Last week, while I was lying in the hospital, I caught Glenn Beck on the O’Reilly Factor. Beck explained that this event would be non-political and very, very different.

“Yeah, right.” I thought. “I’m supposed to volunteer for that. There’s no way the tea party crowd will be apolitical.”

I was completely wrong.

Volunteer Training
Yesterday, I attended a volunteer training at the Hyatt near Union Station. Upon my arrival, I noticed a conference of black teamsters and Women of Faith were at the same hotel, which made for interesting people watching. Nothing happened, and everyone was polite to each other.

At the training, which was led by Capital Services, Inc., a vendor contracted to plan the rally and the upcoming 9/12 March, three things were emphasized:

1. Do NOT wear any political or partisan attire or carry signs.

2. Do NOT engage with hecklers. Be polite and smile and step away.

3. Help pick up trash.

Word had some how gotten out to not wear political items, so the volunteers wore all of it to the training session. It was like Christmas Eve when all the grandmas wear every single holiday item they own because they won’t be able to wear them for another year.

Groups had on matching t-shirts. One woman had on a glittery cowboy hat and matching boots emblazoned with the American flag. Some people were already sporting their fluorescent orange Restoring Honor tshirts that had “Marshal*” written on the front and back. Another woman had on a sequined Glenn Beck logo tshirt. Sequins! A number had on Beck’s “faith, hope and charity” shirts or the Restoring Honor t-shirt.

During the training, one man asked if he could wear his Sarah Palin pin written in Hebrew. That one shocked the other volunteers and a murmur went through the crowd. Sadly, the man was told he could not wear his volunteer t-shirt with Hebrew Sarah Palin pin. (I’d really like to see what it looks like.)

Early Morning
My volunteer shirt started bright and early around 6:45 a.m. I was assigned to help direct people from Metro Center to the Mall. Volunteers picked a Metro Center exit when they arrived, so I stood at 12th and F.

Once the Metro opened, attendees came in waves as trains arrived. I stood at the top of the escalators and gave directions as groups exited. Most people were overwhelmingly kind and thanked me for spending my Saturday volunteering. Several people asked to take my photo, so I posed with a number of random children. I felt like some type of Glenn Beck mascot. Wearing a volunteer shirt really didn’t make me any more special.

Hecklers
Because of the Metro schedule, people came in waves. There were long stretches without anyone to direct, so I stood there quietly. Around 7:30 a.m., two black men in suits walked toward the Metro. They looked to be my age. They saw me and asked what I was doing. I politely explained I was volunteering for the Restoring Honor rally and helping to direct attendees from the Metro to Lincoln Memorial.

This apparently made one guy snap. He looked at me and asked, “How many homeless people are you going to feed.”

“Excuse me?” I replied. I was confused.

“How many homeless people are you going to feed today.” He repeated. This time he sounded angry.

I shook my head, smiled and walked away. Heckler guy and his friend continued toward the escalators, continually shouting at me, “How many people are you going to feed today?”

Newsflash liberals: all signs point that conservatives donate more money and volunteer much more than the left. DO NOT get into a “Who cares more?” contest with me. Unless you are a missionary or a Peace Corp volunteer, I will win every time. Each year, I spend hundreds of hours volunteering. I donate significant portions of my income to charitable causes. In college, I was in a service sorority, and then I served as a VISTA for two years. In terms of dollars and hours, I probably care more than you.

Don’t think that you are better than me because you lean left. I guarantee that I do more to help our fellow man. The heckler’s entire argument was based on the stereotype that all conservatives are selfish, white people. Grow up. Yelling at me only makes you look like a jerk. The left continues to prove that they are the ones perpetuating stereotypes. As much as I wanted to inform hecker dude of these facts, I was bound by the Restoring Honor rules and disengaged as soon as I sensed they wanted trouble.

A little later, I noticed a grouchy lady get off the escalator. As soon as she saw me, she scowled. It was a busy moment, with several waves of rally attendees huddling near me to get directions. I noticed the woman stand off to the side and then stroll around the escalator in circles. She waited until the crowd had thinned out, when she “casually” walked by me, stopping long enough to say, “No one cares about your stupid directions for your dumb rally.”

