The political advocacy group Americans for Prosperity is holding its “Defending the American Dream Summit” in Columbus, Ohio this weekend. According to AFP President Tim Phillips, this year’s gathering attracted more than 3,600 activists from across the country.
Jeb Bush was the first candidate to speak; his name generated only a smattering of applause the first time Phillips mentioned it. The crowd stood and applauded, and seemed to warm to Bush after stepped away from the podium and started speaking without notes.
Bush took some implied swipes at Donald Trump and other candidates who haven’t served in elected office before, stating “talking is great, but doing things means a lot more” and how he’s received “practical, on-the-job experience.”
He talked about vetoing Republican spending projects as well as Democrat ones while he was govenror. He called for the return of a Constitutionally-sound line-item veto and garnered his loudest applause for denouncing Obama’s ever-expanding use of executive orders.
“You should demand competency,” Bush said. “It’s not always about ideology, although I think a limited government philosophy is important. Our government today is sheer incompetence.”
He hit a populist note here and there, contending that under his administration, “the great middle that defines this country would finally get a pay raise for the first time in fifteen years.”
He closed by focusing on national security, distancing himself from his brother’s administration in some statements, praising it in others.
“We need to rebuild our military,” Bush said. “We need to respect our veterans. We need to rebuild our counterintelligence and our intelligence capabilities. There should be no gap with the alliances that have kept us safe, starting with Israel but all across the world. This country has to be a friend to our friends, and our enemies have to twitch a little bit.”
He continued, “You don’t send troops in harm’s way at the drop of a hat, but you tell people, ‘we’ve got your back.’ The world is a lot more dangerous today than the day Barack Obama got elected president.”
Anecdotally, the AFP attendees are pretty enthusiastic about Donald Trump. In some areas, the AFP agenda aligns well with Trump – right to work, curtailing the EPA, lower taxes – and some areas it doesn’t – eminent domain and immigration. (After the 2014 midterms, AFP was not clamoring for action on the immigration issue.)
Interestingly, the protesters outside – lots of union members, a smattering of Bernie Sanders fans, and a few Guy-Fawkes-mask-wearing malcontents – brought their giant paper-mache Scott Walker puppet (which really doesn’t look like the governor much at all; it looks more like Alfalfa from the Little Rascals). Walker is not attending the conference.
Beware Supreme Court Justice Alfalfa!