Report from the 2014 Pennsylvania Leadership Conference

           The 2014 Pennsylvania Leadership Conference, the twenty-fifth since its founding, concluded in Harrisburg today.   

           I attended the PALC for the third time – the first since 2010.  See also my post, Report from the 2010 Pennsylvania Leadership Conference, from April of that year, http://williamcinfici.blogspot.com/2010/04/report-from-2010-pennsylvania.html.  

Attendance at the PALC has increased dramatically since the early days of the conference, which is the Keystone State’s version of the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C. and always attracts first-rate speakers.  There are also far more exhibitors than before, advocating in regard to a diversity of issues.  The PALC is broadcast on the Pennsylvania Cable Network.  

A project of the Pennsylvania Leadership Council, the 2014 PALC (paleadershipconference.org), was sponsored by the Pennsylvania Manufacturers’ Association, the Citizens Alliance of Pennsylvania, the Commonwealth Foundation, Americans for Prosperity-PA, Corbett for Governor/Republican Party of PA, Armstrong/Indiana Patriots and Action of PA, and co-sponsored by numerous conservative organizations.  I was only able to attend part of the Saturday sessions, which are all worth reporting here.

Columnist and former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell observed how the first institutions that are targets for destruction by totalitarian regimes are the family and the church, as these are their main obstacles to control.  He explained eloquently how focusing on religious liberty does not in conflict with economic concerns because religious freedom is fundamental to all freedoms, including economic freedom.  Blackwell emphasized how religious liberty, in fact, is a prerequisite to prosperity.  He noted how far President Barack Obama’s policies were from promoting liberty.

Dr. Paul Kengor, a history professor from Grove City College who is an author of several books about Ronald Reagan and anti-Communism, reviewed eleven principles of Reagan that he identified and explores in his latest book on that particular subject.  He pointed out how many of them were related to faith and morals, in addition to Reagan’s view about limited government and the free market, as the 40^th President of the United States had a consistent view of freedom based upon virtue and conserving the time-tested collective wisdom of the ages.  Reagan had successfully united the social and economic conservatives because he believed in both social and economic conservatism, Kengor noted.  The historian contrasted the Marxist belief in the abolition of private property and the supremacy of the state with Reagan’s belief that every individual is more important than the state.  He also contrasted Reagan’s belief in peace through strength and Obama’s weakness in regard to Russian aggression, as well as Reagan’s belief in American exceptionalism based upon the recognition of America as more of an idea than a place with Obama’s view that America is no more exceptional than any foreign state.  Kengor observed how Obama’s vision of big government is the antithesis of Reagan’s belief in the American people and his confidence in the private sector.

A panel on emerging constituencies moderated by erstwhile Republican U.S. Representative nominee  Evan Feinberg was enlightening.  GOP strategist Lenny McAllister advised that Republicans and conservatives can appeal to urban voters by avoiding three tactics: an overemphasis on the Republican Party’s good record against slavery and racial discrimination, pointing out the obvious problems in urban areas and being overly argumentative.  Pennsylvania College Republican Chairman Christopher Wetherson observed how college students are noticing the failures of Obama’s policies, in terms of high unemployment for often debt-burdened college graduates and the disastrous federalization of heath insurance, and are thus open to a conservative message that offers a better alternative.  Having to pay for massive government debt was a concern of these emerging constituencies, the panelists noted.   

            Pennsylvania Lieutenant Governor Jim Cawley drew a sharp contrast between the situation that faced Pennsylvania four years ago of recession, rising unemployment, a four-billion dollar state budget deficit, and high taxes, with the significantly improved situation today, thanks to the work of Governor Tom Corbett and the Republican-led General Assembly.  He reminded the audience how Corbett had eliminated the deficit without raising taxes and by regulating the natural gas industry responsibly instead of killing the goose that laid the golden egg, as the liberal Democrats running for governor and those in the legislature would do.  Cawley warned how the Democratic gubernatorial candidates were in favor of returning to the same failed liberal tax and spend policies that had harmed Pennsylvania before the Corbett Administration and how they are in favor of continuing Obama’s liberal fiscal policies and his federalization of health insurance, despite the hurt they are causing many Pennsylvanians.  He urged his fellow conservatives to keep Pennsylvania on the right course by working to reelect Tom Corbett Governor.  

           Michael Reagan, the head of the Reagan Legacy Foundation and former talk radio host, provided fascinating insight into his father, President Ronald Reagan.  The adopted son of the 40^th President extolled his father’s virtues of honesty and decency and stated that his father was the same genuine person in private as in public.  The younger Reagan emphasized the centrality of faith in his father’s life and movingly recounted how his father dedicated his presidency to God in gratitude for the sparing of his life after the attempt to assassinate him.  The son of the President also noted how his father, as an actor, was mindful of his audience and that his message of freedom was not intended only for those who were in freedom, but to reassure those behind the Iron Curtain who were not free that he was fighting for their liberty.  The younger Reagan noted how a man as great as his father is rare and that although his father is a good model for all conservatives, his fellow conservatives ought not to continue to look for another Reagan and thus compare everyone else unfavorably to him and how some conservatives today might reject their hero for similar shortcomings for not always adhering to conservative views.  Michael Reagan urged them to refrain from regarding each other as the enemy for not being conservative enough instead of recognizing the liberals as the enemy of liberty and, like Ronald Reagan, to seek common ground with each other and work for the greater good.