CPAC Opens As the Trump Bulldozer Does What All Conservatives Have Been Begging For for the Past Half-Century

With Stacy McCain at the Belvedere

On the day before CPAC's opening day, who did I run into at the lobby bar, aka The Belvedere, but ol' pal and fellow blogger Stacy McCain? Thanks to his blog, The Other McCain (a reference to John McCain — no relation of his, I am told — back in the days when the Arizona senator was seeking the presidency during the first decade of the 21st century), he has an excellent description of the day at the Gaylord Hotel in National Harbor (check out paragraph two, between the hotel photo and the Donut Operator photo). As Stacy wrote, we spent our cocktail hour discussing the early days of blogging — remember Blogger Row?! — and trying to figure out what had happened to all our soulmates in the past two decades.

We first met at CPAC in either 2006 or 2007, during the G.W. Bush presidency, when the Global War on Terror was still the big thing for conservatives, and doesn’t that seem like a million years ago? 

[Erik Svane] and I talked about the old times, when “blogging” was still the New Thing, before social media, TikTok, YouTube and other such developments had revolutionized the information landscape. It was at CPAC 2007 (then held at the Omni Shoreham hotel in D.C.) that I first met Andrew Breitbart, and it’s stunning to think that it’s been nearly 13 years since Andrew died suddenly of a heart attack.

Back in the day, Stacy was clean-shaven; don't tell him this, but now, behind his back, I call him General Robert E Lee…

Mike Lindell, author of "From Crack Addict to CEO"