The American Conservative Union just announced that Mitt Romney will address this year's Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).  Rep. Paul Ryan was already on the list of announced speakers, as are up-and-coming Republicans such as Senators Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Tim Scott, and Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin.  

The other finalists from the 2012 presidential race, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich, will also deliver speeches, although it currently appears that Rand will have to handle things for the Paul family.  Which means there probably won't be as much disruptive shouting from the peanut gallery.  Sometimes the Ron Paul crowd was annoying, but they made for a lively conference, and it was fun to scowl at them.

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Newt Gingrich tees off on the "consultant-centric" model of campaigning, which he describes as campaigns in which the high-priced consultants call all the shots, moving the candidate around like a king on a chess board.  He wants candidates who think for themselves, employing consultants as "advisers and implementers."  And there's one particular consultant he's had just about enough of:

I feel compelled to write this because of Karl Rove’s recent assertions and my very unsettling round table with Stuart Stevens on ABC’s This Week this past Sunday... I am unalterably opposed to a bunch of billionaires financing a boss to pick candidates in 50 states.  This is the opposite of the Republican tradition of freedom and grassroots small town conservatism.  No one person is smart enough nor do they have the moral right to buy nominations across the country.  That is the system of Tammany Hall and the Chicago machine.  It should be repugnant to every conservative and every Republican.

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Robert Costa at "National Review" reports:

Former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney will appear at the Conservative Political Action Conference next month, according to two sources familiar with the event’s itinerary. Romney’s speech, which will be delivered at the Gaylord National hotel in Prince George’s County, Md., marks the former Massachusetts governor’s return to the political scene.

After he lost the presidential election, Romney decamped to his beachfront home in La Jolla, Calif. But friends say he has become somewhat restless, and he’s eager to contribute to the national debate. Sources say he’ll likely focus on economic and fiscal issues, and that his message will be optimistic.

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 While there is increasing speculation that U.S. Senator Marco Rubio will run for President of the United States in 2016, is it too early for Rubio to start campaigning for the job?  Rubio is already positioning himself for a possible run in several different regards, as he’s stepped up his rhetoric against Obama and the Democrat party, recently toured Israel and the Middle East, and enlisted new consultants to assist him with crafting his messaging and policy.

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Watching the Chuck Hagel drama is a sobering reminder that Republicans still aren't very good at playing hardball politics.  Their strategy is to use the Hagel nomination as soapbox to focus attention on a worthy, but unrelated, issue - namely the Benghazi debacle.  The GOP Senate leadership doesn't think it has the votes to actually sink Hagel, even though many of them do have deep and legitimate concerns about his fitness for office.  The Democrats hold a majority, and their partisan loyalty to Obama is rigid and absolute; as long as Obama insists on Hagel, they would not be much moved by video of the nominee dancing in the streets with Palestinians while rockets rained down on Israeli civilians, never mind intemperate comments about "Israeli apartheid" at college lectures.

The problem is that Republicans actually say all this in public, giving sound bites to hostile reporters.  They're like a football team that broadcasts its locker-room strategy sessions before each quarter.  John McCain went on "Meet the Press" last weekend and said, using almost these literal words, that Hagel's a lousy nominee, but he's my friend and a former Senate colleague and we know we can't stop him anyway, so we're going to drag this out just to give us some more time to yell about Benghazi.  Then he yelled at David Gregory and asked why he doesn't care about the deaths of four brave Americans.  And when Gregory asked exactly what he thinks Obama is covering up with regard to that bloody debacle, McCain muttered something about sending him a list of questions later.

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In response to Do You Have That Shirt In a Size Medium?:

Mission creep has always been a factor in government growth.  Now we have the Postal Service selling its own clothing.  What's next - fashionable ladies' dresses made out of used Solyndra solar cells?  

In the theme of yesterday's post, "Is Social Media Breeding Monsters?" another one for the vault of weird Facebook tales scrolled across my newsfeed today. Warning, it's a little bit on the 'not safe for work' side:

Jersey Politician ‘Likes’ Big Booty Freaks On Facebook

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In response to USPS to Launch New Clothing Line:

So let me get this straight, 'we' the taxpayer are investing in a new snazzy clothing line for the Postal Service? You know, we are going to have a lot of fun with this once the first designs are released. I wonder if the color 'brown' will be used in the clothing line's color selection?

Who are you wearing? Why USPS, of course.

The cash-strapped agency announced plans on Tuesday to launch a new line of all-weather apparel and accessories sometime next year.

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Professor Bill Jacobson at Legal Insurrection had a must read post this weekend that I felt compelled to draw to everyone's attention.  It brilliantly lays out a great example of how memes and internet culture pervade politics, especially when done intentionally and strategically.  This is a point in a larger picture that I myself have been trying to stress to activists in the movement - it's all about the culture.

There is nothing like Upworthy or BuzzFeed on the right.  The closest we have come is Twitchy, Michelle Malkin’s brilliant website.

Are you surprised that Obama won the youth vote even though his policies are a complete disaster for the young?

We are losing the fight to the lowest of low information voters, who are pushed toward a liberal agenda by very smart and talented people who understand the power of social media in a way we don’t.

So often when I ask readers to follow us on Facebook and Twitter, I’m met with comments about privacy concerns on Facebook and “I don’t do Twitter” type responses.  Fair enough, but at least understand the swarm effect a website like Upworthy can create based on dumbed-down politically-savvy social media interactions, and how that swarm may result in Elizabeth Warren being on the Democratic 2016 ticket if Hillary doesn’t run.

When I read about plans for Republicans planning to narrow the digital divide, I can’t help thinking we are fighting the last war.

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