Mature. Real mature for a woman in her late 40s. I loved how she stuck around until the crowd thinned out so she could drop her amazing cut down. My feelings were hurt…

The Rally
Around 11 a.m., the steady stream of attendees stopped, so I walked towards the rally. As I got nearer, I noticed that this crowd was different. Many people wore Glenn Beck t-shirts or Christian t-shirts. Some baseball player was speaking about being a Christian. I walked by street preachers. This rally seemed much more religious than patriotic or political. It was immensely different than any Tea Party event I’ve attended.

Everyone was on the quiet side or subdued. Most were there with families and sitting on lawn chairs or blankets. The crowd seemed peaceful. Quite contrary to how the left paints the typical Beck viewer!

I walked around for about 45 minutes and realized I wouldn’t get very close to the Lincoln Memorial. I walked from the Washington Monument, through the World War II Memorial up to the Duck Pond. There were scores of people huddled under the shade in the trees between the Reflecting Pool and the Duck Pond. You couldn’t see much, but you could hear the rally.

Overall, this rally was much more faith-oriented than anything else. I’m not complaining. I’m a Christian and heart Jesus, but this was not what I expected. I work with a number of organizations that focus on freedom of faith and restoring our Judeo-Christian heritage. This event easily could have been sponsored by one of them.

I did miss the first two hours due to my volunteer station at Metro Center and only stayed for a little while, so the portion I saw was very limited.

Crowd Size
I took a few photos, but my cell phone is not cooperating and uploading them to the web right now. It’s always difficult to estimate sizes. The National Park Service stopped doing it because event organizers of all kinds of events would get upset at their estimate. Hard core devotees will inflate. Detractors and enemies will deflate. The truth is somewhere in the middle.

Some folks on Twitter claim between 500,000-1 million. I could be wrong, but that seems high. I would venture between 250,000-400,000. Between the Lincoln Memorial down through both sides of Reflecting Pool and the areas next to them, to the World War II Memorial, crowds were densely packed.

Between the World War II Memorial and the Washington Monument, the crowds were much more scattered. Folks were spaced far apart and sitting on blankets. You could walk through the crowd. It was impossible to walk through the crowd between the WWII Memorial to the Lincoln Memorial.

It seems as though 1 million people would require the entire area between the Lincoln Memorial and past the Washington Monument to be packed in tightly. However, I’m terrible at estimates. That’s my honest attempt to describe the crowd as accurately as possible.

Reactions
This rally proves the phenomenal power of Glenn Beck. Love him or hate him, you should respect his influence. He’s hardly my favorite pundit (too much emotion and emphasis on conspiracy theories), but he’s gotten the American people to read and study the roots of the conservative movement. Not even Buckley or Rush have been able to do that. Beck has found a way to bring conservative intelligentsia to the masses. I can respect that.

*Marshal is the National Park Service term for volunteer on the Mall. It’s dumb. Blame it on some bureaucrat.

The subject of conservative women emerging in politics is one that I’ve covered for more than a year. Since the infamous Mama Grizzly remarks by Sarah Palin, I’ve refrained from commenting* and watched the debate evolve. The role of conservative women in feminism is another, much-needed blog post, but I’m excited to see the discussion. On the right, this is a subject that no one has ever wanted to discuss. On the left, it engages a decades-old debate on how to exactly define feminism. Among feminist circles, this is still a messy internal argument. In the coming months, expect a lot more from me on this subject.

With a number of upcoming primaries with female Republican candidates like Robin Smith in my home district of TN-03 or Pamela Gorman, the game continues.

Update 6/10/10: Even more stories via Google alerts.

WaPo: Can Sarah Palin Claim Credit for Last Night?

New York Daily News: GOP primaries: Sarah Palin helps South Carolina’s Nikki Haley and Calif.’s Carly Fiorina win big

CBS: GOP Women Dominate in Tuesday’s Primaries

The round-up so far today. First the feminists.

Jezebel has a fair round-up posted. Well, as fair as Jezebel (i.e. Gawker) folks get. Since two Democrats were on the list, they couldn’t do hatchet jobs on the rest.

Double X gets a few points wrong about the Mama Grizzly endorsements. Orly Taitz is a birther. I don’t know if even the radical fringes of the Tea Party would accept her. To use her as an example of a Palin loss is inaccurate since Palin never even touched that race. Claire Grossman wrote:

Though they’re just as extreme as their female counterparts, male candidates affiliated with the Tea Party like Rand Paul are shown (in a far less head-scratching spirit) as Ayn Randian, spear-carrying individualists. Whatever you think of their political beliefs, mama bears don’t deserve to be hit with the tired “hysterical woman” stereotype.

