to build solar panels…otherwise he needs to STFU.”
George Kaiser Obama donor, Solyndra backer, 10 billion net worth -
http://www.forbes.com/profile/george-kaiser/
So how about you STFU deep cover??
Politico
March 15th, 2013
6:45 pm
“So how about you STFU deep cover??”
Why you talking to yourself? Doing your own version of De niro in Taxi Driver?
MarkV
March 15th, 2013
6:50 pm
George Kaiser, whose source of wealth is oil & gas, banking, “got a loan to build solar panels” by virtue of being a backer of Solyndra? Can anyone beat such a convoluted logic?
Rafe Hollister
March 15th, 2013
6:54 pm
Politico, I’m not worried about Latvia, they are doing fine, unlike Obama, they didn’t listen to Krugman and did what made sense. They knew that if spending continued at the level it was, they were toast, so they did what we all instinctively know to do when money is short, you cut back your spending.
I was pointing out Krugman was wrong, and so was getalife and Finn (obsessed with austerity failing in Europe) I think Europe is past the point where austerity is going to help, they are just plain insolvent, spending 300-400% more than gdp. Germany, Finland, Latvia and others are going to be in no mood to bail them out.
I’m predicting another peaceful rise of Germany dominating Europe, as Merkel has embraced austerity and dissed the foolish spend your way out of debt model that Obama is test driving.