The KRA Blog

As you’ve noticed, I wasn’t able to post quickly enough to fully report on the AFP Defending the Dream Summit this past weekend.

While the summit organizers got us easy internet access, the days were just jam packed with good information and speakers…I just couldn’t pull myself away to write anything for fear of missing something!

So let me recount a great two days, now that I can sit and think in retrospect.

Friday began with a rally on Capital Hill. There were well over 1,000 people in attendance and the event was covered by Fox News, Politico, and The Washington Times.

On the bus to the rally, I was fortunate enough to hear from our bus driver about Washington and a little bit of it’s history and sites to see. He also told us about himself. Our bus driver worked for the postal service basically all of his life. He worked on Capital Hill for 10 years and was the one who delivered the anthrax letter to Daschle. After being quarantined for 4 days, he returned to work. A pretty interesting story.

Here’s some short videos I took from the rally.

I’ll also include all of my photos at the end of the post.

I heard some great statistics from the rally, including the billion dollar deficits in many states. But the one that stood out to me was the $14 billion surplus in Texas. While impressive, many of us agreed that Texas is clearly in need of a tax cut if they have a $14 billion surplus.

After the rally, instead of heading back to the hotel, I walked down the mall to the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial and then over to the White House. I returned to the hotel to get ready for the Tribute to Ronald Reagan Dinner.

The evening had some of the best speakers a person could ask for and great video clips of President Reagan. I’m quite aggravated, but my camera just would take good pictures during the dinner because of the lighting. I’ll post what I do have though.

Speakers Friday night included:
- George Will, journalist and commentator
- David Koch, AFP Founding Chairman
- Dinesh D’Souza, author and Reagan staffer
- U.S. Senator Jim Inhofe, Oklahoma
- Edwin Meese, former US Attorney General under President Reagan
- James Miller, former Reagan Budget Director

I was most impressed with Senator Inhofe and his stance against Global Warming Alarmism. I had not realize what a lonely stance it had been for him just a few short years ago. Sen. Inhofe continues to lead the fight against Global Warming Alarmism and what it might do to the American economy.

Just after the dinner, I ran up to my room, grabbed my laptop and returned to ‘Bloggers Row’ to put up a post about the night. Unfortunately, I was on there about 10 minutes when the room was closed for the night.

The next morning, General Session was in order. We heard from many more great speakers, the most notable being Steve Moore of the Wall Street Journal and John Stossel of ABC’s 20/20.

Moore recounted a great story of his time in the Reagan White House. He was a lowly budget guy at the time and the only time that he was in the same room as Reagan was after the stock market crash of ‘87. He was in the room but only sort of. He had been relegated to the chairs lining the walls of the room, a place to be seen and not heard. The table was crowded with Washington big whigs including our own Sen. Bob Dole. He recounted how person after person told President Reagan that the federal government must act to help the markets, that a tax increase was in order to shore up the markets. Moore remembered screaming in his head for the President to not go along with the plan hashed out by Dole with the Democrats. At the end of what seemed like hours of arm twisting of the President, Reagan asked Dole, “Well Bob, is this really the best you can get out of the Democrats?” After Dole answered yes, there was a long moment of silence and finally Reagan said, “Well, I guess you’ll have to tell them thanks but no thanks.” Moore said he inadvertently squealed “Yes!” to which he got the death look from everyone but the President.

Can you imagine what would have happened with the bailout if we had leaders like Ronald Reagan in the White House?

We also heard from Steve Lonegan, AFP State Director of New Jersey. (Yea, they have a New Jersey chapter, and a Maryland chapter, and a California chapter. These people just don’t know where they aren’t welcome.)

Alan Cobb, the Kansas AFP Director, later told a great story about Steve getting arrested for prostesting increase tolls on New Jersey toll roads to pay for miscellaneous items. (Does this sound familiar? [Sebelius!!!])

The proposal came from Gov. John Corzine who would later say that Lonegan was arrested for disturbing the peace and being belligerent. Later, the video below surfaced and Corzine had to retract his statement. If you can’t tell from the video, Lonegan is visually impaired and has to be assisted with walking. That’s the kind of guy that was ‘disturbing the peace.’ And oh, by the way, the tolls were NOT increased.

After lunch, we had two breakout sessions. The first was conducted by Alan Cobb, Kansas AFP Director. One of the panelists was Bob Weeks of Wichita Liberty who spoke about using blogs and the internet to get your message out to voters.

