CPAC Update: The Ann Coulter Speech

08 Feb, 2008 by John Hawkins

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Ann Coulter was not officially speaking at CPAC, but the YAF brought her in as a speaker. You had to get tickets in advance to get in and it was a hot ticket to have. She was speaking in a medium sized room and I kid you not, the line to get in stretched across three floors. There’s no way at least 75% of those people got in but thankfully, I got in on a media pass.

I grabbed some YAF guy and asked to get ahead of the line and he asked who I was with. I said Right Wing News, and no flicker of recognition crossed his face as he walked off to check about getting me to the head of the line — then, I had a thought, “I’m with Townhall!” Turns out they were sponsoring the event, so I was in there early and close to the front. Thank God for media passes.

Ann gave about a 25 minute speech and then answered questions for another 25 minutes. She did a little Hillary bashing, but she spent the majority of the speech beating John McCain’s brains in. However, she did at least say that she would vote for McCain if……..Mitt Romney was his veep. Otherwise, she says she’s voting for Hillary. Believe it or not, Ann seemed to be trying to make a serious case that Hillary would be better on foreign policy than McCain — which is, although I love Ann — absolutely nuts.

Did she say anything super controversial? Nothing too over-the-top –by Ann’s standards — although she did compare McCain to Hitler at one point — except she said Hitler had better tax policy.

The audience ate her up with a spoon although in a Q&A segment, you got a sense that at least part of the audience realized that she really wasn’t joking about not supporting McCain in 2008 and it made them a little nervous.

PS: I have the whole thing on tape. There will be a video mash-up on Monday.