Posted on 11/15/2004 9:32:12 PM PST by nerdgirl
Sorry to post a vanity...but I haven't found ANY other Freepers yet on the National Review cruise here in the Caribbean...any of you have friends or family present? If so drop me a line, I'd love to meet them. As for the cruise itself, it's been quite fun - there are around 400 mostly rabid Republicans here, plus several of the staff & contributors of National Review and a few other notables like Ed Gillespie, Dick Morris, Michelle Malkin, & Stephen Moore.
Today they gave seminars on how Bush won, and thoughts on who the Repub. candidate might be for 2008. Dick Morris thinks the "only human being in this country" who can beat Hillary - in his view already locked into the nomination - is Condi Rice. Something about how the combination of the single women vote, Hispanic vote, & the black vote - plus strong Republican support would make Condi unbeatable. I don't know if I agree with that entirely, but hey I'm not quite the expert on political campaigns & their viability that Dick is.
Stephen Moore of Club for Growth was AWESOME. Among other things he talked about the need for a flat tax, how the way to actually get the thing passed is to offer taxpayers a choice: either use the existing system, expemptions & all, or the flat tax. All on the panel agreed it was a great idea, Dick calling it "the best idea I've heard in 10 years".
Ramesh Ponnuru is hilarious. Something about the guy's voice combined with his biting sense of humor.
Rich Lowry looks even younger in person. He's also got the entertainly sarcastic sense of humor that you've seen him use to drive people like Susan Estrich to the edge.
Ed Gillespie is a lot more impressive speaking in person than on TV. At first I thought "that guy looks like a clueless dufus" - we're talking he walked into the cruise departure gate in Ft. Lauderdale wearing this big jacket w/ RNC written all over it...he gave an articulate & downright energizing play by play about how the RNC and Karl Rove pulled off the big win. Bottom line? Boots on the ground, all reporting back to precincts & districts, who reported on up the chain to Karl himself. Ed described it to me in our really brief conversation as "like Amay" in structure - everybody overseeing the people below them, with more people below that. They ran one tight, disciplined ship, with over 15 million people being directly contacted about voting on the actual election day by somebody connected with the RNC or Bush/Cheney in one form or another.
Michelle Malkin - well it was a bit of a disappointment as she comes across as this really strong conservative woman on TV - but she was seasick today, so kept her participation in the panel to a bare minimum. It came off that maybe she just didn't have anything to say, when I know that couldn't be the case.
Jonah Goldberg should be showing up tomorrow - but Dick may be leaving, which would be a bummer as I've hoped to meet him, and short of rushing the podium between one of the seminars, there just hasn't been an opportunity yet.
How much was that cruise?
6K for 2 people including hotel the night before in Ft Laud, room w/ a balcony, pull out couch, & 2 twins or king bed - I think the room is like 360 sq ft w/ a relatively big balcony.
We had about 80 people on our first cruise and 45 on the last. We don't charge extra (last one was around $800) and make our income off the group rebate. Of course, we don't have the luminaries you're meeting (except us, of course...heheh).
I think 45 or 80 people would be way better than 400.
We may not have the celebrities but we sure have a lot of fun! Maybe you'll consider going on the next one...
Señor Bob I would definitely consider going on a FR one - to be honest I think it's mainly the recognition of a few names that turns people on so much, not necessarily that they've seen some of them on TV. To meet fellow freepers would be just as satisfying if not moreso! As a community FR beats any online forum I've participated in - so aside from some nice articles from time to time, NRO's got nothing on us :)
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