The Heritage Foundation Bloggers Briefing

Rob Bluey, The Director of Online Strategy for The Heritage Foundation, was kind enough to invite me to the weekly Bloggers Briefing held at The Heritage Foundation every Tuesday. Today’s speaker was Representative Mike Pence (R-IN), a leading conservative in the House and the first Member of Congress to have a blog, which can be seen here.

Below are my takes from the event:

1. I met a number of interesting people, including Dan Kotman, Press Secretary for American Solutions and Steve Johnston, Associate Director of New Media for the office of the Republican Whip. I also met bloggers from Think Progress and RedState, and managed to give my card for www.thelobbyist.net to all of these people.

2. Pence spoke and, as always, was excellent (this is the third time since October I have heard him speak in person). He turned down the opportunity to run for the Senate this year, and he said it was because he wanted to lead a “conservative majority” in retaking the House in 2010. When asked if he wanted to run for President in 2012, Pence said of course he did (as he said, “Isn’t that the American Dream?), but that it would depend on the time and circumstances. He also said he was staying because he felt it was his “duty.”

3. The Think Progress blogger- a very brave young man, showing his face and speaking up, I might add- asked Pence about the Citizens United vs. FEC decision by the Supreme Court last week. In short, Pence made two points: first, that “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech” means just that. Secondly, he said he agreed with the great conservative writer George Will, in that transparency was the issue at hand, not who can and cannot have freedom of speech. He said he would have no problem with a requirement that all Members of Congress should have to put received funds on their websites at the end of every day.

One thing Pence avoided answering by sticking to the transparency and freedom arguments was the Think Progress blogger’s second question, which was what did Pence think of the ramifications of the SCOTUS decision regarding international funding of campaigns. Pence made reference to the Democrats having to pay back such funding in the 1990s, said foreign funds should not have influence on our elections…and then never really answered the question any further.

4. I managed to put a plug in for www.rightosphere.com. A CATO blogger sitting next to me immediately began asking me about www.Race42012.com, which he said he enjoyed reading.

5. I asked Pence two questions. The first was would he prefer a Republican majority in the House or a conservative majority? He stated that he believed the new conservative majority would be made up of a new generation of leadership in Washington, DC, but never answered the real question I had, which was the difference between conservatives and Republicans.

The second question was what would a new conservative majority in 2011 push for their first step in transparency. While he never directly answered the question, he did reference negotiating bills in front of the public and a couple of other basic points that are slipping my mind at the moment.

6. Four excellent quotes from Pence:

A. On the expected move by President Obama to try to freeze billions of dollars over three years: “I never met a spending freeze I didn’t like.” Pence was also asked when he had first heard about this freeze proposal, and said it was in December, when Republicans recommended it to President Obama at a jobs summit. 

B. “Any gesture at fiscal sanity would be welcome.” Pence said , however, that Republicans would compare that proposed freeze to the laundry list of expected spending programs in tomorrow’s State of the Union speech. 

C. “This isn’t anymore about debates about actuarial perfection – this is about what kind of country we are.” Possibly the best quote of his 50-minute presentation (including Q & A). Pence made the point that the bailout in 2008, the stimulus from 2009, the takeover of the private industry etc. by the government was about who we are as a country regarding the role and size of government, as well as regarding personal responsibility. Regarding the latter, Pence was almost entirely directing his comments at Wall Street.

D. Paraphrased: “Two things have happened [since I came to Washington in 2000]. My opinion of national government has gone down and my opinion of the American people has gone up.”

*Originally posted at THE LOBBYIST.