Category: Fear and Smitty in Vegas

Layover in Long Beach

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LONG BEACH, Calif.
The airport terminal here is a low-tech, low-budget affair — a single-story building with two large, bare waiting areas and a sort of vestibule where the TSA has its security-screening operation. The restrooms are located in a couple of temporary-looking out buildings.

There are none of those covered gangways to or exit the planes. Instead, upon arrival at Long Beach, you descend down a stairway and walk across the tarmac to the terminal.

So far as I can tell, Jet Blue is the only “major” airline operating out of Long Beach, with departures to maybe a dozen destinations. This low-budget airport and its low-budget airline, then, seems to function mainly to provide low-budget transportation out of Southern California, and thus relieve pressure at eternally congested LAX.

Via Memeorandum, the news upon my arrival here was: “Protesters storm campus after Cantor cancels visit.” Evidently, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) had been scheduled to give a lecture at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business. A bunch of left-wing protesters — “Occupy [Fill in the Blank]” types — had planned a big disruption, so Cantor canceled the lecture and the mob ran amok.

The good news: No “Occupy Long Beach Airport” demonstrations have yet been announced, although the passengers here are clearly victims of social injustice.

Hit the freaking tip jar!


Memo From the National Affairs Desk: Final Boarding at McCarran International

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The National Affairs Desk, 5:30 p.m., Friday, Oct. 21, 2011

McCARRAN INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, Las Vegas
By the time I got to the taxi stand in front of the fabulous Venetian Resort Hotel, it was 4:30 p.m. and I only had until 5 p.m. to get checked in at the Jet Blue counter for my flight to Long Beach en route to Dulles. The cab driver asked me which route I preferred to the airport, and I told him to take the fastest route possible.

Even the freeway isn’t too fast at that hour of the day, and there was some doubt as to whether I’d make it on time, but this guy was The Best Cab Driver in Vegas — aggressively cutting through traffic and zipping across lanes to make the McCarran Airport exit, so that he dropped me off with 10 minutes to spare. The fare was $30.80, and I gave him $35, because really sharp driving in an emergency situation deserves to be rewarded.

Check-in was quick and efficient, and the line at security wasn’t too long. My flight, originally scheduled for a 6 p.m. departure was delayed by half an hour and, while walking toward the D terminal, I placed a quick call to Smitty and discussed plans for future operations, beginning with him picking me up at Dulles in the morning, to save my wife the hassle. The bill for dinner in the airport lounge  — $9.19 turkey sandwich, $2.19 bag of chips, $6.49 Corona — came to $19.32 and a $3 tip seemed fair.

At this point, there is no time for the Final Wisdom. They’ll call final boarding in about 10 minutes, and I must be on the plane. Exactly what was learned during this five-day/four-night journalistic expedition to Vegas will therefore have to wait until I get back home. Maybe I can write it up on the red-eye transcontinental flight that will bring me to Dulles shortly after dawn Saturday.

Final boarding! Hit the freaking tip jar!


Money Problems for Rick Perry? Also: Thoughts on the Logic of Strategy

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Call this the “former front-runner” problem:

Texas Gov. Rick Perry kicked off his presidential campaign with an aggressive fundraising schedule that quickly made him a front-runner for the Republican nomination. But reports his campaign filed with the Federal Election Commission show that his ability to attract big money fell off steeply in September — perhaps not coincidentally — at the same time a series of rocky debate performances threatened his early front-runner status.
As Perry arrives on Friday in Washington for a private meeting with K Street insiders, the question is whether he can convince the smart money that his campaign is worth an investment. After three torrid weeks in August when he raised more than twice as much as his nearest fundraising rival, Perry has now fallen back into a much more competitive fundraising race with Mitt Romney. That is not good news for a candidate who, because of his late entry into the race, has a lot of catching up to do. Romney has raised $32 million since the beginning of this campaign cycle.

If you think back to when the Perry bandwagon got rolling (less than 10 weeks ago, although it seems like ancient history now), the perception of inevitability was central to the argument: The Smilin’ Texan was it — The Man, the Real Deal — and everybody else was supposed to gaze in awe while Perry proceeded to dismantle Romney. Continue reading Money Problems for Rick Perry? Also: Thoughts on the Logic of Strategy →

Herman Cain’s Day in Vegas

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LAS VEGAS, Nevada
Herman Cain spoke this afternoon at the Western Republican Leadership Conference here:

Earlier today, I went with Steve Foley of Citizens for Cain to a luncheon at Maggiano’s Little Italy hosted by the Republican Women of Las Vegas:

After Cain’s luncheon speech, he posed for photos with well-wishers while surrounded by the mob of photographers and TV cameras that follows him pretty much everywhere nowadays:

A Venn Diagram Might Be Helpful

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LAS VEGAS, Nevada
Last night at the CNN debate, somebody said, “Hey, have you seen Erik Telford?”

