Paulistas say, 'Why not Bob?'

While at the doctor's office for one last round of vaccinations today -- prior to departing to The Very Dangerous Foreign Country -- I got a call on my cell phone tipping me to a world exclusive:

Bob Barr, who helped lead the 1998 impeachment of President Clinton, is the object of an alliance of conservative and libertarians seeking to recruit the former Georgia Republican congressman as a third-party presidential candidate.
Now an Atlanta-based activist with the Libertarian Party, Barr has repeatedly disavowed any intention of seeking the LP's 2008 presidential nomination. ...
However, efforts to push a Barr candidacy were given new impetus last week when Rep. Ron Paul sent a letter to his supporters announcing plans to scale back his Republican presidential campaign and concentrate on his congressional re-election fight in Texas.
Several organizers behind the draft-Barr movement were supporters of the Paul presidential campaign. Last week, Barr introduced Paul at the 35th annual Conservative Political Action Conference, calling the Texas congressman "the Constitution's best friend" and "the gold standard of conservatism" in the GOP presidential campaign.
Barr's backers have also solicited support among conservative Republicans who were disappointed by last week's announcement -- made on the opening day of CPAC -- that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney was suspending his Republican presidential campaign.
Former Romney backers were "very excited" by proposals to recruit Barr for a White House run on the Libertarian ticket, a source said. ...
(MORE)

I actually got to hang out last week with Barr at CPAC. I jokingly blamed him for busting up a Thursday night party -- he showed up right after hotel security shut down the party for being too loud -- but got to spend some time with him Friday at Shelly's Backroom Tavern, one of the few places in DC where it is possible to smoke indoors.

Barr's a cigar smoker, and he's shown here with a fine smoke and some of his many admirers.

Ron Paul: Thanks, chumps!

UPDATE Saturday 10:30 p.m.: Newbie bloggers, pay attention. If you say your prayers at night, one of these days, you might get the awesome Instalanche. Thanks, professor -- even if I am a little harsh sometimes. I've been hanging out with Ace too much, I guess. Or maybe Jimmie.

Also, I'm posting this from a borrowed computer in LaFayette Hall at George Washington University, and Marilyn gives a big shout-out to all her GW College Republican homeys. (More updates below.)

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First, Mitt quits, now Ron Paul hangs it up:

With Romney gone, the chances of a brokered convention are nearly zero. But that does not affect my determination to fight on, in every caucus and primary remaining, and at the convention for our ideas, with just as many delegates as I can get. But with so many primaries and caucuses now over, we do not now need so big a national campaign staff, and so I am making it leaner and tighter. Of course, I am committed to fighting for our ideas within the Republican party, so there will be no 3rd party run. ...
I have constituents in my home district that I must serve. I cannot and will not let them down. And I have another battle I must face here as well. If I were to lose the primary for my congressional seat, all our opponents would react with glee, and pretend it was a rejection of our ideas. I cannot and will not let that happen.
In the presidential race and the congressional race, I need your support, as always. And I have plans to continue fighting for our ideas in politics and education that I will share with you when I can, for I will need you at my side. In the meantime, onward and upward! The neocons, the warmongers, the socialists, the advocates of inflation will be hearing much from you and me.

Translation:

"Hey, chumps, ever heard of something called a 'bait and switch'?
"Remember all that money you donated so I could campaign for president?
"Well, instead I'm going to use it to campaign for re-election to Congess, you stupid chumps.
"However, just in case you're not smart enough to realize you've been played for a sucker, I will maintain a token presidential campaign. That will allow me to continue paying fat salaries to the genius pimps who masterminded this scam.
"You've been so totally punk'd, dude. I got your hopes up, then screwed you over.

"To quote a great American, 'Never give a sucker an even break.'
"If I can't win re-election in Texas, my advisers plan for me to have a second career doing late-night infomercials for no-money-down real-estate scams.

"Don't hate the player, hate the game."