I agree with Grossman’s sentiment. Women should be discussed and debated on the same terms of men. If you’re going to do a fashion story, look at male candidates too or refrain from style all together. However, I wish Grossman had used better examples. Birthers are crazy and deserve to be ridiculed.

Debra Medina also waded birther territory. She also ran against an incumbent with high name ID who ran a stellar campaign in Texas. Palin also endorsed Perry, Medina’s opposition. Birthers are so far to the extreme of conservative politics, that pushing them aside and calling them crazy is the only option. To given them any serious consideration would only hurt the entire movement. Grossman doesn’t look at coverage of male birther candidates. They’re viewed just as nutty as the women are.

This cycle does prove that women are treated differently. Much of the coverage of these women did result in mud-slinging and name-calling. Haley’s campaign should enter the record books for new lows in public life, but the race in Nevada also got ugly at times. The California race was largely fair. Neither Meg Whitman or Carly Fiorina seemed to be attacked or held to double-standards, despite Fiorina releasing the most bizarre campaign commercials ever. I’m disappointed in Fiorina’s victory,* but both women held their own in a tough state while running against men who were positioned further to the right.

EMILY’s List is scared of Carly Fiorina, which is a silver lining for me personally. Bwhahaha!

Stephanie pointed out that Fiorina is already going on the attack against Barbara — no great shock, since she’d been lobbing attacks on TV at Barbara before she even won the party endorsement. Already, choice is becoming a top issue in this race, and we can’t afford to lose Barbara’s leadership on women’s rights in the Senate.

Fiorina’s got a war chest filled with money from the $21-million golden parachute she received after being fired from her job at HP. We’ve got to help Barbara fill her campaign coffers now and make sure she’s ready to fight back!

Given EMILY’s List struggle to adapt to younger feminists and raise money, good luck with that one.

The Right-of-Center Folks:

Independent Women’s Forum. (Great post, which I completely agree with!)

Regardless of their reasons for running, and regardless of the outcome of the November elections, in my book the primary results have at least one absolutely terrific outcome. Women and girls have a great new set of role models to look up to who aren’t afraid to step up and speak out for what they believe in – and that kind of positive encouragement is good for the whole country. For too long, sitting officials have overlooked the wishes of their constituents in order to advance their own agendas – and the American people have had enough.

Susan B. Anthony List (I encourage them to not use “conservative feminism.” That’s a loaded label, but that’s another blog post.)

What an amazing night for pro-life women across the country! Without a doubt, last night victories were the greatest affirmation of the Susan B. Anthony List mission since our organization’s founding and truly telling of the resurgence of authentic, pro-life feminism–feminism true to our foremother’s belief that the rights of one group can never be advanced on the broken backs of others.

Hot Air via Ed Morrissey:

Why so many women in the GOP? One has to give at least some credit to the Tea Parties. In my experience with the activists behind Tea Party events, most have been women who have become determined to steer the course of the American political agenda back to the Right. The two national politicians most associated with the Tea Party movement? Powerful Republican women: Sarah Palin and Rep. Michele Bachmann (MN).

I agree with Morrissey here. Tea Parties are largely driven by women. Also, consider the fractured state of the GOP since 2006. With incumbents out of favor, and voters angry at “establishment” politicians, this opened the door for women. There’s a larger post here, but the media doesn’t recognize a trend until a figurehead emerges. Love or hate Palin, she motivated a lot of women who identified with her.

It also takes a much bigger commitment for women to run. Dee Dee Meyers explains in her book that it takes asking a women 5 or 6 times before she’ll consider running. With the GOP out of ideas and fresh blood, they were much more willing to woo female candidates than in previous years.

Red State via Erick Erickson

The Republican Establishment is declaring this their year of the woman. There are five in particular that I want to aggressively support: Nikki Haley running for Governor in South Carolina, Karen Handel running for Governor in Georgia, Sharron Angle running for the Senate in Nevada, Robin Smith running for Congress in Tennessee, and Pamela Gorman running for Congress in Arizona.

More from me on these awesome women later.

Other media:

Blogher: Don’t Get Mad. Get Elected.

