Notes from the GOP Red State Summer Dinner

Update: I added a note at the bottom about the 2010 Governor’s race that I inadvertantly omitted.

The state Republicans had a big weekend with two events, the Red State Summer Dinner on Friday and their State Executive Committee meeting on Saturday.

“Over 575 people” (according to state party chair Mike Hubbard) attended the Friday night dinner at the downtown Birmingham Sheraton where presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (R – Arizona) was the featured guest.

Some notes…

• John McCain and I were about to pass in opposite directions when he saw my media badge and veered toward me. I told him I was looking forward to hearing him and he said, “Don’t fall asleep.” Meaning, I took it, that I would regret if I missed hearing what he was going to say.
• Sen. McCain’s aide was talking to me in the back of the room when I heard Mike Hubbard mention Sen. Charles Bishop (who attacked Democratic Sen. Lowell Barron on the Senate floor). Enthusiastic applause followed, and I was a bit surprised to see many in attendance rise to a standing ovation. Dan at Between the Links estimated roughly that as many as 80% were applauding. I was distracted by my conversation and only did a quick scan, but I estimate that perhaps one-third of the people in attendance rose to their feet to applaud.
• State Party Chair Mike Hubbard announced an upcoming fundraising campaign for the state party called Campaign 2010 (the title echoing that of Gov. Bob Riley’s platform, Plan 2010) which would be “the most aggressive, and I think most successful” fundraising campaign yet for the party. “We don’t have to match the Democrats dollar for dollar because we are right on the issues, but you can’t go into a fight against a machete armed with a pocketknife and expect to win.”

  “My goal is that we [the GOP] take the [Alabama] legislature in 2010 for the first time since Reconstruction.”

• Hubbard also added that Gov. Riley was in France with a multi-state delegation trying to land some jobs for the state, saying, “Governor Bob Riley is the most prolific creator of jobs Alabama has ever had.”
• I was glad for the opportunity to have a nice conversation with AP reporter Phillip Rawls, whose story on McCain’s speech can be found here. He has been keeping us informed on Alabama politics for well over two decades.
• FWIW, Sen. John McCain did not stand behind a podium but paced back and forth as he spoke, rarely glancing at the lectern.
• McCain said that the reason the GOP lost the last election was not the Iraq War, in his opinion. It was because of spending. “We presided over the biggest increase in spending since the Great Society [from Lyndon Johnson's administration].” The “tipping point” was the “Bridge to Nowhere,” the appropriation for $233 million “to build a bridge in Alaska to a village of 50 people.”
• More from McCain:
  “I’ll veto every pork barrel spending bill and make the authors’ famous. You will know their names. You will know their names.

  “We have to secure our borders. That is our first and foremost responsibility.

  “Is the status quo anything but de facto amnesty? Is the status quo anything but silent amnesty?

  “I respect people who disagree with me and the President [on immigration proposal].

  “If you have a better proposal [on immigration], tell me. But let us be respectful of the President.

  “I am proud for the way [Bush] is standing up in Iraq. I am proud of his appointments to the Supreme Court and other courts.

  “I would never appoint anyone to a court, any court, unless they have a clear record, a clear record of strict adherence to the Constitution.

  “The war was mismanaged for quite a time. We are where we are today.”

  “It’s disgraceful that the Senate majority leader criticized General Petraeus.

  “The Senate majority leader also said the war was lost. We have to win this war or we’ll be fighting them here.”

  On the subject of what success in Iraq would be: We have to “attain and hold neighborhoods so they can function securely.”

  We are talking about “all the forces of good arrayed against all that is evil, and that is radical Islamist extremism.”

  After 9/11, “every expert said there’d be another attack, and there might be one tomorrow, I can’t guarantee there won’t be one tomorrow. But there hasn’t been one, and the President deserves some credit. If there had been one, he’d share some responsibility.”

• Of the people I spoke to, I didn’t hear anyone, even McCain supporters, say anything other than that McCain was “wrong on immigration.”
• Most legislators I talked to believed and hoped that there would be a special session in the fall, on the issues of ethics, transparency, and the like. (Mike Hubbard told me the next day that there would be a special session.)
• One legislator told me that Democratic Speaker of the House Seth Hammett (Andalusia) “flat-out said at least three times that he’s not running” for the House again. Many legislators said they had heard second-hand that Hammett is not running.
• In talking with legislators about 2010 elections, I found widespread consensus among them that Democratic Lt. Governor Jim Folsom had the inside track for the Governor’s office. At least a couple told me that the “[GOP] bench is thin, right now.”
• I heard some more election chatter… more on that later as we are preparing to update the Alabama Line.