Like the Romney supporters left brokenhearted by Thursday's announcement from Mitt The Quitter, now the Paulistas can begin to come to grips with the fact that they've been misled and exploited.
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I'm still at CPAC -- or, actually, I'm about a block from CPAC, at the home of my friend Matt Keller. I understand that another of my friends, Matt Vadum, got shanghaied by bloggers last night, while I was hanging with ... well, that's another post.
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UPDATE (Saturday p.m.): Guess Matt Vadum wasn't lying, huh? And excuse me for my inability to modulate my voice. Also, excuse my French. Mon dieu!

UPDATE Saturday 2:15 p.m.: More at Memeorandum, Reason Magazine, The Caucus, and Don Surber, who says:

If he is not a 3rd Party candidate, then I was wrong about the guy. I apologize for being so harsh to judge him and his supporters.

Don, the problem is, you were not harsh enough. Please keep reading.

And to the stupid commenter who accused me of being un-American: Screw you, you gullible chump. You just got played, and you don't even recognize when somebody's trying to give you a clue. A sucker is born every minute.

UPDATE Sunday 6:40 a.m.: I cannot believe the True Believers in the comment field. I mean, isn't profound skepticism intrinsic to the libertarian worldview?

Friday and Saturday, I spent several hours conferring (as we say in Washington) with the libertarian brain trust, including Shane Cory, Bob Barr, staffers at Cato and CEI, and the editors of Reason magazine. While not all of them agree with my ultra-cynical analysis of Paul's Friday night letter, I think it fair to say that Brian Doherty's reaction of disappointment is widely shared.

UPDATE Sunday 9 a.m.: As Deborah Corey Barnes testifies, the DCVIPCC's invitation-only party at CPAC was a smashing success:

[I]t was a blast held by Stacy McCain and Matt Vadum until the hotel management cut it off ... there are many luxury suites in the Omni Shoreham. In fact, it seems like the management spends most of the nights during CPAC breaking them up. Why?

My theory, Mrs. Barnes? God gives us enemies for a reason, and thus we should be grateful for His blessings.

Like the Roman centurion, Jesse the Security Chief is "a man under authority." Who knows what misery was averted by Jesse's intervention? What might have happened, I ask you, if Jesse hadn't broken up the party before Bob Barr arrived? I remind you that Congressman Barr has been known to exercise his Second Amendment rights at social occasions.

Therefore, I will be grateful. And next year, we'll either (a) convene our soiree elsewhere, or (b) invite Jesse to the party. This will be a topic of discussion at the next meeting of the DCVIPCC.

As to the historic nature of the "blast," I will quote one of our uninvited guests (I have a nostalgic admiration for clever party-crashers): "Dude, that was epic."

Exit question: Was Stephen Glass a fabulist ... or a visionary?

CPAC: Friday blogging

UPDATE 10:45 a.m.: Just heard that Ace of Spades will receive "Blogger of the Year" award today. Another vindication for the AOSHQ Lifestyle!

Just saw Saul Anuzis of the Michigan GOP, who says of John McCain, "He's our nominee." Saul gave a speech listing non-negotiable points on the conservative agenda and declaring to Crazy Cousin John that if he will stand up for that agenda, "We've got your back."

On the other hand, I also saw columnist Don Feder, who said: "No way I can vote for McCain."

We continue blogging live at the fabulous Omni Shoreham Hotel, where 6,800 conservative activists are recovering from the amazing first day: Vice President Dick Cheney's speech, Mitt Romney's stunning announcement, John McCain's speech (reviewed by Nice Deb).

Oh, and today President Bush gave a 7 a.m. CPAC speech.

Expect updates ....

CPAC late-night blogging

The management of the fabulous Omni Shoreham Hotel has requested that we blog quietly.

Shhhhhhhh. (Will update.)

UPDATE: I have no idea why they would think that we were too loud. Just a few friends getting together in a hotel room. I mean, it's about hospitality, right?

The guy in the grey sweatshirt (center) is the Washington bureau chief for Investor's Business Daily.

Among the fabulous people on hand were Becky Banks of Students For Life, Jason Mattera of Young America's Foundation, Mary Katharine Ham of Townhall.com, and Matthew Sheffield of Newsbusters. (Ace of Spades had to be cropped out of that picture because ... I don't know, he said something about his photo being in the post office.)