I mean, really — isn’t it time to change the all-male South Carolina state senate or the Ohio state senate’s GOP male-female ratio (19-2) (Dems total of 11 are split 6-5)? The SC senate doesn’t even have an election until 2012 — plenty of time! Come on, ladies. Don’t get mad — get elected.

Christian Science Monitor: Women Shine in Tuesday’s Primaries, Especially GOP

The GOP still has plenty of catching up to do in recruiting women candidates – even if many of those candidates play down their gender. (Palin herself refers to an “emerging, conservative, feminist identity” in the party.) These latest primary victories for women show that the party is gaining ground and perhaps that will help bring gender equity in US politics closer to reality.

Politico: Palin’s Backing Pays Off for Pals

Some of Sarah Palin’s riskiest endorsements scored major victories Tuesday for the former Alaska governor, showing off her power in Republican primaries.

Palin had four primary endorsements in play – Carly Fiorina, Nikki Haley, Terry Branstad and Cecile Bledsoe – and three won or moved on to a runoff.

Palin served different roles for each candidate – sometimes spotlighting conservatives not well known to the national scene while at others validating conservative credentials to an unsure grassroots and even stepping in to deflect nasty attacks.

Fox News: Tea Party Candidates, Women Roar on Primary Night

The primary elections Tuesday amounted to a night of messages — from the Tea Party, from female candidates and for the Democrats.

With hundreds of primaries held across 11 states, a number of candidates made history while others pulled out come-from-behind wins. The elections helped set the stage for a November general election
in which incumbents are girding for a series of hard-fought battles.

Hannity’s Great American Panel will discuss this topic tonight as well.
*Disclosure: I worked on the Chuck DeVore campaign, which opposed Carly Fiorina in California.

The annual Politics Online conference is this week. This is definitely a conference for the sausage makers and is aimed at those working in nonprofit, government or political technology. When I first attended in 2006, this conference helped my thesis come together, so I’ve always been grateful for it.

As I sat through the sessions yesterday, something seemed off. It seemed…flat. The panels weren’t insightful, and I’d heard most of the case studies. Honestly, the energy felt deflated.

While the conference is nonpartisan, about 20% of attendees and panelists are right-of-center. I’m not complaining because up to this point, the best people were on the left. The developers and strategists that I wanted to see belonged to the other side of the aisle.

After I sat through the pre-lunch talk with Joe Trippi, it hit me how much the online situation has changed.

Trippi did a lot of really cool things…back in 2004. I highly recommend his book, The Revolution Won’t Be Televised, but now it’s part of history. It shouldn’t be viewed as a current strategy piece.

Over and over, he kept discussing MoveOn, Meetup and the resistance of the GOP to the web. He and the other speaker, Rod Martin from Paypal, were interesting, but I got the overall impression that not much had changed for Trippi since 2007. I wouldn’t discount his career since you can influence politics in DC from beyond the grave (i.e. Reagan, FDR and JFK), but it was sad.

When was the last time that MoveOn made the news? Oh, they still send emails. I’m on their list. But they’re formulaic and boring. Online email strategy has evolved (disclosure: email fundraising is primarily what I do professionally), and they seem stuck in the anti-Bush frame. How much longer will that message resound? At some point even MoveOn will need to move on.

Then there was the Q&A from the audience during various sessions.

Since the overwhelming majority of the audience were Democrats or left-leaning nonprofits, almost all of the questions surrounded the Obama election.

The Obama election? That was 17 months ago. In the online world, that’s practically a lifetime. Everything that can be studied has been analyzed and dissected.

Then it hit me. After years of self-flagellation and bemoaning (and I was one of the many bloggers doing the moaning), the right has actually achieved success on web. Note that I didn’t say Republicans, but the right. There are still pockets of resistance, especially among standing members in Congress and state legislatures. I’m not the only one to notice. Look at these stories at The Hill and The Weekly Standard.

Since 2008, conservatives have seen McDonnell, Brown and Tea Parties. All of which were fueled by the web.

The Bob McDonnell and Scott Brown campaigns expanded on lessons learned from the Obama campaign and took it to the next level. Just look at online ad spending. Obama’s people spent 4%. McDonnell spent 10%. (Correction: McDonnell spent 8%, Brown spent 10%.) Google is now advising all campaigns at least spend 10%.

Without the technologies that liberals and Democrats used in 2006 and 2008, the tea parties wouldn’t exist. Ironically, the liberal developers are the ones who gave those crazed masses their tool box.

