A tale of two political conferences

Many analysts have spent the last two years discounting the Tea Party. First, most assumed that the gimmicky nature of its identity would cause the movement to lose cohesion after the first Tax Day rallies in 2009. When it grew in strength for Independence Day protests, and then got gale-force tailwinds during the ObamaCare debate, the commentariat insisted that ad-hoc grassroots movements are historically short-lived, and that the Tea Party would be no exception. After the midterm election switched 63 seats in the House, and six in the Senate — the largest midterm shift in 72 years — many again predicted the death of the Tea Party movement, this time as a supposed victim of the success few had predicted.  

If this past weekend in Minneapolis gives any indication, the analysts are in no danger of losing their perfect track record of spot-on predictions. Americans for Prosperity conducted its fourth annual RightOnline conference, which gathers grassroots conservatives from across the nation to teach them to organize and conduct effective activism. As usual, speakers included presidential hopefuls, conservative journalists and opinion leaders, and organizers, and breakout sessions covered topics from podcasting to local recruiting.

The 2010 version in Las Vegas had been considered the pinnacle for RightOnline. The conference took place four months before the midterm elections, in arguably the most popular tourist destination in America. Eleven hundred attendees came from 37 states to attend AFP’s annual event at the supposed peak of Tea Party enthusiasm, and was considered at the time a rousing success.

In contrast, the off-year RightOnline conference in Minneapolis this weekend attracted 1,655 attendees, according to AFP’s Erik Telford, from 42 states and the District of Columbia. An additional 10,000 (or more) watched the general session live online. That’s a 50% increase in attendance alone, and, with all due respect to my own metropolitan area, it’s doubtful that one could attribute the explosion in popularity to the ready availability of lutefisk.

Unlike previous conferences and other grassroots get-togethers or Tea Party events, this gathering had less of an anti-Establishment feel. Speakers, such as my friend and former employer Michelle Malkin, gave qualified praise to the Republican Party for meeting their commitments to the Tea Party in at least an incremental manner, and counseled patience. GOP presidential hopeful Tim Pawlenty, who has not had the same kind of grassroots appeal as Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain (both of whom also spoke), still received a warm greeting from the crowd. The toughest challenge to the GOP establishment came, unsurprisingly, from Andrew Breitbart, in a much-anticipated keynote address in which he briefly but pointedly criticized Republican leadership. "If you can’t sell freedom and liberty," Breitbart said to the delight of the crowd, "you suck.

Comparison Essay Topics | 100 Essay Topics

Political Topics

Political issues are fantastic topics for comparison essays. There’s a reason Congress votes “Yay” or “Nay” on bills — there are two sides to any issue. Here are some specific ideas:

Choose a bill that has been in the news recently. Compare and contrast the current law with the changes that would be made if the bill was passed. Compare and contrast two political parties: Democrats vs. Republicans, Libertarian vs. Republicans, Green vs. Democrat, or other third-parties. Discuss two candidates in an upcoming election. Compare and contrast their positions on important ballot issues. Literary Topics

This one is all about your English teacher. Choose a literary subject for your comparison essay, such as:

Choose two books with similar themes. Compare and contrast how the author expresses these themes. For example: Dystopian novels – 1984 by Don Delillo. Compare and contrast two different poetic structures Compare and contrast the lives of two writers from a similar time period Historical Topics

History is a great topic for a comparison essay; much of what has happened throughout history has represented two sides of the same history.