The Q&A was quite interesting because there was an African-American pastor from Wisconsin there who was very engaged in how to get a message out. He recounted his triumph in the inner city or creating jobs and helping people.

Another panelist was New Jersey Assemblywoman Alison McHose. She recounted what she had done to win election in a heavily Democratic state.

An audience member asked the panelists if they thought some actions might go too far. McHose recounted a story of Corzine, the Governor who tried to arrest a blind guy to ‘disturbing the peace,’ and the Assembly Speaker unilaterally deciding to invest millions of dollars in state workers pension funds in Goldman Sachs. Of course, the investment took a $60 million hit to which the Governor responded the state would just have to, “make it up in next years general fund.”

The Assemblywoman was asked by a reporter if she thought the Governor and Speaker were hypocrites for investing taxpayer money into a company they both had an interest in. She answered yes and gave it as an example of pushing the envelope. A whole discussion ensued whether or not that ‘crossed the line.’ A great learning experience.

The second session was over new versus old media and the changes we’ve seen over the past 10 years. I heard a lot of good information and at least one surprising statistic; 78 million people now say they get their main source of information from other than traditional sources compared to 86 million who still rely on traditional sources like the big three nightly newscasts or print newspapers. It’s rather astonishing to me the near destruction of traditional news as we’ve known it.

I would venture to say however, that those statistics probably are more reflective of the coasts than here in Kansas. Traditional media clearly is still able to influence Kansans to a degree that is rather astonishing. There was a slightly lively debate among the panelists whether or not traditional media was still worth dealing with. A blogger agreed that they needed to be treated with respect and could be useful, but disagreed with their sphere of influence. Another regarded them as a wounded bear, one that we should be careful with. Everyone, including myself, agreed that the media has clearly gotten worse in the past few years and this was the most partisan coverage ever seen.

While I agreed that new media has shed new light on old media shortcomings, I disagree, at least as far as Kansas is concerned, that its had that large of an impact.

Now some pictures. If you haven’t thought of attending, consider it for next year or consider attending a summit here in Kansas!

My bus was first to arrive for the rally. Pre-rally pictures and surrounding area

Pictures from during the rally

Pictures from my walk on the Mall. The new World War II Memorial

The Lincoln Memorial

The White House (from the back)

Pictures from the Tribute to Ronald Reagan Dinner (I’m very sorry for the poor quality, the lighting was just awful and my camera just refused to take a non-blurry picture.)

I have the pleasure of attending the Defending the American Dream Summit in Washington D.C. this weekend and I hope to share many of my experiences. Yesterday was a long and tiring day, but I hope after today’s activities are wrapped up that I can share even more about grassroots fiscal conservatives converging on Washington.

The Defending the American Dream Summit was organized by Americans for Prosperity. We have a strong Kansas delegation here with about 40 attendees. The first chapter of AFP was founded in Kansas. AFP now has 23 different state chapters across the country.

Yesterday started off with registration and a bus trip to the front lawn of the capital for a free market demonstration. It was great to see so many free market folks getting together. Here are just a few pictures from the rally. (I apologize for the glare…it was very sunny in D.C.!)(Click on a photo for a larger version)

We were fortunate to be covered by the national media. Here’s a clip from Fox News.

After the rally, I had the opportunity to cruise D.C. for a few hours before the Tribute to Ronald Reagan Dinner. I was able to briefly visit the Lincoln Memorial, the White House, and the new World War II Memorial. Here are a couple of pictures from the WWII Memorial.

After our breakout sessions this afternoon, I hope to be able to put up more photos and accounts of what’s been happening the past two days.

But, I have run into some interesting Kansas connections here in DC. Yesterday afternoon, I got to talk to several North Carolina delegates and got the ‘inside story,’ so to speak, about Elizabeth Dole’s reelection campaign. I had heard from a couple of different sources that her reelection was in trouble, but every North Carolinian I have spoken with says that both campaigns have just come out slinging negative ads and that in the end they think Dole will win. Nobody even wanted to describe her campaign as being in “trouble.”

I also had the pleasure of meeting with Bob Weeks from Wichita Liberty. He’s been much better at posting about our speakers than I have been. (I hope to remedy that later today!)

We also got to hear from David Koch, founder of AFP. Koch is of the Wichita Koch’s, as in Koch Industries.

Last evening’s Tribute to Reagan dinner was just phenomenal. Unfortunately, most of my photos turned out blurry, but I’ll try and upload them and publish them later today anyway.

