CPAC 2013 Roundup

What you missed at CPAC on Thursday: the stardom of Rand Paul, Utah Sen. Mike Lee tells a lengthy and important story about pudding, and I lost a little piece of my soul after listening to Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert try to make an argument.

• And so we begin. Allen West makes his appearance, mostly to talk about how evil liberals are. He does make them sound pretty bad.
• Chris Christie is still not invited. Or liked. Or even welcome in the Republican Party, if the conference chairman had his way on it.
• Marco Rubio takes a page from the Mitt Romney playbook. Not sure how that's going to work out for him.
• The Republican Party needs to change, except it doesn't. No, I'm not able to parse that out either, and neither can they. That's the problem.
• Stand With Rand! He's the true star of the first day, no question. And yeah, it's a little creepy.
• Rand Paul proposes we eliminate the Department of Education. This is one of those things that's a freebie applause line among Republicans, and no, I don't know why it's so often singled out, but it harkens all the way back to conservative fury with the federal government's role in ending school segregation. Hmm, so maybe we do know why after all.
• Utah Sen. Mike Lee's story about rancid pudding. Yes, you'll want to read that one.
• Conservatism has no readily identifiable policy on American wars, but all agree that Iran is next. Featuring leading foreign policy lights Louie Gohmert and Steve King.
• "Help me applaud diversity!", the speaker says in introducing (black) South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott. Gawd, really? Really? See, this is why people don't like you.
• Social conservatism may not be long for this world. Even young conservatives aren't fans, and even the party stalwarts are treading on thinner ice when they talk about it.

I'll be posting from CPAC again today, God help us all, and we'll have the rest of the Daily Kos team covering the chaos from their much, much cushier digs away from all of this. And yes, I think I'm bitter about that.