Also in attendance, but not pictured: Little Miss Attila, Doug Giles, Mike Adams, James Joyner, LOTUS, Sean Hackbarth, Nathan Tabor, Martha Zoller, Phil Kent ... the mind grows hazy. There were a lot of super-fabulous cool people there.

Just about the time that the management of the fabulous Omni Shoreham Hotel decided we needed to be quiet, my close personal friend Bob Barr showed up.

We blame Bob. I mean, why not?

UPDATE II: Just when we thought it was over, Richard Miniter showed up ...

Shane Greer loves CPAC

Shane Greer is a blogger with the Young Britons Foundation:

Kirby Wilbur says: "CPAC Rocks!"

Kirby Wilbur of KVI Seattle is joined by two cool College Republicans from UC-Santa Cruz:

CPAC: Thursday afternoon

Excuse the long delay in blogging. Had trouble connecting with the WiFi system. There will be many updates to come, but right now ... wow. What a day.

From my report for TheConservativeVoice.com:

The announcement stunned many of Romney’s supporters, especially hundreds of college-age supporters who had been handing out Romney lapel stickers in the hotel lobby just minutes earliers.
“I am incredibly shocked … profoundly saddened,” said Ruth Malhotra, an activist with Evangelicals for Mitt. “I can’t support John McCain. He is not a conservative. … He’s stabbed his party in the back and he’s betrayed the conservative movement.”
Her sentiments were echoed by Orit Sklar of Jews for Mitt. “There’s no way I’m voting for John McCain,” she said.
In an exhibition hall, Romney supporters gathered around a big-screen TV to watch the speech. Many had tears in their eyes. ...

Now John McCain is on TV talking about his conservative principles. Should be a short speech.

Will update later ....

UPDATE: At this point, among conservative McCain opponents, people seem sort of stunned. I just had a long conversation with Tony Blankley, who suggests that Rush, Ingraham, Levin and others will eventually support the Republican nominee.

We'll see. There are now people in the hotel lobby waving "Stop The McCain Amnesty" signs.

You know who's happy now? The Paulistas. Ron Paul just gave a speech -- he's very popular with College Republicans.

CPAC blogging begins!

Live from the fabulous Omni Shoreham Hotel -- it's CPAC '08!

This week: Bush! Cheney! Romney! Crazy Cousin John! And, of course, Ron Paul (who will be introduced by my close personal friend, Bob Barr).

It's a GOP cage match -- a titanic struggle for the soul of the Republican Party and the future of America! And this political apocalypse will be blogged by an all-star squad of conservative bloggers.

Did I mention Michelle Malkin and Ann Coulter will be here? (Also, "Trout Pout" is in the house.)

Will update frequently as events continue. I am here as special correspondent for TheConservativeVoice.com and, baby, we are ready to rock.

Blogging from the lobby bar, where I've just been enthusiastically greeted by the lovely Pamela of Atlas Shrugs.

Clockwise from top left: The Other McCain (note clever product placement); Matthew Vadum of Capital Research Center; the lovely Pamela; Eric of No Pasaran.

If you're at CPAC, we'll see you soon!

NZ Bear has a CPAC blog feed, but for some reason it doesn't list me. I won't pout.

Message to Mitt: Concede nothing

"Calm down," says Crazy Cousin John. Calm down:

Republican John McCain . . . told his conservative critics Wednesday to dial back the animosity and focus on issues where they agree.

"I do hope that at some point we would just calm down a little bit and see if there's areas we can agree on," McCain said at a news conference in a Phoenix airport hangar.

Yeah, you do that, Makaniak. You and your sycophantic chorus of Smithers-like propagandists, you "just calm down a little bit." Have fun at CPAC (with 6,000 conservatives whom you purposefully snubbed last year).

Meanwhile, Mitt Romney needs to make like Donald Trump, look around at some of his insanely overpaid consultants and ineffective staffers and say, "You're fired."

