CPAC Live Coverage and Breaking News from the Conservative Political Action Conference

Saturday, February 12, 2011, 7:09 p.m.

The results from the CPAC straw poll are in. Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) wins a plurality with 30 percent. Next highest vote counts go to former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-Mass.) with 23 percent, Gary Johnson with 6 percent, and current New Jersey Chris Christie (R) with 5 percent of the vote. Sarah Palin got just 3 percent of the vote.

While the poll is supposed to be a good indicator of who core conservatives favor in the upcoming presidentia nomination this is generally not the case. The last time the CPAC straw poll matched up with the eventual nominee was when George W. Bush won in 2000.

That about wraps up Campus Progress' coverage of CPAC this year. Thanks for tuning in!

Saturday, February 12, 2011, 1:29 p.m.

A popular panel this afternoon at CPAC was "The Sharia Challenge in the West," featuring Andrew McCarthy of the National Review, Ayaan Hirshi Ali, who authored controversial books Infidel and Nomad, and former CIA director Jim Woolsey. While the panelists tried to present a nuanced position, saying there's a difference between radicals and "rank and file" ordinary Muslims, they also argued that many of the prominent Muslim organizations in American today are actually radical organizations that present themselves as moderate.

Among those that panelists said were deceiving Americans were the Muslim Student Association, which has over 600 chapters on campuses in America and Canada, the Muslim American Society, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). McCarthy said CAIR posed itself as a human rights and civil rights organization because, "You know what these nutty Americans love? Human rights and civil rights."

Ali responded to an audience question about campus activism by saying that students should target Muslim students by showing them an alternative to Muslim groups on campus. "They can establish a defense system on campus to identify organizations that do student activism of the [Muslim] Brotherhood. They can target Muslim students before the Brotherhood can get to them," as well as creating awareness among American students on campus about the dangers of Sharia. "It takes a network to defeat a network," she said. Ideas of Islamophobia and ostracization, she said, are often planted by Muslim Brotherhood leadership in Muslim American communities.

An audience member in a West Point uniform asked, seriously, "How many years before Sharia law is implemented in America?" McCarthy said that cultural conflicts in Europe between traditional Westerns and new Muslim immigrants is a warning sign. "They're about 10 years ahead of us," he said.

Saturday, February 12, 2011, 12:37 p.m.

Yesterday Campus Progress caught up with Smart Girl Politics, a group that started in 2009 that encourages conservative women to get involved in politics. They began with the hashtag #sgp -- an abreviation of the group's name -- and has gotten attention for it, even appearing here at CPAC on one of the social media panels. When we asked if they viewed themselves as the conservative's response to EMILY's List, they said "no." Instead, it seems they're more interested in recruiting women to become volunteers with campaigns and work as support staff for those running for office.

Additionally Rosa Perez-Leonetti, who works on campaigns in New Jersey, said she endorses both men and women. Still, she seems to recognize women voters are potentially powerful. "We're the movement. Women come out and vote," she said.

Friday, February 11, 2011, 6:41 p.m.

Campus Progress met up with some students to talk conservatism, prospects of the Donald as president, and GOProud's controversial presence at the conference.

Friday, February 11, 2011, 5:30 p.m.

We ran into Jimmy McMillan of The "Rent is Too Damn High" party. "I'm the voice of young people!" Jimmy said. "And I'll be making an announcement that will have the president running to the bathroom!"

Friday, February 11, 2011, 3:32 p.m.

Campus Progress caught up with a young woman, Bethany Owes, who helped her father, William Owens, research his book, Obama: Why Black America Should Have Doubts. Her father has become a leader in the Tea Party movement and is the vice president for the Tea Party Review, a new publication that has an inagural issue that came out yesterday. Bethany says her father has encouraged her and the rest of her family to volunteer and help out with the movment.

"Ever since I could vote when I turned 18 in 2008, that's when I first started kinda getting interested. I had to do research and figure out who I was goning to vote for," Bethany says.

She toured with her family on the Tea Party Express, traveling to 200 locations around the country. Still, Owens doesn't see her future in politics. She plans to attend a community college for accounting this fall. "Honestly, it's not really my thing." Though, she says, "I'll always help."

Friday, February 11, 2011, 3:23 p.m.

Aaaaand the student activism panel kicks off with a college conservative from Wellesley, Caitlin Alcala, saying proudly, "We beat out several multicultural organizations to win campus organization of the year!" In other words, screw crew other cultures; Reagan 4 lyfe!

A student blogger from St. Clair College says, "As it stands today, there are 633 days to defeat Barack Obama!" I'm not sure where they're getting this "there are more conservative youth than progressive youth" thing from—too bad that fact is statistically untrue.

Conservatives co-opting ghandi quote ... something really creepy about that. This speaker is a YAF faithful ... "be the elephant in the room."

The students for Ron Paul are far and away the most enthusiastic and vocal. I'm not sure if this is a good or a bad thing

Whoops, a student from Saint Stephen's and Saint Anges high school, Evan Draim, even knows that young ppl are overwhelmingly liberal.

Terrence George from Brown University is wearing a bow-tie and sounds like Mr. Movie Fone. We have a partial clip of his speech.

