I arrived at Reagan National Airport around 5pm today and made my way over to the hotel shuttle area. The Marriott shuttle arrived about 20 minutes later. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize that there are three different Marriott brand hotels right next to the airport.
First, I jumped off the shuttle at the Courtyard Marriott. To tell the truth, I was a little disappointed as the hotel seemed a bit dirty and small for a conference of any size. Luckily, they told me I was at the wrong hotel. I hopped another shuttle and within minutes was at The Crystal City Gateway Marriott. (There’s another one down the street too… regular Marriott, I guess it’s called.)
First impressions – Americans for Prosperity is putting on quite a show from everything I’ve seen so far. Very impressive. The hotel is excellent, the room they’ve put me up in is very nice. I might even use the word swanky. 🙂
After unpacking and a quick shower I make my way downstairs. I’m on the 9th floor of a fairly tall hotel… goes at least to 15 or 20 stories.
I walk past a flat screen television on CNBC. Holy crap… the stock market dropped another 700 points while I was on the plane?
The blogger registration was easy and they set me up with drink tickets and a very nice padfolio. And of course, my media credentials that will allow me access into the special “bloggers row” room. There is a rumor of free snacks and beverages — but I’ll find out more about that tomorrow.
Tomorrow’s agenda starts off with some very interesting online training courses. There’s a big focus on “new media” here and I’m liking it a lot.
There is also a planned rally at Capitol Hill around 2:30pm and then a “Tribute to Ronald Reagan” dinner at 7:00pm. Of the speakers slated to address the dinner, I’m most excited to hear from George Will and David Koch. You’ll remember Koch as the Libertarian Party’s 1980 Vice-Presidential candidate. He’s also a founder of Americans for Prosperity and is the current Chairman of the AFP Foundation.
Saturday is more of the same, with some additional great speakers. John Stossell, Fred Barnes, and Grover Norquist are of particular interest. Also, I would very much like to hear what John Fund and Steve Moore of the Wall Street Journal have to say about the current credit market implosion that’s going on right now.
I will attempt to score an interview or two while I’m here. And hopefully I can get some good photos as well.
Ok, enough for right now. Off to mingle and find something to eat.
BTW,
What is a Coketopus?
Ive heard of a Kochwhore, but not a Kochtopus.
Rent seeking refers to seeking government-granted privilege wealth. That is what the Koch’s do. I’m not being over-the-top.
Whoops. Rent Seeking as it concerns wealth,rather than actual rent,haha. My bad.
GE–you should drop the over-the-top rhetoric and instead endorse alliance building and coalition-campaigns to educate voters about liberty.
You either apparently don’t know what “rent-seeking” means, or else you’ve turned to the dark side.
And it is criminal, at least from a moral perspective, by its very nature.
No, I’ll decline the state’s psychotropic drugs. Ask Ross if he’d like some. They make the taste of government boots easier on the buds.
Waht the hell is wrong with rent-seeking profits?
As for being a criminal–show me.
Seriously GE,take some Ridilin.
Koch is concerned with one thing: carrying himself toward rent-seeking profits. He is a criminal who should be hanged, not “worked with.”
GE,
CATO and Koch WERENT pro-fed years ago, unless my recollection is failing me.
Nonetheless–they are still libertarian leaning organziations that should be worked with as far as they can carry us towards liberty.
Trent – CATO and Koch are pro-Fed. There was never going to be any reconciliation between the Kochtopus, funded by government welfare grants; and Rothbard. The evil Ben Bernanke was a keynote speaker at a recent Stato event.
Yea,that’s why they have elected leaders in major positions–for good or for bad. In my experience, most people they support are pro-liberty, but not as pro-liberty as you would hope.
Per Rockwell and company, Koch funded organizations are full of cosmotarians and compromisers.
What exactly is the conference you’re at? And what blog are you there for?
GE, I don’t really keep up with LewRockwell.com… But I do read the WSJ. My point was that this crowd will not embrace them if they’re here to promote heavily government intervention in anything.
So I suspect that’s not what they’re here for.
“David Koch (pronounced like “Cokeâ€)”
Lol, good to know. I’ve been mentally misreading that for some time.
Steve,
Whether or not you perfectly agree with CATO–it has turned on many people to libertarianism. I only wish Koch and Rothbard would’ve gotten along. Maybe right now the libertarian movement would have a number of truly principled libertarian organizations,funded by billions.
G.E. agree totally. Grover Norquist has a decent track record on taxation, but not on much else. Stephen Moore, and his “Club for Growth” is awful,
and AFP is not a fundamentally principled libertarian organization, but does do a decent job of working toward defeating “in the wrong direction” or passing “in the right direction” legislation.
David Koch (pronounced like “Coke”) is the funding machine behind STATO, er CATO, which has been going down the toilet for at least 15 years.
Please GE, this is not going to be a neocon base. It’ll mostly be a “New Right” base–full of people who would oppose the bailout.
David Koch is part of the “Kochtopus” which is hated and maligned by the Rockwellians. David and Charles Koch seem like decent people to me though. They support libertarian organizations like CATO, Reason, IHS, etc.
But the Koch brothers and Rothbard had significant disagreements over strategy and politics.
Stossel is the only guy worth a damn there, but they should all be interesting to hear from. If you’re not expecting demands for more socialism, Austin, then be prepared to be surprised.
Austin – Do you read the WSJ??? Apparently not.
Austin – There are a few thousand articles on the subject at LewRockwell.com
The bailout is not a popular thing here. Hard to imagine them coming out for more govt involvement in anything.
btw, I’m commenting with my iPhone. The biggest screwup so far is a lack of east access to free wifi. They had something working this am. But it crashed and I can’t get online now.
The WhoreStreetJournal neocons will undoubtedly demand more socialism to prop up their trust funds.
To the gallows with them.
It’s multi-multi-billionaire David Koch. What is Lew Rockwell’s beef with him?
I said he was of interest… Meaning I’d heard of him before 😉
Lots of random lower level officeholders and activists here. Interesting mix of folks.
Is this the same Koch the Lew Rockwell folks don’t like? I didn’t know AFP was a Koch project.
Fred Barnes . . . George Will??? Barnes has NEVER in his life said a positive word about libertarians or libertarianism. George Will, I suppose tolerates libertarians.
I suppose this is a summit for an airing of a wide view of what the American dream is, and how it ought to be defended. Certainly though, judging from the list of names cited, liberty is not the main vehicle to defend it, nor is the main “dream” of Americans.
That would be the end of the “independent” part. It can be KPR rather than IPR.
For IPR!
Ask Koch for a grant.
Try to get in an interview with Koch about his third-party days.