AMERICAN AWAKENING

One of the main functions of To The Point is to counter Conservative Pessimism.

There is an old and unfortunate tradition in conservative thought that asserts everything is always going to hell in a handbasket – morals, culture, kids, society, crime, national security, government, you name it, it’s worse now than before and getting worser.

One classic example is Howard Phillips, one of the principal conservative activists in the country, in 1987 denouncing President Ronald Reagan as "a useful idiot for Soviet propaganda."

It would seem that if ever there was an appropriate time for Conservative Pessimism, it would be now, with a fascist president and party in power who are determined to destroy our country.

So it was an exceedingly pleasant, and perhaps ironic, surprise to discover an optimism among conservative leaders now that I have never seen before.

I have been attending meetings of the Council for National Party for 26 years, since 1984. (You read the speech I delivered at the meeting on Friday, March 5.) "CNP" is the elite conservative organization, composed of most every major conservative activist, politician, pundit, et al.  I have never seen these folks more energized and forward-looking as now.

The private CNP meetings are closed to the press and remarks of the speakers or members are not for attribution so everyone can speak openly and frankly.  Thus I can relay what was said on a broad-brush basis and nothing that was in confidence.  But that’s enough to open your eyes.

For it was Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) who talked about the eye-opening "American Awakening" taking place across our country.

"When you add up those who self-identify themselves as Republican and those who say they are in the Tea Party movement, you get about 60 percent of the electorate.  60%!  Thus it’s critically important that Republicans field candidates who embrace what I call this ‘American Awakening’ of conservative principles.

"What this means is for our party to admit that we had the opportunity of a lifetime with a Republican in the White House and a Republican majority in Congress and we just didn’t do what we said we were going to do.  Instead we let our old guard, because of our seniority system, spend us into oblivion.  This has to change – and it will.

"One way to do this is to swear off earmarks and institute spending caps.  The only way we’re going to get to ‘60% strong’ is to make a commitment that if we get the majority again we’re not going to continue spending and borrowing, we’re going to swear off earmarks and balance the budget. 

"Yet there are still holdouts among the old guard who continue to insist we have moderate candidates rather than solid conservative ones.  And that’s why I’m supporting Marco Rubio [and not Florida Governor Charlie Crist] to join me in the United States Senate. 

"Marco is the real deal.  He reminds people of America’s greatness, what a privilege it is in America to start with nothing but to be able to work and make something of yourself.  He embodies conservative principles.  I would rather have a Republican Senate with 30 Marco Rubios than 60 Arlen Specters."

With that line gaining a cheering ovation, Senator DeMint proceeded to introduce our next speaker – Marco Rubio.

There’s nothing flashy or flamboyant about him.  He’s shorter than you’d expect.  He started out talking to us quietly and conversationally. He talked straight from his heart about how his parents came to America escaping from Cuban communism with hardly a dime between them, about what America meant to him and what it should mean to us all.

By the time he was finished, tears were pouring down my wife’s face and that of many others.  The entire audience rose as one to its feet and would not stop applauding.  The latest (yesterday, 3/09) Public Policy poll shows Rubio ahead of Crist by 32 points – 60% to 28%.  Although the primary is not until August 24, word is that the GOP leadership is putting strong pressure on Crist to drop out and clear the field for Marco.

The message was that it is finally dawning on the GOP establishment that real deal conservatives like Marco Rubio, and not old guard squishes like Charlie Crist, are the future of the Republican Party – the New Republican Party.

And there to drive home that message was our next speaker – Sean Hannity.

He was electrifying as he talked about Americans rising to the challenge of Zero’s radical agenda, of the elections of this November representing "the greatest fork in the road America has faced," at least since 1980 with Carter vs. Reagan and perhaps in our lifetimes. 

He was excited that a "New Republican Party" that had rediscovered its conservative principles was going to achieve a resounding Conservative Victory – the title of his new book – beginning this November and followed by 2012.

As moving as it was, however, to hear famous folks like Jim DeMint, Marco Rubio, and Sean Hannity, the most profound experience for us at CNP was to listen to two people you never heard of, two unvarnished working-class unsophisticates direct from Heartland America.

On February 19, 2009, less than a month after Zero’s inauguration, Rick Santelli on CNBC delivered the "Rant heard ‘round the world" calling for a "tea party" protest against Zero’s policies.  A housewife in Woodstock, Georgia, and a small town lawyer in Nevada City, California, were watching and decided to act on Santelli’s words.

Jenny Beth Martin began Tweeting and Facebooking her friends to form a Tea Party movement, who all did the same.  So began Mark Meckler.  Soon they met over the Internet, decided to join forces, and became the Co-Founders of TeaPartyPatriots – which is now the Tea Party movement’s umbrella organization coordinating 850 Tea Party groups all over America.  (Scroll down on the link to find all 850 listed and linked by state)

I used the word "profound" above in describing how Jenny Beth and Mark affected us.  Many if not most CNP members have been active in the conservative movement for years, decades for some.  It’s mostly a top-down experience, leaders communicating with members of their organizations.  Suddenly, out of nowhere, there is this explosion of working class-middle class-flyover America-plain vanilla common citizens in the millions reclaiming our country’s founding principles.

Frankly, it’s happened so fast and has so stunned many professional conservative activists and intellectuals that what is going on hasn’t really registered yet.  That changed last Saturday night (3/06) at CNP.

It’s one thing to understand something intellectually, in your head.  It’s another to understand it emotionally, in your heart.  Really deeply.  Listening to Jenny Beth and Mark explain what motivated them, explain how much America meant to them and the millions of other ordinary regular TeaParty folks, left the professional conservatives of CNP humbled.  Many quietly wept.

At last, here was a true "grass roots" movement leading from the bottom up, not the top down.  A movement demanding we all live up to and practice the principles we have been espousing with words all these years.  It was a dream come true right before our eyes – but a demanding dream that we walk the American walk, not just talk it, for the TeaPartyers will accept nothing less.

Did you know that TeaPartyers are holding "neighborhood Constitution parties" where small groups of them get together in a neighbor’s home to read and discuss the Constitution?

Something very deep is happening in America.  It’s happened before.  There wasn’t just Sam Adams and friends holding a Boston Tea Party on December 16, 1773.  There were scores and scores of American patriot movements throughout the 13 colonies protesting British arrogance, despotism, and taxes.

And they received exactly the same sneering, arrogant, contemptuous insults from the British as the TeaPartyers of today are receiving from the media and Zero-Pelosi-Reid Democrats.

We know what happened to the British.  With any luck, we won’t need the guns of a revolution to rid ourselves of Democrat-Bi Government Colonial Rule.  We just need an election.

The Republican Old Guard that Senator DeMint warned us about wants to cling to what power it has.  It fears the TeaPartyers and is in denial about their very existence.  With any luck, this Old Guard will also be swept away with the Dem Majority in Congress this November. 

That’s the goal of genuinely conservative politicians like DeMint and Rubio.  It sure is the goal of the TeaPartyers.  The merging of these goals is the emerging American Awakening.  We just may be on the verge of abandoning Conservative Pessimism for Conservative Optimism.