“If you are going through hell, keep going.” ~ Winston Churchill
*KABOOOM!* *BAMMM!!* *CRACK-BABOOOOMM!*
The sound was incredible, the view was as well as a myriad of colors and flashes of light drizzled across the sky as I left a prescreening of Undefeated and was back on the freeway headed towards home. It is almost as if Disneyland was in cahoots with the showing of the film as they lit off their nightly fireworks display heading towards this July 4th weekend. I was one of a handful of bloggers invited to the showing… why, I don’t know. (Obviously not because of my looks.) But I wanted to show support for such a nice offer and decided to go and support the showing. I went with some reservations about Sarah, “why?” you might ask. Well, after hearing some input at a lecture by Hugh Hewitt, and listening to talk radio a bit, many of these conservative pundits are very weary of Mrs. Palin running because they feel she cannot win like a Romney or Pawlenty can. Mind you, they have some valid points in some respect, but I am [was] teetering on the precipice that Dennis Prager has already committed to. That is, he [now I] am not concerned about guaranteeing a win with a nominal Republican. He, as am I, are more concerned with turning the country back in a big way from the jaunt to the left that has been happening since the Dems took control of congress.
I was surprised to see – not because they wouldn’t support Palin, but because I wasn’t expecting to see them in the documentary – Andrew Breitbart, Tammy Bruce, and Mark Levin in the movie. Because of their background and insight into matters I respect their commentary like I do other conservative pundits. May I say, the points they were making (especially Breitbart) resonated with me. They resonated with me in a big way.
So before talking too much more about the film, I want to give the readers a bit more about the day, only because I was very early to the area to beat any traffic. I went to a restaurant across from the theaters to have a couple of beers and to get something in the gut. I sat in the outdoor section of the bar and really hadn’t planned on talking to anyone and was getting ready to pull out my Mamet book and get a few chapters under my belt with the time left before the show. (By the way, when some hear “a few chapters” they think this refers to a lot of pages. David Mamet’s chapters are short and very digestible… so I wanted to make sure people know this was no big feat.) A gentleman at the bar (Jim) started to smoke. So he politely asked if it was going to bother me and pointed out that the wind was working against me. So I moved to the other side of him, which started the conversation off. (Interaction with real – live people is far more preferred than burying one’s nose in a book, as much as I love doing this. We got to talking about various topics, one being his loss of his businesses after 9/11. He mentioned he was hitting record sales, owned three car dealerships, and then… after those planes spliced through those buildings killing many inside, we often forget that they also killed something else. The livelihood of many Americans the country over. I am not a small business owner, never have been, probably never will be. I ma one of those guys a small business owner wants working for him. So I am not aware of the impact outside of stories told via media, but once in a while you meet flesh-and-blood that has a story that touches you in a more personable way. Obviously Jim has moved on and grown and learned from his life experiences. It was a pleasure to meet a guy who is a fellow Republican – maybe not because he is as politically adept as us bloggers (*pat, pat, pat*), but deep down I think he knows that the government can get “too big to fail.”
I think the country is starting to feel this way, that the rate and breadth of growth in government is out of hand. It’s no way to run a business, or a household for that matter; which means it is no way to run a country. I broke off conversation with Jim to head over and see if there was a line at all, and it started to form. There were a couple of lively ladies up front with Palin jerseys on, one was a fellow blogger. The leader of and other supporters of the Beverly Hills Tea Party chapter (see quick question to the right). She, as well as others were there to support this release and unite in some sense for the common bond she mentions in her response that all who were there could all agree. The Tea Party reps I spoke to did not endorse Palin officially (this is not in their purview to do as you will hear further down below), but privately they leaned towards her running.
I met a young man who is not the President of the Young Republicans Club at the University of California Irvine. He talked about how when the Democrats and Republicans throw events on campus they have big turnouts. I hope the best for Nick and look forward to speaking with him again.
And finally, I interviewed Marc Harris who is a blogger from BigGovernment.com and the leader of his areas Tea Party as well. To break the ice as well as start a nationwide survey of a poll truly I asked a question of everyone that was submitted to me by Every Day Reggie (his Twitter account feed can be found to the right). This was the answer wanted, and Marc gave it!
Mark was a nice guy, down to earth, good sense of humor, with a lovely lady to boot. Mark makes clear what the Tea Party is geared towards doing, and that is hold the candidates feet to the fire. The base wants to hone these politicians to stand by their core principles. This is the gist of what Marc is getting at. I end with another question submitted by Reggie.
All in all I think I would like to see a Palin/West ticket. This is what I see the base starting to settle on, especially after the release (July 15th) of this movie, which I highly, highly recommend.