“No, is he here?”

“Yeah. He was on Twitter asking who was coming to Vegas for the Western Republican Leadership Conference.”

Well, I’d been busy covering the debate and hadn’t seen the Twitter message, and by the time I hit my deadline for The American Spectator, the fact that Telford was in town had slipped my mind.

Fast-forward to this morning. I had to go down to the drugstore to buy a razor, and was walking through the lobby of the hotel when a familiar figure walked past me. So I reached out and slugged Telford in the arm.

“Dude, why didn’t you call me?”

“I didn’t know you were in town — until you slugged me in the arm.”

“It wasn’t exactly a secret that I was coming to Vegas,” I said. “But I guess nobody reads my blog.”

“Well,” Telford said. “I figured you wouldn’t get invited.”

“Yeah, I invited myself. Because nobody ever invites me anywhere. Like BlogCon — can you believe Tabitha Hale left me off the list?”

Telford laughed. Because, of course, I’m always left off the list, unlike Stephen Kruiser, Katie Harbath, Cord Blomquist, Peter List, Frank Keegan, Dana Loesch, Larry O’Connor, John Nolte, Meredith Dake, Matthias Shapiro, Will Franklin, Brandon Stewart, Bill Beutler, Michael Sandoval, Ari Armstrong, Todd Shepherd, T.L. James, Kelly Maher, Andrew Malcom, Melissa Clouthier, Michelle Malkin, Steven Crowder, Jim Pethokoukis, Dean Clancy, Max Pappas, Ed Morrissey, Deneen Borelli, Ace of Spades, Kristina Ribali, Russ Walker . . .

Just like Telford didn’t call me when he got to Vegas — because nobody wants to hang out with me, right? — Tabitha didn’t invite me to BlogCon because she wants it to be a fun, exciting event featuring people who are actually important, influential and popular.

In an effort to understand this situation, I mentally envisioned Tabitha’s worldview as a Venn Diagram:

There is no “Set AB,” because these are non-intersecting sets.

Ergo, the very fact that you’re reading my blog means that you are not important and don’t really matter.

UPDATE: Tabitha accuses me of harassment? A historic first: Harassment with Venn Diagrams.

Meanwhile, this might be a good time to remind you that I’ll be speaking Oct. 29 at the Maryland Conservative Action Network’s “Turning the Tides” conference in Annapolis.

VEGAS DEBATE: LET THE SPIN BEGIN

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LAS VEGAS, Nevada
We’re here at the Sands Expo and Convention Center, where the CNN Republican debate in Las Vegas just ended. Now the action shifts to the “spin room,” where candidates and their proxies try to convince reporters that their candidate scored a crushing victory in the debate.

UPDATE: I actually got started early on the spin, interviewing Herman Cain spokesman J.D. Gordon during the last commercial break during the debate:

UPDATE II: CNN’s Peter Hamby’s takeaway:

Former Godfather’s Pizza executive Herman Cain was at the center of a pile-on Tuesday night at the presidential debate hosted by CNN and the Western Republican Leadership Conference, as his GOP rivals took turns picking apart his “9-9-9” plan to reform the United States tax code. . . .
The other six Republicans on stage at the Venetian resort in Las Vegas, who have watched Cain soar to the top of the polls in recent weeks thanks to his straightforward message and outsider image, were united in calling the tax plan simplistic and risky.
“There are much more complexities than Herman let’s on,” said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
Texas Rep. Ron Paul called the plan “dangerous” and said it would increase taxes on low-income citizens.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry turned to Cain directly and told him that voters “are not interested in 9-9-9, what they are interested in is flatter and fairer.”
“I will bump plans with you brother, and we will see who has the best idea about getting this country working again,” Perry said. “It’s not going to fly.”

That story was obviously written based on the first 20 minutes of the debate. After that, Herman Cain got a lot less of the spotlight, as it became the Mitt Romney vs. Rick Perry show. This was clearly Perry’s best debate performance yet — but considering how bad he previously sucked, that’s not saying much.

UPDATE III: You’ll never believe who I bumped into in the spin room:

My good friend Wayne Newton. I’d love to go hang out with my buddy Wayne but . . . . well, I’m kind of busy right now.

EXPECT FURTHER UPDATES . . .