October 05, 2007

Liveblogging the "Defending the American Dream" Summit

I'm in D.C. today at the "Defending the American Dream" grassroots summit hosted by Americans for Prosperity. Attendance is very healthy. I'm told the Grand Ballroom holds 1,600. The attendees have already packed that room and are filling up the overflow rooms.

We're getting ready to hear from a group of presidential contenders, including Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, Mike Huckabee, Sam Brownback and Ron Paul. Looks to be a good show. Updates soon.

UPDATE : As is often the case, "liveblogging" has been a little more theory than reality. but we did hear from a good portion of the presidential stable this morning, and they were all generally well-received.

Rudy Giuliani spoke early, and he did a good job focusing on his fiscal performance as mayor. His delivery was snappy and direct, and the crowd seemed to be generally impressed with the speech. The reception was warm and enthusiastic. This is a group focused on fiscal policy, so Rudy could be expected to receive a solid reception for his endorsement of tax cuts and supply-side economics, and that's what I saw. It was a good speech and Rudy was on his game with this one. First part here:

Ron Paul also received a warm response from the crowd. He delivered a fiery speech that served up some raw fiscal meat for the crowd, and they responded as you might expect. Dr. Paul did a good job making the case of the need for fiscal responsibility and restraint of the federal government, and this crowd is an easy sell on that score. The crowd liked Paul's call to abolish the IRS. On the other hand, Paul's demands to abolish the Federal Reserve and institute a "humble" foreign policy appeared to go a bit too far for most.

Mike Huckabee and Sam Brownback did OK on the stump, but the audience reaction was merely polite. The crowd didn't seem to be particularly blown away by either candidate. Of the two, Huckabee gave the better speech and was better received. Unforunately, I can recall very little of either speech. Perhaps you can draw your own conclusions from that fact.

Fred Thompson spoke near the end, and he was a crowd favorite. His speech hit all the right notes on the need for fiscal responsibility. Fred got a particularly enthusiastic response when he emphasized the point that not every issue is a federal issue. As political junkies know, federalism is a core tenet of Fred's political philosophy. It was pretty clear that it's also pretty popular with this assembly of grassroots activists. It was a good speech, and judging from the audience response, there were a lot of FredHeads--or at least potential FredHeads in attendance this morning. Here's the first part of Fred's speech: