CPAC: HRC goes to DC
The Harvard Republican Club has headed down to DC this weekend to hang out with, according to advertisements on their email list, "Cheney, Coulter, and all the bigwigs in the conservative movement." CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, is one of the center pieces of this movement, and something liberals should look at very seriously both in order to understand our political opponents and ourselves. The conservative movement is incredibly good at teaching (or indoctrinating, depending on how cynical you'd like to be) and training its foot soldiers, and CPAC is one of the primary ways it does that. I'm not sure the liberal/left movement wants to go exactly that route, but it's something to think about.I don't have any commentary beyond that (please do share yours), but definitely check out the coverage from CampusProgress, whose writers are there and blogging. I'd love to hear HRC's take on all of this...
UPDATE: The NYTs has an interesting article.
UPDATE 2: Remember how I noted that the HRC advertised CPAC with enthusiasm for Ann Coulter? Check out what their lovely and hateful hero had to say (here and here). I'll give you a hint, it had to do with "ragheads."
posted by andrew golis @ 6:43 PM
6 Comments:
Ann Coulter is basically a comedian. Conservatives like her mostly for saying really extreme things that are funny to hear, not because they tend to agree with what she says. I mean, if you read the things she says, it's obvious that the vast majority of conservatives don't think that way. As one who attended CPAC a few years ago, I recall Coulter getting as many boos as applause, and getting attacked for unpatriotically siding with the Confederates (retroactively) in the Civil War. Golis, these sources you're consulting aren't exactly unbiased so their descriptions of applause lines can't really be trusted. You know that.
Now, whether blurring the line between comedy and commentary is appropriate or not is another issue. But she wouldn't be the only one who does it.
Ann Coulter is basically a comedian. However, do you think jokes in which Muslims are called "ragheads" is funny?
Golis have you ever been to a comedy show? Like, Comedy Connection or anything like that?
Yes, in fact, I have. And I don't laugh at jokes that use racial slurs that are actually intended to hurt the target.
I am an HRC member who went to CPAC and was at the Coulter speech, and it was easily the worst speech of the convention, in my view. Not only did she come off as badly prepared, disjointed, and unfunny, but it was highly offensive. Like the previous commenter said, it was basically a standup comedy routine, but I really didn't find much of it to be funny. I talked to the other HRC members on the trip, and almost all agreed in full with my assessment.
So while many conference attendees obviously loved the speech, HRC members mostly didn't. That is indicative partially of differences in education and partially of the near absence of far-right wingers at Harvard. By contrast, the far-left is alive and well at Harvard, though certainly diminished from its heyday 20-30 years ago.
Thanks great blog postt
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