The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

CPAC: Today Is Vice President Day

Posted on | February 20, 2025 | Comments Off on CPAC: Today Is Vice President Day

‘Badges? We don’t need no stinkin’ badges!’

NATIONAL HARBOR, Maryland
Still don’t have my media credentials. The appointed time to pick those up was 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesday, so I showed up at the designated location about 4 o’clock and WHOA! A gigantic long line that wasn’t moving at all. So I figured there must be some kind of glitch in the system, and headed out to the lobby bar to mix and mingle, which is really the whole point of CPAC, right? Sure, the Vice President of the United States is giving a speech here at 10 a.m. Thursday, but you can see that on TV. What you can’t see on TV — and what most media coverage of CPAC ignores — is the continuous schmoozing that takes place all over this sprawling complex of hotels, restaurants and bars.

Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center

The Gaylord itself is massive, and the main ballroom — where people crowd in to hear the VIP speeches — is just one fraction of what goes on at CPAC. In the corridor outside the main ballroom is Radio Row and Media Row, with various talk show personalities, podcasters, etc., doing their thing live throughout the week. Each of these personalities has their own fandom, and CPAC attendees will crowd around to get a chance to see their favorites. And the various VIP speakers will go to Radio Row for interviews, so sometimes you’ll see a huge crowd form to watch some superstar in the MAGA galaxy do an interview. There’s also various panel discussions during the conference, which take place in meeting rooms scattered around the two upper floors of the convention center. Two floors below the main ballroom, there’s an exhibition hall where various policy institutes and activist organizations have their booths set up. Go down there and get a free canvas tote bag, and just fill it up with flyers, pamphlets, logo-embossed goodies, etc. My kids used to love it when I’d come home after CPAC and bring them a big bag of freebies.

Excuse the poor quality of the photo.

You may not recognize that guy on the right, but I did. Returning from dinner — fish and chips at the nearby Irish pub — I walked into the lobby and couldn’t believe my eyes. “Donut?” He turned when I called out to him, and sure enough it was “Donut Operator,” a/k/a Cody Garrett, an ex-cop whose YouTube has more than 5 million subscribers, which is about 10 times the size of the average hourly audience for CNN.

Donut Operator’s videos are mostly breakdowns of police body camera footage of officer-involved shootings, and I’m a stone junkie for that kind of stuff — car chases, shootings, suspects getting tased and pepper-sprayed, etc. Like, what part of “drop the knife” do I have to explain to these perps? Anyway, Donut is a bona fide celebrity in the 21st-century New Media universe, and it was kind of surprising to me that I was apparently the only one in the hotel lobby to recognize him, but maybe most CPAC attendees aren’t as into live police action as I am.

Erik Svane and me.

Speaking of action, the real action at CPAC is always in the lobby bar, a/k/a The Belvedere, which is where I bumped into my old friend Erik Svane who has been blogging at No Pasaran for more than 20 years. We first met at CPAC in either 2006 or 2007, during the G.W. Bush presidency, when the Global War on Terror was still the big thing for conservatives, and doesn’t that seem like a million years ago?

Erik and I talked about the old times, when “blogging” was still the New Thing, before social media, TikTok, YouTube and other such developments had revolutionized the information landscape. It was at CPAC 2007 (then held at the Omni Shoreham hotel in D.C.) that I first met Andrew Breitbart, and it’s stunning to think that it’s been nearly 13 years since Andrew died suddenly of a heart attack.

Well, I’m still alive, and still don’t have my media credential. Last night they were talking about opening up media registration at 5:30 this morning, so I woke up extra early and now must go over there and check in to see if I can get my badge. But failing all else, I’ll be in the Belvedere lounge. If you’re here at CPAC, just look for the fedora.



 

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Category: CPAC

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