GOP hopefuls descend on CPAC

The 2014 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) takes place over the next two days at National Harbor just outside the beltway of the nation’s capital. On hand delivering remarks will be just about every major Republican who hopes to become the nominee in 2016. The entire conference is aired on C-SPAN and if you want to watch any of the speeches live, the schedule is available from CPAC.

Report from Fox News:

Sen. Ted Cruz kicked off an annual gathering of the conservative faithful by accusing his own party of standing “for nothing” in recent elections and urging the GOP to regain its stride by co-opting President Obama’s mantra of “hope and change.”

“Our country is at a crisis point,” the fiery Texas Republican said in the opening address of the Conservative Political Action Conference, held in suburban Washington.

Cruz addressed head on the current divide in the Republican Party between moderates looking anew for common ground with Democrats and party hard-liners like himself more than happy to keep waging battle against ObamaCare and other policies they see as representative of a bloated government.

“We need to repeal every single word of ObamaCare,” Cruz bellowed from the podium.

Cruz, to the delight of the crowd, borrowed Obama’s famous campaign trail phrases from 2008.

Recalling the unsuccessful fight last fall to repeal the health care law, Cruz mocked the outcry from Democrats and the media.

“They said ‘this is hopeless, don’t you understand, just move on, just accept it, you can’t do anything to stop this.’ — Yes we can,” he said.

Apparently Christie received a standing ovation this morning after delivering his speech.

CPAC always culminates with a straw poll at the end which is a somewhat meaningless but highly coveted prize for would-be contenders of the Republican nomination. However, Mitt Romney did win the straw poll in 2012 and go on to become the nominee so perhaps it isn’t entirely meaningless.