I didn't get a chance to wrap up my thoughts on the Defending the American Dream summit this past weekend, but now I can reflect a bit on what it all meant and what I learned there.
First off, there were some very good speakers scheduled on Saturday's program. Outstanding among them were television host John Stossel who gave his usual well reasoned argument for why excessive taxation and government waste made no sense at all, and radio host Herman Kain. Kain's rousing speech expressing the values of liberty and responsibility from a very traditional perspective would likely win over a lot of African-American voters had any significant number been listening to him, and there were some in the audience. We even had two black bloggers in the blogger area, but even with his growing radio exposure, I wonder how many of his fellow black Americans Kain is really able to reach and shake out of their complacency.
The closing address also featured an impressive African-American Republican, former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, who got to speak to a relatively intimate crowd at the reception which closed down the conference. Blackwell has an axe to grind. He was unfairly scapegoated in the 2004 election for mistakes which were made primarily by long term bureaucrats within his administration who were mostly Democrats. Every kind of scurrilous accusation was leveled at him when Kerry lost in Ohio, and although he was cleared of every charge, Blackwell clearly holds onto some anger over the issue. His speech focused on Democratic voter fraud and he cataloged the now well-known crimes of ACORN, including one of the most coherent explanations of how ACORN's tactics work and the confusion which they try to create and then take advantage of to allow illegal votes on election day. Blackwell's experience overseeing elections makes him uniquely qualified to analyze the ACORN agenda and he did an excellent job of it.
One event which I didn't attend at the summit was the rally on the steps of the Capitol to call attention to the bailout and government irresponsibility in general. Busses were available to take attendees directly to the mall, and hundreds turned out for some short speeches and relatively dignified protesting. Congress was not in session, but at least some news media were there to report on the concerns expressed by Americans for Prosperity members. You can get a feel for the rally from the Fox News video presented below.
Most of the bloggers stayed behind at 'bloggers row' to catch up on their writing, and several people shot video of the less than cinematically riveting scene of citizen journalists working at their computers. In the two videos below you can get an idea of what we were up to. See if you can pick out yours truly in the group - look for the big guy with the tiny Mac. Be warned, the first video has an annoying musical track added to it.
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Article comments
1 - Ms. Know
It's not fair that he was used as a scapegoat because the people to choose the left-wing illuminati. Luckily some people without liberal views, thought enough for him to speak about the issues, since they're obviously being ignored.
2 - Dr Dreadful
It appears that Marcia Neil has a clone...
3 - Dave Nalle
I actually understood most of that. It was an expression of sympathy for Ken Blackwell, which means she actually read most of the article, for which I give her some credit.
I was quite impressed with Blackwell. The calibre of the rising african american leaders within the GOP is one of the things which gives me hope for the party. In a way the Obama nomination is very unfortunate for Republicans because we have such good black republicans poised to move up into the level of experience which would qualify them to run for president.
Of course, the irony is that most of them are MORE qualified already than Obama is, but in the GOP that leaves them still one tier behind those who are considered for the presidency.
Remember these names: Michael Steele, Michael Williams and Ken Blackwell. I predict that all 3 will be in the House or Senate before 2014 and one of them will at least be the GOP nominee for VP in 2016.
Dave