Tomorrow the World!

David Weigel | June 19, 2007

I just stepped in and out of the 2007 Take Back America conference, the would-be liberal answer to the Conservative Political Action Conference, cruelly-as-ever located at the Washington Hilton where John Hinckley shot Ronald Reagan. (Also located a few blocks away from reason's DC headquarters.) You'd expect the mood to be notably more bouyant than 2006's go-round, just as the 2007 CPAC was gloomier than the previous year. Not the case. Last year's TBA was optimistic, fightin'-mad, we're-all-in-this-together, with the only signs of discordance coming when Hillary Clinton spoke and refused to "set a date certain" to leave Iraq. Even then, the people who booed had arrived for the express purpose of booing--Code Pinkers, Raging Grannies, Unitarians for Palestine, etc.

This year there's the expected mass of mostly-white suburbanites, black ACORN workers, and bushy-tailed young folk (fewer college students than CPAC, thanks to summer vacations). The exhibit hall, full but under-trafficked last year, has been opened up with a coffee hutch and lots of sofas. But there's more ire than before because the Democrats are 1)angry that their Democratic Congress isn't doing more and 2)worried about winning the next election. Thus the booing of Ralph Nader, the slayer of St. Al Gore, and thus the shunting of unwelcome topics, like presidential impeachment, into rooms separated from the loud main hall by flimsy curtains.

I'd wondered for a long time why impeachment advocates think the issue should matter in 2008, given that, you know, George Bush will leave office after the election. Here's David Swanson of ImpeachPAC explaining why he's finding pro-impeachment candidates to challenge Democrats in their primaries.

Comments

|6.19.07 @ 11:28AM|#

Heh heh, you said "Palestine"....

Does anyone actually care about them anymore? I mean, occupation was one thing, but now they're just doing it to themselves....

|6.19.07 @ 11:30AM|#

I'm at the Take Back America conference, which has a far more upbeat tone than it has in recent years.
Ezra doesn't agree, Dave. I suggest you two duke it out on bloggingheads.tv.

theOneState|6.19.07 @ 11:35AM|#

Also located a few blocks away from reason's DC headquarters...

...where Hinckley had enjoyed a late lunch with Reason summer intern Nick Gillespie....

Eric Dondero|6.19.07 @ 11:46AM|#

I'd be gloomy too if I was heading into an election where I'd have to face the likes of "America's Mayor" Rudy Giuliani or Law & Order Actor Fred Thompson, both of whom lean libertarian.

The Republican Party has smartened up big time. The whacking in 2006, seems to have moved the GOP towards the libertarian side, away from the social conservatives.

The Democrats may very well get whacked in 2008 because of this shift.

highnumber|6.19.07 @ 11:47AM|#

They would not call themselves "Unitarians for Palestine." We're now Unitarian Universalists. The two faiths merged in 1961. UUs, we call ourselves.
Just so ya know.

|6.19.07 @ 11:57AM|#

Eric Dondero,
Put the cap back on the glue and open a window.

|6.19.07 @ 11:58AM|#

Any truth to the rumor that Dondero has applied for the vacancy at LP HQ?

|6.19.07 @ 12:00PM|#

"The Republican Party has smartened up big time. The whacking in 2006, seems to have moved the GOP towards the libertarian side, away from the social conservatives."

But Eric, won't their continued support of a failed war hurt them? I hope you're right, because I don't want to see Hillary back in the White House. Dick Morris is saying that Hillary is going to be hard to beat.

D.A. Ridgely|6.19.07 @ 12:33PM|#

The Republican Party has smartened up big time. The whacking in 2006, seems to have moved the GOP towards the libertarian side, away from the social conservatives.

Isn't it pretty to think so?

|6.19.07 @ 12:42PM|#

"I'd be gloomy too if I was heading into an election where I'd have to face the likes of "America's Mayor" Rudy Giuliani or Law & Order Actor Fred Thompson, both of whom lean libertarian.

Hahaha, Im sorry Eric, but if they are "libertarian" then Lyndon LaRouche is "libertarian".

Please don't ruin the word "libertarian" the way crypto-socialists have ruined the word "liberal".

|6.19.07 @ 1:14PM|#

Hey Dondero, don't you have a vanity Wikipedia page to edit?

|6.19.07 @ 1:45PM|#

"I just stepped in and out of the 2007 Take Back America conference"

How sad for you.

|6.19.07 @ 3:19PM|#

"Eric Dondero,
Put the cap back on the glue and open a window."

I say Warren wins the thread.

|6.19.07 @ 4:33PM|#

Why not find anti-war and anti-torture candidates? Or do these people more care about punishing the other Team than the much more important work of stopping the damage they wreaked?