PLC Recap

If you live in Pennsylvania and are working to improve the quality of life in you little piece of PA, attending the annual Pennsylvania Leadership Conference is compulsory.

Whether you are working in grass roots activism, running for office, or just interested in conservative issues this conference is where you need to be. The conference allows you the opportunity to network with the movers and shakers of the conservative movement in Pennsylvania. An additional perk this year allowed you the opportunity to meet the stylish and influential Pennsylvania bloggers making this a premier event for Pennsylvania conservatives.

I affectionately call this conference CPAC-lite.

The conference started early Friday with my attendence at Campaign School, sponsored by Westlawn Group and The Leadership Institute. I drank a lot of coffee and took copious notes..you never know what the future may bring. As I was leaving, I had the pleasure of meeting blogger AJ Sparxx’s of Conseratives With Attitude!

As my fellow Sheepdogs set up our exhibit, I wandered into the room set aside for bloggers and bumped into Michael Steele prepping for his opening remarks. He was kind enough to take a moment to pose for a photograph. While setting up my equipment, I met a fellow democrat and blogger – will wonders never cease!

I made a point to attend the “Pundits, Pollsters and Policy” Panel discussion and was not disappointed by the views expressed by the panelists. Amanda Carpenter spoke first on the difference between blogging and feature writing. She remarked how she generally is considered a blogger because of her TownHall Blog, yet labels herself as a journalist. She made a point to separate the two entities in her professional life. Tony Phyrillis, city editor and political columnist for the Pottstown Mercury commented on the impact of blogs on the gray lady of traditional print media.

One of the best parts of this conference is the relaxed access to some remarkable individuals. Whether it is a chat with Bill Russell at Blogger’s (Skye’s) Row, or sharing a laugh with Pat Toomey and Lou Barletta at the Sheepdog exhibit. Toni Gilhooley, who is running for a seat in the 17th congressional district stopped by to sign our Wall. I had the opportunity to spend time talking with this remarkable woman. She is a ground breaker for women working in non-traditional roles, and is currently facing a ‘goliath’ of an opponent – and we all know what happend to goliath.

Curt Schroder stopped by our exhibit and I found him personable and down to earth. We have much in common, Rich and I invited him to join our flag day celebration.

A way too early morning breakfast talk on the legacy of Reagan by Dr. Paul Kengor, professor of political science at Grove City College, was informative and inspirational. One point that I found interesting was the Dr. Kengor’s comparison of our ‘cold war’ enemy to that of today’s islamofascist terrorists. The two are NOT mutually inclusive. The Russian’s were essentially aethists who did not believe in an afterlife, and did not want to die. In comparison, the islamofascist terrorist’s primary goal is to die and be rewarded in paradise. Using the Reaganesque economic sanctions to defeat today’s terrorists will NOT work.

Overall, I enjoyed the conference this year – with the exception of Saturday night’s dinner – Alpo con carne. Yum. If you have the opportunity to attend next year – the 20th anniversary edition, do it, it is a great use of your time.

Sheepdogs at PLC

Our table at the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference. It is safe to say we have the best looking display at this conference. The background mural was designed by Paul Eisemann and contains numerous messages of support for our troops. This ‘Wall’ of suport will be sent to our troops in the Middle East. During the conference we invited attendees to leave their own message to our troops. A million thanks to Bud and Jim for creating the two fabulous slide shows that were on our display table. Without the tech gear donated by Sean, we would not have been able to share these slideshows with the attendees – Thank You! The always magnificent NeoCon was so generous in printing a selection of photos from his collection for us to display in a montage. Mike, Jim – you guys made such a positive impression on the attendees – Thank You!!!!

Michelle Malkin Meets The Sheepdogs!

This year’s Keynote Speaker, Michelle Malkin, stopped by to greet the Sheepdogs and to sign our “Wall”. She is one of the most gracious bloggers I’ve met and is appreciative of our efforts in West Chester. Next year, I hoping the organizers invite John Hawkins to their keynote speaker (hint, hint!)

