I’ve met him before in Nashville, always quite impressive. Steve is the founder of Club for Growth, now with The Wall Street Journal, and very much anti-bailout.

Herman Cain, talk show host out of Atlanta, is speaking now. He’s great in person - I’ve only seen him previously on C-SPAN.

“To the liberal Kool-Aid drinkers - there is no Department of Happy in Washington, DC!”

“The Founders believed that prosperity means the pursuit of happines - not a guarantee.”

You sure don’t hear many conservatives quoting some Ralph Waldo Emerson!

Americans for Prosperity

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Here comes Fred Barnes, Introduced by the chairman of the Sam Adams Alliance.

1. The Election is Not Over “Sarah Palin knows this, but I wish somebody would tell John McCain.”  He certainly needs to get tough (this is a consensus across the board, with everyone I have talked attending and speaking at the summit this weekend).

2. We Hope for the Best, But Need to Prepare for the Worst - We could face greater Democrat majorities in Congress and Obama in the White House: “Obamanomics equals, higher taxes, more governement spending, a more complicated tax code, a slowdown in economic integration, and the rise of labor unions.”

An Obama Presidency Brings With It Three Threats to Economic Growth and Rising Standards of Living

1. Free Trade - ensures that wealth and poverty reduction in the open global economy will continue. Obama has opposed every free trade agreement he has had the opportunity to support.

2. Card Check - halts secret ballot elections in unionization. Card check is a strategy that employs intimidation and coercion, and is a likely change in labor law with an Obama presidency and a Democrat congress. More unions equals higher unemployment and lower economic growth.

3. Repeal of 14(b) of the Taft-Hartley Act - allows states to be right to work states. You know, like those states that are prone to actually grow economically.

Americans for Prosperity

The second day of the Defending the American Dream Summit is underway. The list of speakers that will be available in the main is impressive, as well as those that will be available in the breakout sessions. Some delegations will have their own briefings - Virginia, Maryland, Oklahoma, Texas, New Jersey and North Carolina.

John Stossel is currently being introduced by the chairwoman of the New Jersey chapter of Americans for Prosperity.

UPDATE More coverage over the Virginian Federalist.

Well, they have a Radio Row next door. Their row is a bit quieter, which is somewhat peculiar, considering the nature of the two media. I have now assumed one of the alotted slots reserved for bloggers on the main floor.

The summit is well-attended, but since this appears to be break-out lunch time, there isn’t all that much presently going on. The attendees are supposed to go to Capitol Hill and hold a rally this afternoon. It probably won’t make C-SPAN as it appears the vast majority of the attendees are both well groomed and recently bathed. Still, you never know. A conservative riot might break out at any moment.

Hosting primarily by the Sam Adams Society, the seminar focused on using social media (primarily Facebook and Twitter), something the Right is using more effectively, at the moment, than the Left. I consider myself on top of most things, but I certainly have been underusing Twitter. As in, I created an account and let it die. Most of what I do is by Facebook, which I could certainly use more and intend to do so.

It was quite instructive on many other fronts as well, though there were too many deep, dark conservative secrets to completely share openly. We certainly don’t want to hand the keys of the Illuminati over to our liberal New Media brethren.

On a sidenote, text messages from Barack Obama have slowed to a trickle as of late. If he has some overages, I’m sure these kinds of donations can help him out.

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It’s nice to be out of Maryland and back in the Commonwealth of Virginia. I can see the apartment I lived in in Crystal Towers during my first year of law school from my hotel room window. If you lean to the right a little, you can see the south face of the Pentagon. I certainly cannot complain about the chosen venue - the Gateway Marriott is literally right on top of the Crystal City Metro stop.

The festivities start now. Three workshops begin at 9am, all focused on new media training, sponsored by the Leadership Institute, the Lucy Burns Institute, and the Sam Adams Alliance.

As I recall, our own local Ben Cunningham was a Sammy Award Winner.

Anyhow, the Leadership Institute is a grass roots training organization located here in Arlington, Virginia, which focuses on winning elections - you know, in legal ways, unlike some liberal corrupt GOTV organizations we have come to know and love.

The Lucy Burns Institute is a newer organization, based out of Wisconsin, whose efforts focus primarily on government transparency.

I’ll go down and check it out in a few minutues. These seminars seem to run until 2pm, so I’ll likely be in and out of them until the Oregon Luncheon at 11:30 am, which is being hosted by Lars Larson.

I have the honor of representing the (conservative) Tennessee blogosphere at the Defending the American Dream summit on October 10 and 11 in Arlington, Virginia.  The summit has been organized by Americans for Prosperity, which is notably not a Barack Obama campaign contributor, and is the second summit of its kind. It will contain two days of grassroots workshops and addresses by some of the most influential leaders in the conservative movement, new media and old. The assembly of thinking talent at the podium and in the audience ought to be impressive. To say the least, I am looking forward to it.

So, starting Friday morning, expect some blog reporting from the event and some uploaded pictures.  Tomorrow I will be in court in the morning, and traveling in the afternoon. If any of you are in the Washington, DC area through Saturday night and would like to get together, let me know.