Bring on the conservatives!
LOLGOP and I are liveblogging and live tweeting the Americans for Prosperity forum in Troy, Michigan today. Be sure to check out his Twitter feed as well as checking back here throughout the day.
On tap today: GOP front runners Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum, former candidate Herman Cain, Michelle Malkin, Andrew Breitbart, conservative radio show host Frank Beckmann and AFP Michigan Director Scott Hagerstrom. Invitees Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, and President Barack Obama declined.
1,200 tickets were sold to the event and it is sold out. You’ll be able to watch Rick Santorum’s speech live on C-Span.
Rick Santorum has a big splash out front:
Some guy named Pete Hoeksti has a table in the foyer.
The “non-partisan” Mackinac Center for Public Policy is here, too.
Mitt Romney and “Don’t Believe the Liberal Media” have tables.
First up: Herman Cain.
“We outnumber the stupid people!”
“If your favorite candidate doesn’t win, get over it. MY favorite candidate didn’t win.”
“Algae isn’t going to solve our energy problems.”
“How many times does President Obama have to throw people of faith under the bus? Get off the pews!”
MORE AFTER THE JUMP
“They may have got the messenger out of the race but the message is still there!”
“They thought when they got me out of the race, I was just going to go away and be quiet. Hah! I’m baa-aack!!!”
“I will not die doin’ nuthin’ for this country.” [Derp]
Next up is the president of AFP, Tim Phillips.
“The reason conservatives lost so much in the 90s was because of government employee unions.”
“President Obama knows we’re here. He sent an email out about us yesterday…he attacks us regularly.”
“At AFP, we’re building a grassroots effort.” (Fully funded by corporate interests.)
“I have twin 18 year olds so I know crisis management…I train them with Ronald Reagan YouTube videos.”
“We’re not part of any political party.” Bwahahahahaha!!!
Yikes! There’re gonna need more Koolaid.
Multiple mentions of Ronald Reagan already this morning. Not one mention of George W. Bush.
Now, the star of the show: RICK SANTORUM!
“We’ve tried to help other countries but they aren’t kickass enough to be as cool as us.”
“We didn’t need money when I was a kid. We ate freedom and drank patriotism.”
“We don’t need no stinkin’ rights to healthcare. I would not be in this race if it weren’t for Obamacare.” [This is followed by a litany of things that are evil about the Affordable Care Act, none of which are true.)
“I was against healthcare for all before it was cool to be that much of a dick.”
“I’m conservative down deep.” (A very scary, unmentionable place.)
Totally dogs Newt by sneering “Climate Science”, says the only person HE sits next to on the couch is his totally heterosexual wife. “I don’t buy ‘climate science’.” Yay for no science!!!
I was against all bailouts, even for the coal industry where I’m from.” (Which probably explains why he lost his Senate seat to that one guy nobody has ever heard of.)
Slams Romney for using “the language of the Occupy movement.”
“I know poor people who are unemployed.”
“President Obama said everybody should go to college. What a snob. There are good hard-working Americans who don’t need to be brainwashed by liberal college professors. I know why he wants you to go to college: so he can remake you in HIS image.”
Yay for no college education!!! (LOTS of applause.)
Rick Santorum is the Conservative Hipster. He was conservative before the cool kids were conservative.
“Governor Romney gives away the fight against Obamacare.”
“This election must be about clear choices. Every time we’ve run a moderate, we’ve lost. Every time we picked a conservative, we won.”
“We win when we don’t compromise. If you’re a moderate, obviously issues don’t matter to you.”
“You have an opportunity to shake things up in Michigan.”
That was a much better speech than I would have thought it would be, I must say. He totally hammered Romney for being a fake conservative. The only mention of any other candidate was to slam Newt for doing the climate change commercial with Nancy Pelosi.
Now showing a video slamming Governor Rick Snyder for supporting the new bridge to Canada.
Next up: Dr. Gary Wolfrum to talk about “issues”: the “government bridge” and auto insurance reform. Shorter version of his speech: no stinking government bridge to Canada and no unlimited auto insurance claims.
Make sure you are following LOLGOP’s livetweeting. He’s got the fun job : )
Next we have Michelle Malkin who has already quoted Reagan:
Her talk is focused on Pres. Obama once saying “at some point haven’t you made enough money?” Malkin is a clear Ayn Randian. There is no such thing as too much greed in her world.
First mention of George W. Apparently he set the stage for Obama’s socialist administration. SLAM!
