Cutest Chicks at CPAC Go For Ron Paul
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Today, CPAC's main speeches and panels ended at 4pm. However, this just meant that no one was forced to listen to the same speech that everyone else was hearing. The attendees divided amongst themselves into different groups for dinner and started to attend the events they probably really wanted to attend, and not just what they had to attend.
Notably a few hundred souls decided to go hear Ron Paul speak at 8:30pm. Throughout the day, Ron Paul acolytes stood on the sides of escalators and outside of meeting rooms, handing out paraphernalia from The Campaign for Liberty (CFL). The Campaign for Liberty describes itself as an educational organization working to "promote and defend the great American principles of individual liberty, constitutional government, sound money, free markets, and a noninterventionist foreign policy". It should have described itself as a conference within the CPAC conference. Effectively, a Ron Paul and Friends forum.
From discussions with attendees, it seems that most of the heavy lifting for CFL, has been done by the Young Americans for Liberty (YAL), a college group. What's so great about the YAL? As one student put it: "I saw a lot of cute, YAL chicks in the lobby."
I was talking with three college students who had come out to Washington, D.C. from Kansas. They were wearing sweatshirts and netted hats. This is not the typical CPAC attire at an event where even the Young Republicans (especially the Young Republicans) bring out the shirts and ties.
It turned out it wasn't just that YAL people were young. Another student chimed in: "Yeah, the 50 year old neocons are trying to recruit them."
They were only here for Ron Paul, and a discussion about the 10th Amendment (it's a really big deal for them.) As I left to write up a description of what it was like to be in the alternate universe where attendees could envision a government that had no military forces abroad, I found out that the libertarian fans were not the only attendees still at the hotel.
George Will was addressing a black tie event. The main convention space had been turned into a dining hall as many older (and likely richer) Republicans listened to the columnist provide a high-brow take down of the Obama Administration: "This is an administration that doesn't believe in the internal combustion engine, but believes in saving Chrysler!"
George Will's jokes would have probably entertained, but from a cursory glance at the attendees, this was not a young person's affair. What could you do if you were not a Ron Paul fan, or an old donor? The Young Republicans had gotten a nearby bar to agree that attendees could get unlimited Miller Light for only $10.