Michelle signs The Wall:

Lou Barletta signs The Wall:

More photos of Wall signers can be found HERE

Pennyslvania Leadership Conference 2008

2008 Pennsylvania Leadership Conference “The Power of Principle” is scheduled for Friday April 25 and Saturday April 26 at the Four Points Sheraton in Harrisburg, PA.

The Keynote Speaker this year will be Michelle Malkin.

The blogger for this event will by Skye

The organization is a non-partisan, not for profit entity which works with other groups to address lowering taxes, better schools, fiscal responsiblity, open government and stronger families in the state of Pennsylvania.

A schedule of the events can be found HERE I am attending the Campaign School workshop and look forward to reporting back to you on my findings.

Stay Tuned!

Newt & Moi at PLC

On the first spring-like weekend of the year, I motored out into the wilds of Harrisburg to attend the 2007 Pennsylvania Leadership Conference. The two day conference was hosted by the Pennsylvania Leadership Council, Inc with support from The Club for Growth – PA and the Commonwealth Foundation.

I was unable to attend Friday’s lectures due to work commitments, so I set out early Saturday morning to attend this conference.

The Keynote speaker scheduled for Saturday was the Hon. Newt Gingrich. Arriving early, I had the opportunity to browse around the various booths set up outside the lecture rooms. While speaking with representatives from Newsguests.com, I mentioned the mobile blogging experiment of March 17th’s Gathering of Eagles pro troop rally. They seemed quite interested in the concept and I’m hoping this will become a resource to build upon the success of the first mobile blogging experiment.

Never one who is backwards about being forward, I struck up conversations with other attendees and lecturers. Jethro Heiko, activist for Casino Free Philadelphia, explained his push to keep casinos from being built next to residential areas. I even had the opportunity for a photo op with one of the Speakers.

Yep, that is Newt Gingrich posing for a picture with yours truly. The other gentleman pictured is a military pilot who has done tours in Iraq. On an aside note, I plan on forwarding Curt’s investigation of Jamil Hussein to Kevin. I believe the two would have lots to discuss on that matter.

Newt’s speech to a packed ballroom was far better than I expected. Several of his key points were dead on in political, conservative and rational sense.

• Change your perception of ‘That’s a good idea, but we can’t do it because of…” to “Yes that is good point, however, have you considered this idea…”
• An ATM in Slovenia can dole out money from your properly identified bank account on demand, yet today, the federal government can’t locate 11 million illegal residents in the US.
  
• Limiting of personal choices by the government is never a good idea and only serves to remove power from the people. He used a brilliant analogy regarding th difference choice makes by comparing Medicaid/Medicare to a ocean cruise ship.
• He shared some great statistics on the clean energy source that is nuclear power. Essentially if anyone is serious about reducing carbon emissions, nuclear power would have put us light years ahead of the established Kyoto goals.
  
• In order to see a change in this country, the grassroots level is where to begin. The Presidency is too narrow in scope to affect real change, that comes from the ground level and upwards. He did state that he was not interested in running for President in 08 and cited the above as one of the reasons.
• My one beef with his speech was an observation that he made about the audience being interested in changing the government. The audience cheered and clapped at that remark – I rolled my eyes. They got the change they were seeking in the 06 election cycle and they are NOT happy about it? The old axiom – ‘Be careful of what you wish for…..you might get it’ has never been more clearer than with this audience response. We, as conservatives, got what we wished for in 06 – CHANGE. Now we have to lie in the bed we made till 08. **SIGH**

At the end of the day, I do believe this conference was worth the early morning motoring and quite beneficial to my understanding of Pennsylvania politics.

One final note: PLC held an unofficial Presidential Straw Poll and the results were read to the assembled group. Fred Thompson percentage was far and away from the other RNC presidential hopefuls. Interesting.

X-posted at Ancora Imparo

Newt Gingrich at PLC