She’s talking about the “Boodle”, the money you get from government corruption. She is against limiting government corruption. She says the key is to just limit government. All government regulation is to benefit his wealthy contributors who are exempted from the regulations.
I’ve never heard the name “Valerie Jarret” sneered that way! She is, according to Malkin, the “consigliere” of the Obamas.
She’s managed to get the crowd to chant “So-lyn-dra! So-lyn-dra!” Impressive. Apparently a couple of failed green companies that walk away with tax payer money outweigh the many hundreds of examples of corporate welfare recipients she loves (Big Oil, Big War Machine, etc.)
Malkin forced the White House to release its visitor logs. Shocker: owners of green companies (“Green Energy Robber Barons”) met with the president and members of his administration. Not okay! (Not unless you’re part of Dick Cheney’s energy policy-setting consortium, of course.)
Van Jones gets a shout out! And boos and hisses.
Of course, if she had held the Bush administration to the same sort of standards that she holds the Obama administration to, she could have been a front pager at Daily Kos.
Big shout out to union-bashing and Right-to-Work in Michigan. Conservatives, as it turns out, are a massively put-upon minority that faces daily attacks and oppression. Malkin says she wears as a badge of pride the fact that she was called “the second whitest person” on her college campus. By the way, we have a “Soviet-style public education system.” Must be all that science that Rick Santorum was deriding.
One of the biggest threats to America ate those that see themselves as citizens of the world before seeing themselves as citizens of Anerica.
Andrew Breitbart up next.
He’s basically saying nothing except stroking the tea party. He just admitted he’s not watched any of the debates but does appear on television as an expert to comment on them.
Media Matters = “Garbage Outfit”.
Occupiers = rapists
“The media is asking questions framed by the Occupy movement”. TRUTH!
Lunch time. Malkin and Breitbart, unsurprisingly, are doing book signings. Think I should ask if they have a vegetarian lunch?
Michelle and Andrew cash in:
Don’t tell Breitbart but Malkin’s line is three times longer than his.
Just saw the first non-white, non-Michelle Malkin person:
Next up: Super-conservative Michigan radio personality Frank Beckmann.
“Government can’t make you happy.”
“When I was told I had to choose a diversity class by my employer, I asked ‘Which one do you want me to teach?'”
Beckmann is saying that government investment in new energy technology in America is all about crony capitalism and nothing more. And that liberals never take the blame when things go wrong.
“Government is like playing golf with your lousy-golfing wife.”
And now, the co-star of the show: Mitt Romney! Also, his wife Ann whose father invented the vacuum toilet. She said they made the decision to run for president a year ago. Someone needs to tell Mitt’s opponents who say he’s been running for a decade.
Romney taking about his Detroit roots. Only two mentions of Vernors (so far.)
“In my day, we believed our kids should be better off than us. President Obama wants your children to live on food stamps and your parents to live on catfood.”
“President Obama has raised the national debt. By the way, I support the Bush tax cuts.”
Where Santorum focused mainly on Mitt, Romney is focusing mainly on Obama and balancing the budget.
“I balanced the budgets of the Olympics and Massachusetts (with the help of the government.)”
“I support right to work laws. I’ll also kill public art funding. Big Bird and Ernie and Bert should hawk Frosted Flakes.”
“I’ll cut all the programs Americans like and send the rest to the states, most of which are nearly bankrupt.”
“I’ll cut the federal workforce, just like President Obama.”
Now he’s talking about his tax plan that has been found to massively raise the national deficit. Also, how evil investment in green energy is. Common theme today, it seems (along with how smelly and criminal and unpleasant and anti-American Occupy participants are.)
Making the pitch for his conservative bona fides. “I hated gays in Massachusetts. I was a pro-life governor except when I wasn’t.”
Just reminded the crowd that Santorum once I endorsed him as a good conservative. Slammed Santorum for supporting pro-choice candidate Arlen Specter in the past.
Here is his secret service bodyguard:
Finishes with a version of “We need to take America back to the time of the Founding Fathers.”
That’s it kids. We have a wrap!
UPDATE: After the event, the guy on the left below asked Andrew Breitbart to justify his claim that Occupy has a “rape culture” and to name one person affiliated with the Occupy movement that has been charged with rape. Breitbart argued loudly for several minutes saying it was someone with “a foreign-sounding name” and that he had police reports of one such instance which apparently allows him to claim the entire movement has a “rape culture”.
[NOTE: This image is NOT Photoshopped or altered in any way. It’s straight off my iPhone. The magic of the iPhone captured an instantaneous moment when the true nature of Andrew Breitbart broke briefly through the human facade.]