This post isn’t to mock the left or proudly announce that we won. We haven’t, and we’re far from it. As Rod Martin declared, the web has made politics more and more volatile.

The internet embodies populist politics. Since populism swings back and forth from left to right depending on the economy, foreign policy, wars and other factors, our political cycle could resemble a roller coaster going forward.

In other words, the web is the tool of the angry and upset. In 2006 and 2008, BDS ruled the interwebs and motivated the folks agreeing with that message.

Now the tables have turned, and the formerly silent majority has literally taken to the streets.

I would argue that tea parties are slightly different. Polls show that 25% of Americans identify with those values. At no point in history has one-fourth of our population marched with liberal or progressive movements.

I would also argue that tea parties are the first truly grassroots movement that we’ve seen in decades. Grassroots movements are marked by chaotic order, widespread issues and are leaderless. Those are three attacks that the media has repeatedly made on tea partiers.

Yes, Obama had millions of small dollar donors. Yes, he got 53% of the vote, but most of them now disapprove of his performance. Further examination of his fundraising shows that traditional big dollar donors were the backbone of his election machine. It’s a nice Alinsky-esqe story to say that Obama appealed to the little guy–the $5 donor–but his muscle came from the established monied left.

The fate of Organizing for America serves as further evidence that the Obama campaign was just grass-washing. What happened to them? Much like MoveOn, when was the last time you heard from them? Even the overall netroots haven’t done much. The plot to infiltrate the April 15 tea parties bombed. What ever happened to the plan of getting OFA members to call talk radio?

:::grasshoppers chirping:::

While the left may have convinced themselves that they created the first “grassroots” energetic movement online, the evidence suggests that it was still a very top-down campaign that Democrats have always run. Now that the powerful are in charge, they can ignore the little people they leveraged to get there.

I saw this firsthand last fall. The project that I was working on was the subject of a high-profile story from an arm of Center for American Progress. Overnight, our hate mail quadrupled and our traffic certainly increased. However, when I drilled down and studied the blog posts that were complaining about us, I noticed that they all copied one of the major liberal blogs, primarily Think Progress. And by copy, I literally mean copy. We got hundreds of hits from small bloggers who cut and pasted the Think Progress post.

I had never seen anything like it on the right. Almost all of the posts lacked attribution. I think this example highlights the very hierarchical nature of the netroots that is symptomatic of the entire left.

But what about the success stories on the right? The Politics Online conference did highlight those. As I listened to the the case studies, I realized that I had already heard them. Through sheer desperation, the right has organically built ways to communicate. Blogs such as The Next Right, weekly events like Heritage’s Blogger Briefing and annual conferences like Americans for Prosperity’s RightOnline communicate activities and educate members about emerging technologies.

Last year, I taught a couple of sessions at RightOnline and was shocked to see 80 year-old grandmas in the audience. They recognized that technology had changed, and they as individuals, needed to change in order for the conservative movement to win.

The morning after election day 2008, the establishment also started listening. We know that Red State has become influential on the Hill, and CPAC has done a great job of incorporating digital media and bloggers into the conference. Also, The Heritage Foundation has integrated digital media into every aspect of their activities. Their hard work should be applauded. Like their policies or not, their work is always imaginative. Do you get much more old-school conservative establishment than The Heritage Foundation and CPAC?

A telling comment at Politics Online captures the state of the liberal netroots. During a panel on social media apps, an audience member asked what it would take for more people to embrace smart phones. Since the next wave of technology is mobile, it’s dependent on individual users to voluntarily opt-in.

The panelist replied, “subsidized smart phones.”

That’s right! In order for the left to reach the next level, the government needs to subsidize smart phone adoption for the average tax payer. Unlike adoption on social networks, which only required a computer and an internet connection, mobile adoption requires the average user going to AT&T or Verizon and forking over $100 or more a month to access Facebook on the road.

I was floored. Cost is an issue, and I hate how phones are attached to carriers. But expecting the government to subsidize smart phones so that someone under the poverty line can become the Mayor of Taco Bell on FourSquare is too much.

This is another area where the right may have an advantage. Since polls show that tea party members make more money, they’re more likely to adopt new technology and use smart phones.

With recent court decisions making a national broadband plan and Net Neutrality a giant question mark, I think momentum has finally shifted right. This isn’t accidental. Conservatives at every level, from executives at think tanks to frustrated mommybloggers, have gotten involved and fought to get here.