And this morning we heard from many great speakers, including John Stossel of ABC’s 20/20 and a report from each state chapter.

This afternoon there will be two sets of breakout sessions. The first I plan to attend will be host by the Kansas Director of AFP, Alan Cobb. The second is over our energy crisis.

The Our Country Deserves Better PAC has launched a 48 hour ‘telethon’ to raise $500,000 worth of TV ads in Michigan exposing the real Barack Obama. The PAC has put together some great TV ads that highlight the problems we would face if Obama is elected. Here are just a few.

I’ve come across quite a few interesting articles the past few days.

First I got to read about Gov. Sebelius’ very own pick for State Senate Dist. 5, Kelly Kultala. It seems she been rather busy the past few months, calling up local businesses and threatening them unless they take down their Fitzgerald for Senate signs. You can read the full press release from the Fitzgerald campaign here. What’s interesting about this was the article from PrimeBuzz (The KC Star) where she says she was trying to, “ask Jones (the business owner) whether he was aware that Fitzgerald held what she called extreme right-wing views, such as supporting severe restrictions on abortion.”

The problem with this statement? Well, first of all, the transcript of the message left says nothing about abortion, extreme right views or any of the things Kultala listed as wanting to discuss. Second, why didn’t the Star ask her if she had ever been a customer of the business as she claims? And why wasn’t it asked if she still planned to boycott the business because of their Fitzgerald sign?

First Morrison and now Kultala. Seems like it’s two for two from the governor on how to pick ‘em.

I also came across another hand picked Sebelius candidate, Laura Kelly in Senate Dist. 18. She apparently fell and broke a hip (or a leg, there’s conflicting stories out there, which, by the way, makes me wonder about the other information included in the news. If you can’t get a hip or leg right, how can you get anything else right?)

Anyway, because her and Sebelius are such good friends, Sebelius decided to hold a rally for her. And then, believe it or not, our Governor actually went and knocked on a door to ask for their vote for Kelly! Isn’t it amazing? I mean, one whole door! WOW! I don’t know what I’m impressed by, that Sebelius campaigned for somebody besides Obama or that she campaigned in Kansas. Fortunately for Kelly, she’ll get a much needed rest after November 4th when Republican Jim Zeller beats her.

This of course brings me to my final fun site for the day. Even wonder where our hard working governor has been in the past month? You know, when she’s been campaigning “mostly on the weekends?” Well, now you can track her, Google Maps style!

Take a look! It’s just plain fun to look at! Unless you’re a Kansas taxpayer, that is!

Our very own Gov. Sebelius is making headlines by suggesting Republicans are racists.

While campaigning in Iowa today (after telling the Kansas press that she only campaigns on the weekends), she had this to say:

Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius accused Republicans on Tuesday of injecting race into the presidential campaign, arguing that they are using “code language” to convince Midwesterners that Democrat Barack Obama is different from them.

“Have any of you noticed that Barack Obama is part African-American?” Sebelius asked with sarcasm. “(Republicans) are not going to go lightly into the darkness.”

Here’s some code words that I’d love Sebelius to explain. “Independent, trustworthy” All words she used during her reelection campaign, all apparently false.

Look, the only ‘code language’ being used here is by the Obama campaign that insists on using the race card to gain votes. What has the Republican Party done that Sebelius can point to and substantiate her accusations? She can’t say, because her claims aren’t real. When will common sense Kansans stop this madness?

On a side note, the original AP article had the quote displayed above but was later republished to read like this:

Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius said Tuesday that a belief among some voters that Democrat Barack Obama is different from them is hindering his campaign for president.

Asked at a brown-bag lunch at the local library why the campaign is neck-and-neck, Sebelius said “code language” raising doubts about Obama is invalid because his life experience “has a lot more to do with me and my family.”

“I think that the notion that, ‘By the way, have any of you noticed that Barack Obama is part African American?’ I think that is for a number of people difficult,” Sebelius said. “I think we need to talk about the fact that that is a real issue.”

Sebelius finished with this:

To win, Democrats must refocus “voters on the economic challenges of the country and the fact that these candidates have very different plans to move us forward. I’m convinced Barack Obama will do very well in Minnesota.”

Now, isn’t that quite the contradiction? Obama needs to focus on economic issues while he sends out his campaign minions on the Kansas taxpayers dollar to drum up false racial allegations.

It’s official, Sebelius knows no shame.