Regis Giles, sister of the infamous Hannah Giles who was involved in the shady ACORN pimp videos, claims she killed a wild boar with a spear. She also blogs for girlsjustwannahaveguns.com and is the sister of hannah giles. Her description of "girl pumping lead into an attacker" who leaps from the bushes gets rousing applause. Apparently Giles doesn't know that most rapes are committed by someone the victim already knows.

Vinciane Ngomsi from Truman State University, an immigrant herself, says she cares about stopping "illegal" immigration. She says she loves "making liberals angry."

Lindsey Smith, from Smith College led her school's conservative coming out day.

Friday, February 11, 2011, 12:51 p.m.

At a panel titled "Engaging America through Pop Culture," Stephen Baldwin, who was scheduled to appear, was a no-show. According to his colleague/friend, Kevin McCullough, Baldwin was taking a meeting with Survivor creator, Mark Burnett, to discuss a project. The rest of the panel was surprisingly devoid of pop culture.

Between his jabs at Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, Jason Mattera, now editor of HumanEvents.com and former spokesman for the Young America's Foundation, "I'm counting on you to be evangelists in you class  or on your campus. Help me to take on the establishment in college. There's no particular uniform you have to wear to be a conservative; you just have to be yourself."

McCullough's advice? "Make a lot of money," he says. Then you can fund what you want. Given that Jason Mattera claimed there were "no jobs," it's unclear how these young conservatives are supposed to go about that goal.

Friday, February 11, 2011, 10:51 a.m.

CPAC student registration workers tell us that students make up an estimated 5,000 of total CPAC attendees. They also estimate about 11,000 total attendees.

One organizations, Students for Mitt Romney, brought 75 students with them to CPAC.

Thursday, February 10, 2011, 5:52 p.m.

Here's just a handful of our favorite photos from the day. Check back tomorrow for more CPAC 2011 coverage!

Young Americans for Liberty getting busy.

The controversial GOProud group was flooded with press today. GOProud's presence at CPAC 2011 has caused several other conservative groups to boycott this year's conference.

Feel like shootin' some guns? Not only could you register to vote (with the encouragement of Chuck Norris) at the NRA booth, you could also have a go at the virtual skeet shooting game.

All photos by Tara Kutz

Thursday, February 10, 2011, 3:49 p.m.

A breakout panel on pop culture was suspended during Donald Trump's speech and the live feed was piped in. Tump's claim that "Ron Paul will never get elected" garnered boos from the breakout room audience.

Thursday, February 10, 2011, 2:10 p.m.

At the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Thursday, a small breakout panel taught attendees how to get "started in Hollywood." Panelists included Kevin McKeever, who co-sponsored the youth-oriented "XPAC" with actor Stephen Baldwin last year, and Larry O'Connor, who writes for Andrew Breitbart's Big Hollywood site.

One of the big themes was that conservatives hoping to break into Hollywood should be "artists first," telling good stories and writing good scripts rather than wearing their politics on their sleeve. "I would not talk about your politics," McKeever said, encouraging conservatives to act as a "sleeper agent," gaining notoriety and respect among those in the film industry before revealing one's politics. "You're an artist first. Tell me a good story with good characters. Don't [put] your politics first," McKeever said.

Panelists pointed to other actors who revealed their political allegiances after the fact: Jon Voight, Kelsey Grammar, and Robert Downey, Jr. who have recently expressed less-than-liberal political allegiances in the press.

They said conservatives have been making inroads in Hollywood, saying that John Nolte's campaign against James Cameron's anti-military attitudes is to credit for Avatar's loss for best picture last year at the Oscars. They also took credit for a "conservative" film like "Waiting for Superman" getting attention at Sundance. They failed to mention that "Superman" has been a fairly popular film among liberals interested in education reform.

The message seemed to be that if conservatives really want to succeed in Hollywood, they're best off imitating liberals.

Thursday, February 10, 2011, 11:39 a.m.

Campus Progress reported to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) this morning. We missed some of the speeches in favor of checking out the booths. Here are some highlights from what we found:

We'll have more information throughout the day, and a slideshow of some of the great stuff at the booths soon.

1. You can register to vote at the National Rifle Assocation (NRA) booth. They also have a clay pigeon shooting video game.
2. Student attendence seems to be high. We're still waiting on grabbing an official CPAC organizer to tell us exactly how many, but the line for student registration is LONG. One student we talked to with Young Americans for Liberty, who says it's his fourth time attending CPAC, says there are definitely more students here this year than when he started attending.
3. Campus Progress managed to score a Great American Conservative Women 2011 calendar, featuring Ann Coutler, Michelle Bachmann, and Star Parker, a "former single welfare mother who turned her life around" and is now a "champion for personal responsibility."
4. Students for Life has a press kit that claims they have discovered "that taxpayer funds could be partially covering student abortions through federal education grants" because grants can go toward coverage of a student health plan on campus.
5. Accuracy in Media is handing out glossy special reports on "The Truth about George Soros" which says he's "a huge player in the worldwide trafficking of information."

Kay Steiger is the editor of CampusProgress.org. Katie is the Communications and Outreach Manager for Campus Progress.

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