As I mentioned earlier, we still have a tremendous amount of work ahead. If Republicans are lucky in November and regain control of both Houses, they need to enact swift fiscal reform and dramatically cut spending and taxes. Conservatives have the message, but the biggest question remains–has the GOP learned?

At least the protest signs improved. FreedomWorks is also getting very good at planning large-scale events.

For the second time, my family gathered for a protest on Tax Day. Perhaps I had an unusual childhood, but I’ve attended many, many protests with my family. It’s what we do. My first trip to DC was in 1989 for the March for Life.

This time, my parents brought their dog, Sunny. Since she’s a rescue dog, they didn’t have the heart to kennel her. She was amazing. Even during the loud cheering and clapping, she just sat there completely chilled. She’s part Golden Retriever. If there was ever a zen-like breed of dog, it is Golden Retrievers.

Sunny protesting at the Tax Day Rally. Completely vicious to liberals.

I’ve written a lot of posts defending Tea Party attendees and explaining their purpose. Every political movement has its crazies. I’m not sure why, but there was a lot of weirdness going on tonight at the rally. Much more than normal. I can’t hide it. The vast majority of people were typically-dressed Americans exercising their Constitutional rights, but there were some strange people.

I dropped my parents and the dog off at the rally and parked the car, so I was separated from them. When I called for their location, my dad said, “Look for the yellow Gadsden flag.”

There are hundreds if not thousands of yellow “Don’t Tread on Me” flags at tea parties… Not the best land mark or sign to use.

While I was looking for my dad, I saw a guy filming the rally with a puppet. A puppet, as in Jim Henson. The puppet was “talking” to the camera and was dressed like a superhero in patriotic colors. I tried to go back and take photos, but I never saw puppet guy a gain.

Then I saw Ron Paul Goths. You read that right. Goths who are fans of Rep. Ron Paul from Texas. I’ve met numerous Ron Paul hipsters, but I had no idea his policies attracted another counter-cultural identity group. Goth girl wore her platform boots all evening. That impressed me.

Ron Paul Goths

Then a man dressed up as William Wallace stood behind us with a megaphone all night.

William Wallace

Then I saw Captain America. This is Captain America, right?

Captain America?

Feeling the need to act out your political anger by costume is strange. The folks who dress up for rallies in costume have to be the same types who dress up for sci-fi conventions as characters. Rather than celebrating the Force or the Federation, they’re protesting out-of-control-spending. Good intentions…just odd.

I also can’t forget the Fair Tax Revolutionary War re-enactors. I must have missed the history lesson on the Fair Tax debate during the Continental Congress.

Fair Tax Colonial Re-enactors

Many mornings, I wake up thinking this. Seeing approval ratings this week for the President, I can’t be alone.

WTF Obama?

This little girl’s sign says it all. We’ve spent our way into a deep, deep hole and the youngest members of our society are going to be the ones that suffer.

Doomed Little Girl

These t-shirts were popular.

Tyranny Response Team

Awkward photo, but I really want one of these “Don’t Tread on Tennessee” shirts. They’re from the McMinn County Tea Party.

Don't Tread on Tennessee

Love this cartoon!

Another protest dog err protest puppy.

Protest Puppy

I have many more photos that I’ll upload to Flickr tomorrow. If you’re friends with me on Facebook, you can see the pictures now.

Update 4/15/10: On my way to work this morning, a theory occurred to me. Since Dr. Ron Paul was a confirmed speaker on the agenda, I believe he drew a larger percentage of his supporters than normal at the DC events. Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t recall  Dr. Paul speaking at other DC tea party events. As I’ve written before, they’ll walk through fire for him. Since they’re the more um…colorful segment of the conservative movement, I think that explains the higher incidence of costumed attenders.

Tea Party Barbie

Not sure if this is funny, cool or just bizarre. I was really into Barbie as a little girl.

H/T NRO

I have mixed feelings about this speech. It was very policy-focused. Much more than I would have expected. She covered national defense, foreign policy, spending and taxes, Obama’s inability to be a responsible leader, listening to the people, and getting involved in local government. She was speaking to her most ardent fans tonight, and it was a good opportunity to lay out her views if 2012 is in her plans. Judging from her speech, I would say that 2012 is very, very possible. I look forward to reading the transcripts when someone finally posts them on the web.

