Gathering for three days last week, from Thursday to Saturday, was the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference.
Led by Lowman Henry, chairman and CEO of the Lincoln Institute of Public Opinion Research foundation based in the state capital of Harrisburg, and David Taylor, president and CEO of the longtime Pennsylvania Manufacturers’ Association, and organized by the tireless efforts of the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference’s Scott and Kelly Davis, the annual gathering this year featured hundreds of decidedly serious conservative activists from across the state.
The speakers were a star-studded who’s who of conservative activists and commentators.
Friday’s “Liberty Dinner” featured “special guest speaker” and former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and “featured speaker” Dinesh D’Souza. Other speakers included commentator Mary Katharine Ham, Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts, GOP U.S. Senate nominee David McCormick, U.S. Reps. Scott Perry and Dan Meuser, and state Treasurer Stacy Garrity, plus syndicated radio’s Rose Somma Tennent, host of the podcast Rose Unplugged; Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots; Grove City College political science professor, historian, Reagan biographer, and American Spectator editor Paul Kengor; Newsmax White House correspondent John Gizzi; and Colin Hanna, president of the nonprofit Let Freedom Ring.
There were more, including, yes, yours truly — in my case, as a panelist with Gizzi, Hanna, and Kengor on a panel to discuss the “State of the Conservative Movement.”
Suffice to say that, gazing out at the hundreds filling the ballroom of the local Penn Harris Hotel in suburban Harrisburg, the state of the conservative movement in Pennsylvania is very good.
The gathering, begun in 1989 by Frederick W. Anton III, then-president of the Pennsylvania Manufacturers’ Association, became a Pennsylvania version of the national Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) sponsored by the American Conservative Union.
Over the ensuing years, the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference has grown — and grown. It attracted as its first speaker former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, then other speakers such as commentator Ann Coulter, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, pollster and former Trump White House counsel Kellyanne Conway, the Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro, Fox host Jesse Watters, and former Reps. Jason Chaffetz of Utah and Trey Gowdy of South Carolina.
Televised statewide on PCN, the state version of CSPAN, the conference was unsurprisingly filled with enthusiastic supporters of former President Donald Trump.
Which, not to put too fine a point on it, will play a considerable role in the battle to carry Pennsylvania for Trump, McCormick, Perry, Meuser, and others up and down the GOP ticket.
Considering the enthusiastic popularity of Trump, my historical memory recalls the election of 1980. Republicans had not held control of the United States Senate since 1954 — a full 26 years. Discouraged state parties across the country in 1980 were unable to enlist those considered their party’s rising stars to run for U.S. Senate seats — and so were reduced to their party’s B- or C-list candidates.
To the shock of many, that November, GOP presidential nominee Ronald Reagan, who party Establishment types saw as a sure loser, led a massive 44-state landslide. The next morning, those B- and C-list Senate nominees woke up as U.S. senators-elect, taking a GOP Senate majority. And in Pennsylvania, Reagan not only won the state in an upset; he carried Arlen Specter, the GOP Senate nominee and previous loser of races for mayor of Philadelphia, district attorney, senator, and governor, into the U.S. Senate.
Can something along these lines happen again, with Trump leading the way? Based on what I saw the last few days of last week, a seriously enthusiastic gathering of hundreds of Pennsylvania conservative activists suggests that the state is indeed very much in play. If engaged with this energy, from one end of this very big state to another, it could indeed mean just that: electing not only Trump but McCormick and others down the line on the GOP ticket.
Is the election already over? Of course not. There are eight months to go, and who knows what events will unfold between now and the time Pennsylvanians and everyone else troops into their polling place (or votes ahead by mail!).
But if the PLC is any indication, Pennsylvania’s conservative activists are engaged, energized, and ready to go.
Stay tuned.
via spectator