It's still nearly six months to the GOP convention. Six months is forever in politics, and Mitt's CPAC speech should be a bold expression that he's not quitting, he's not conceding, he's fighting all the way to Minneapolis.

"All in," as they say in Vegas. "Go Down Gambling":


(Sorry for the live version with pointless 2-minute guitar shred at the beginning. The original studio version is much better.)

UPDATE: Others begin to see the virtues of the "no quit" stance.

CPAC Fever: Pandemic!

Welcome Michelle Malkin readers! And Happy Birthday, Ronald Reagan!

The raging epidemic of CPAC Fever continues spreading across the blogophere. If you haven't caught it, it's not too late to sign up now.

Here, courtesy of Christina Grabosky with CRC Public Relations, is the list of blogs who will be represented on Bloggers Row at the three-day event beginning Thursday at the luxurious Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, DC.

*CPAC 2008 BLOGGERS ROW*

Ace O'Spades
Alarming News
Atlas Shrugs
Bluey Blog
Captain's Quarters
Conservatives with an Attitude!
Fausta's Blog
FreedomWorks
Gay Patriot
Girl on the Right
HotAir.com
Hugh Hewitt
Human Events
Little Miss Attila
Mary Katherine Ham
Matt Sanchez
Musclehead Revolution
My Man Mitt
Newsbusters
Outside the Beltway
Politico
Reasoned Audacity
Red State
Riehl World View
Right Wing News
Sam Adams Alliance
Save the GOP
The American Mind
The Autonomist
Truth Laid Bear

"Now, wait a doggone minute!" you say. "I don't see my favorite blog on that list."

Have no fear. There were only 30 slots available on bloggers row (some organizations requested multiple slots), and so some of us -- ahem, cough, cough -- will sort of be "floating" hither and yon.

Me, personally, I've got a big VIP party to prepare for Thursday, so there won't be that much time for blogging. Other than that, I'll mainly be blogging from the Marquee Bar in the lobby of the Omni Shoreham. Pretty much all the cool people end up in the Marquee Bar sooner or later.
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UPDATE: Riehl World View and Hot Air Headlines linked. Thanks!

UPDATE II: David Keene, chairman of ACU (CPAC's sponsor) has endorsed Mitt Romney.

UPDATE III: The unsettled state of the Republican presidential primary race after Super Tuesday will make this a particularly exciting CPAC.

Regardless of what you hear from the MSM, Crazy Cousin John "didn't close the deal," to quote Jed Babbin.

Stephen Dinan of The Washington Times has a breakdown of exit-poll data showing how conservatives went in each state -- for example, McCain was a third choice for conservatives in Georgia, gaining only 21% of the conservative vote.

Wonder what Cheney and Bush will have to say?

UPDATE IV: Just got a notice from Roger Custer of Young America's Foundation, informing me that the time and venue of Friday's Ann Coulter event have been slightly changed: 4 p.m. in the Empire Ballroom. If you miss Coulter at CPAC, she'll be at George Washington University on Saturday night.

UPDATE V: Don't miss my "Message to Mitt."

CPAC Fever!

Hot Air's got it! Michelle Malkin 's got it! Now we learn that even the President and Vice President have succumbed to the pandemic of CPAC Fever:

Both President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney are scheduled to address the more than 6,000 activists attending the 35th annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) this week in Washington.
Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney, John McCain and Ron Paul also are slated to speak during the three-day event that begins Thursday at Washington's posh Omni Shoreham Hotel.
"For the first time, we will have both the president and vice president speaking in person," said Larry Hart, Director of Government Relations for the American Conservative Union (ACU), which has organized the yearly event since its inception in 1974.
News that both Bush and Cheney will speak at CPAC may add to the record-breaking attendance already expected this year for the nation's largest annual gathering of conservative activists.
"We're on pace to be higher than last year's 6,300, which was a record," said CPAC director Lisa De Pasquale. "Obviously, we don't know what on-site registration is going to be." ... (MORE)

Read the whole thing, because that is some damn fine reporting.

And guess who else is burning with CPAC Fever?