Liveblogging Johnny Mac at CPAC

John McCain is about to hit the stage and I’m watching it on Fox. There’s some chit chat but, behind that, I could definitely hear booing and what appeared to be John McCain hitting the stage.

Word is, booing is strictly verboten.

Word is that Tom Coburn is going to give the introduction. That’s good from a “less government spending” matter, but let us remember that Presidents have very little control over government spending. They propose budgets but, and this is something we learned in civics class back in 5th Grade, Congress writes and passes those budgets. McCain can be against government spending all he wants, but from the White House all he can really do is veto every spending bill he sees, thus ticking off the folks he’s spent quite a few years building deep relationships with. I think you have to be incredibly naive to expect that.

MIchelle Malkin is on the scene and liveblogging also.

Updates follow:

15:08 – Yak yak yak yak yak. Y’know, I don’t care what Amanda Carpenter and David Corn have to say about this. Just let me hear Coburn. Okay, to heck with this, I”m going to the web feed from Fox.

15:11 – According to the speaker (who I’m afraid I don’t immediately recognize That was George Allen. Man, he looks different!), there will “be no bridges to nowhere” in a McCain presidency. He says McCain will “relish vetoing that wasteful spending”. Oh yeah? How. Exactly.

Conservatives are “essential teammates in our cause”. Meh…I have no evidence that this is so. Perhaps Johnny Mac could have shown up at the vote yesterday and given us some tangible proof of that.

15:14 – Okay, so by reading out the previous speaker and Coburn, the obvious message is that he’ll hold back government spending.

Heh. This is interesting. Coburn is now saying that the “looming entitlements” is a greater threat to us than Islamism. Wonder how that’s going to play compared to the explicit reason that Mitt Romney just left

“McCain’s blatant disregard for his own personal political safety”. Uh…what? His “maverick” role was exactly executed to safeguard his own political safety. Who could run against a Senator who could preach that he would “reach across the aisle” and is the darling of the national media? He’s never been threatened from the right, ever. His “maverick” turn ensured that he would never be threatened from the left. And so he has not.

15:18 – Coburn says that McCain’s health care plan is “the most conservative” put forth by any candidate. Does that include his prescription drug reimportation plan that would lean on a socialist government to force our own prices lower artificially? I’d have to see how that works.

Oh, and he’s strong on judges, too. Okay, that’s a partial win. No mention of the Gang of 14 that is still holding up qualified conservative judges. Maybe he will nominate conservative judges. If he does, how does he circumvent the strategy that he built himself to stall them?

15:22 – Coburn just said he’d debate anyone who believes that voting for anyone but McCain is a good choice for conservatives. Okay, sir. I’ll take that deal. I”m serious. let’s set it up. I want that debate whenever you want to have it.

15:23 – Stop! Maverick time! With lots of applause. A couple scattered boos. Was there some hall-packing? I wonder.

Mary Katharine ham says there were definitely some, but the speech was generally well-received.

15:24 – Ouch that was awkward. he tried to joke his way out of why he wasn’t at CPAC last year. He says it was not meant as an insult. That seems to be different from what the word in his campaign was at the time, though.

15:26 – He can’t win without conservatives. Okay, Senator. I’m listening. Prove me wrong.

15:27 – Oh, that was nice. Basically he said that he wants us to consider that he has fought as hard for issues where we agree as he has against us on issues where we disagree. My problem is that the issues weren’t “occasional” as he says. But, he says, if not he at least thanks us for letting him make his case. That shrug was probably meant to be friendly and conciliatory. It looked just a bit arrogant. I’m willing to say that I’m more prone to think it was arrogant, but I can see how it might be seen as I think he meant it.

15:30 – “a few of my positions”. Well, I suppose he has to try to minimize just how many positions were not conservative. That gambit will probably work since the Democrats are certainly not going to try to appeal to conservatives (though they really should).

15:32 – That’s a strong list of conservative positions for which he’s fought. Mentioning the Bush tax cuts is a mistake unless he explains why he opposed them on class warfare grounds. He will need to do that at some point because it will come up again.

15:34 – Oh wow. He just walked headfirst into the illegal immigration minefield, stood there, and accepted the boos. That was truly powerful.

Okay, Senator. You have my attention.

He says that he tried his strategy and it failed. So now he’s willing to try the strategy that his opponents want, which he called “principled” and holding to “the rule of law”.

He says that he’s not in the habit of “making promises to my country that I do not attempt to keep”. I’m not entirely convinced. I believe that politics still matters to him very much. I still want to see action before the election before I’m willing to believe that he’s had a Come to Jesus moment. He does have that opportunity.

15:38 – Now we’re on the war. I think I can pretty much tune out here. he’s not likely to say anything I haven’t already heard and considered. Come on, Senator, let’s talk about “big things”. Like the First Amendment. Like that huge proposed gas tax and buying into the AGW hysteria. Like hanging our interrogators out to dry. Like giving terrorists civil rights. Can we talk about those?

15:39 – “I will not sign any bill with earmarks in it”. Well, okay. He missed yesterday’s vote to kill a $44 billion cash giveaway. We’ll have to see.

15:41 – Shorter McCain: Read my lips. No new taxes.

More individual freedom. Oh, with judges. Not with, say, being able to run a campaign commercial the night before an election. Or running your business free of government nannying.

15:43 – Okay, we got it on Iraq. No surprises. What about Iran? North Korea? Russia? China?

Ah…here comes Iran. He won’t tolerate an Iran that wants to destroy Israel and pursues nuclear weapons.

15:47 – Shorter McCain: I love liberty. Don’t sweat our differences. They’re no big deal. Look where we agree!

15:48 – Shorter McCain: I love America. If I made mistakes, it’s because I love her a lot. Vote for me, please?

Well, it was a fairly strong speech. It didn’t say a lot that was new, but at least he did begin to acknowledge that he’s screwed the pooch a bunch of times. There will need a lot more of that if he really wants conservative support. There are a lot of serious differences between Johnny Mac and conservatism and if he intends to get our support, he’s going to have to move closer to us. One of the ways to do that is to be open and honest about how he’s going to repair the damage he’s done to conservatism.

I’m still not going to vote for him nor will I recommend that anyone else vote for him. But at least I’ll listen to him.

Here’s the transcript.