September 2, 2008
RNC2008: Breakfast with Fred
Redstate.com and Google hosted breakfast with Senator and former Presidential Candidate Fred Thompson this morning.
Senator Thompson gave brief remarks deploring the state of the mainstream media (Palin babies on the front page of the New York Times for example) and their coverage of the Palin family as well as the experience question. The Governor Palin experience factor is a perfect lede for Republicans to make comparisons to Senator Obama's Senate experience. As a veteran of the Senate, Mr Thompson did not give rave reviews to foreign policy or domestic security exposure... saying that it was mostly about deal making and bringing back pork to the home state.
Later the floor was opened for questions.
There was some brief discussion regarding the lack of media coverage of the Ayers, as well as Fred Thompson's new PAC, FredPAC. FredPAC is going to be a PAC to further conservative principles, not necessarily Republican ones though we all hope there will be a lot of overlap.
I would post more meat here, but my audio recording was dreadfully inadequate, and I did not take notes. Dammit. While I'm wallowing in self-pity, allow me to kick myself in the ass for not making business cards.
About 30 bloggers and new media types were in attendance, and I know there will be video on Youtube shortly.
I sat at the table with Flip of Suitably Flip, a blog I've been reading for a while, as well as John Ruberry of Marathon Pundit and Anne Leary of BackyardConservative. They were both from the Chicago area and are up on all the Obama info. We discussed Pa's role in the election, both in the Democratic primary as well as the general. There was also some mention at the table that Obama had a job in a Wall Street firm for a year before leaving it, as well as a stunning lack of character witnesses from Obama's past at the Harvard Law Review, Columbia University and Occidental College. Very strange.
Surprisingly, Anne brought up the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin which led into a brief discussion on the sad state of the Philly print media.
I'll take notes for tomorrow's breakfast, which was supposed to be with Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal. He is quite obviously busy, and won't be available... so there is still some mystery as to tomorrow's guest speaker.
updated: A couple of other breakfast bloggers:
Batesline
Doc's Political Parlor
Booker Rising: Live Blog
Ken Shepard (with Video)
Northstar Liberty
Erick Erickson from Redstate