Everything she said, I agree with. That’s the reason why I’m a fan of Palin. She’s not afraid to be frank and address the issue that actually concern Americans. Some call it populism. I would call it recognizing what average Americans are actually facing. Unless you work for the Democratic party, and your head is completely in the sand, Palin addressed concerns that Obama seems incapable of acknowledging. I’m just tired of the populist charge against Palin and Tea Parties. It shows how great the chasm is between the Beltway and real issues going on. If Washington was in step with the desires of the American people, the Tea Party movement wouldn’t have started last year. It’s painful to live in the Beltway and understand how the sausage is made but still side with the grassroots.

She said many things that I applaud. Namely that no one person is the leader of the Tea Party movement and that no politician is perfect. That can’t be emphasized enough. Was Palin speaking to her own supporters? If you read this blog more than once, you’ll realize that I am a Palin fan. However, she’s made mistakes. I don’t agree with her on everything, nor should I. There will never be a perfect politician. Even Reagan made his supporters mad on occasion. Unfortunately, Palin is attacked so much by the media and liberals, that deserved criticism is not tolerated within the Sarah-sphere. There’s also an element of blind worship that mirrors Obama adoration. Those two factors worry me.

Her delivery seemed off tonight, which annoyed me. Maybe I’m overly critical, but it sounded unpracticed. She stumbled through it and never found a steady rhythm. This was a speech that needed a TelePrompTer for a better delivery. There was not enough repetition in it to be read with notes. Her convention speech last year shows how well she can speak. I don’t think she practiced this. Stumbling and taking breaks to find your notes are signs of bad preparation. This was a policy-focused speech. She needed to keep her eyes on the audience and refrain from looking down, which hurts credibility and perceptions of confidence. Not surprisingly, Matthew Continetti at the Weekly Standard disagrees with me on this.

Sadly, Obama has ruined the use of TelePrompTers for everyone. They were once a good tool for delivering important speeches. Now, using one is seen as a crutch. Had Palin walked out there using a TelemPrompTer, the media would have attacked her with their double-standard of attacking Palin for breathing and blatantly ignoring idiotic mistakes that Obama makes (“corpsmen” comes to mind).

I’m glad Palin charged attendees with running for local office. Tea Party involvement needs to be more than holding up a sign and complaining about taxes. Government will not change unless you get involved. We’re hearing about Tea Party members running for office, but it’s still an exception rather than the rule. There should be so many Tea Party candidates running for local and state offices that it’s no longer news.

Will she run in 2012? I hope that I only have to say this once. The speech tonight points in that direction. However, we have absolutely no idea what the landscape will be like in 2012. I can’t predict the future, nor can anyone else. If by some chance Congress flips in November, it will likely restore balance that the American people seem to like. That puts us in a completely different position going into 2012 than the unified hatred towards Obama and his liberal cronies we see now. Also, voters are choosing Republicans as an alternative to the bad guys, not because they like them. The GOP has given no evidence that they learned any lessons from the Bush Administration and the great defeats 2006 and 2008. Two years of Big Republicanism will hurt anyone running for POTUS with an R after their name. This is Washington’s favorite sport, but I wish presidential speculation would just stop. In 2006, would anyone have predicted that McCain would be the nominee in 2008?

Townhall and RedState also have reactions up.

Beyond a steady rightward shift and an increasingly reactionary rhetoric, conservative leadership is taking on another characteristic — it’s becoming more female. Both nationally and in Tennessee, the most beloved and vocal conservative leaders these days seem to be women.

Memo to Kleinheider: conservative women have always been here.  His comments confuse me. Does he not closely follow Tennessee and national politics? The existence of women on the right is hardly new:

Women need to be embraced as leaders — but not out of fear or necessity. It should happen the right way, or else the Right will merely be seen as a bunch of weak-willed reactionary little boys sending their women out to do their fighting for them.

Michele Bachmann was elected before Sarah Palin. Marsha Blackburn’s been involved in Tennessee politics for a long time now. Robin Smith was chairwoman of the TN GOP before Palin was on the scene. In order to have so many women running in 2010 means that women have been working up the ranks of the party and active in their communities for many years. It takes a long time to build up the name recognition, fundraisers and social capital to run for office. I’m surprised that he failed noticed that.

In fact, Republicans and conservatives have seen many of the “first” women across a number of categories. Labels and identity politics are just not as important to us. Just because the media suddenly noticed that women were in the conservative movement, doesn’t mean that we weren’t always there. Most of my political viewpoints come directly from my mother, who became a staunch conservative in the early 80s.  We’ve always been here. Now we’re getting the recognition that we deserve.

Palin is the catalyst not the movement.

Ironically, we owe it to the feminists and liberals in Congress for galvanizing all of the suddenly-visible conservative women that are shocking! Kleinheider.

This movement didn’t start with Sarah Palin nor will it end with her. Palin was the catalyst and should be analyzed, but the media, liberals and bloggers need to look at the bigger picture. Conservative women have always been in the movement, but Sarah Palin was the first woman to resonate with us. Prior to Palin, I always admired Elizabeth Dole. However, she was a DC insider with an Ivy League education. I could admire her (and the struggles she faced at Yale) but couldn’t identify with her. When Palin arrived, we had someone who reflected us.

Had the media and feminists said, “Great. The conservative movement is finally acting on what we’ve been preaching for 30 years,” I doubt that conservative women would now be so vocal. It was the the angry reaction of the feminist movement and the media that attacked Palin,  her family and her education. Suddenly liberals questioned if a woman could work and raise a large family. Her state education was ridiculed and her middle class existence was mocked. Those were the strengths that Palin represented. She was conservative and lived a very different lifestyle from the career politicians and bi-coastal elites, who are constantly telling us how to live.

By mocking Palin and what she represented, the media and feminists were collectively slapping the faces of every conservative woman in the country. This outrage is what motivated the  conservative women’s movement to come together, and what I’ve been writing about for over a year now.

This anger motivated countless numbers of bloggers. My friend, Tabitha Hale,  started her blog directly because of Palin. It led Teri Christoph to start Smart Girl Politics. It motivated a number of women who are now running for office.

Palin wasn’t the only factor though. Conservative women, just like conservative men, are angry at the government and our free-spending Congress. Women are just as involved as men in the Tea Party. The policies and activities of the Bush Administration and now the liberals in power are motivating men and women alike to stand up. Perhaps it’s a combination of our “traditional values” and anger that have caused women to be visible.

My dad told me this week, “I’m just as conservative as your mom, but I don’t have time to go to Tea Parties.” Ironically, the traditional values and roles that conservatives have long defended are what free women up to be active in the Tea Party movement. If Congressman Blackburn noticed that Tea Parties are largely female, it’s because there are more housewives on the right. My mom has always been a conservative activist because she had the time. If women control most of the purchasing power in this country, is it surprising that we’re actively protesting the wasteful actions of our government? Tea Parties are a reflection of the masses of Americans waking up to what Congress is doing, not a sudden pink-wash of the right.

Kleinheider, and others like him, should try to do a little research.  Again, this movement didn’t start with Sarah Palin nor will it end with her. My advice to reporters and academics would be to widen your angle beyond Palin, Bachmann and Blackburn. Palin was the catalyst and deserves to be analyze.  It is shortsighted to say that the conservative movement suddenly turned pink. You’re just now noticing us.

Much of the fault lies with academics. As Ronnee Schreiber notes in her book, Righting Feminism, hardly any academic study has been conducted on conservative women…ever. There was a small amount of research done after the failure of the ERA, but they assauged their failure by concluding conservative women are no different than conservative men. Since the 1980s, they’ve assumed that conservative women view politics indentically to men. Since we’re barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, we vote as our husbands and fathers do. They fail to see that conservative women are independently conservative because that’s the political movement they agree with. Since liberal feminists created the field of gender studies and created cushy jobs for themselves, it makes sense that they wouldn’t research areas that could potentially harm the movement and their sources of income.

To be concluded in Part 2.

Next Tuesday, December 2, Tea Party: The Documentary will premiere in DC aptly at the Reagan Center. I plan on attending. Rumor has it that the event is black tie optional, so it looks like another opportunity to pull out a cocktail dress.

The film:

follows the struggles of five grassroots individuals and their transformation from home town rally goers and rally organizers to national activists in the 912 March on Washington. In the process, the film reveals what is at the heart of this nationwide surge of civic engagement – a return to and respect for a Constitutionally limited government, personal responsibility and fiscal restraint at the Federal level.

This week, you can watch a 30 minute sneak peak. A great way to escape family this Thanksgiving or rile up some liberal relatives.