Inside the Beltway

GADSDEN YELLOW

In 24 hours, Republicans descend on Florida en masse for a grand old party for the Grand Old Party. On Thursday, the mighty eight presidential hopefuls meet once again for another debate, this one hosted by Fox News and the Florida Republican Party, staged in Orlando. That’s just the opening act, though.

The candidates and a host of GOP heavyweights will join the party’s three-day “Presidency 5” at the Orange County Convention Center, complete with straw poll. Then there’s the American Conservative Union’s “Conservative Political Action Conference-FL.” Speakers include the group’s chairman, Al Cardenas, all eight candidates plus fellow hopefuls Gary E. Johnson and Rep. Thaddeus G. McCotter.

Yes, C-SPAN is covering it. The event motto: “We STILL hold these truths.” Also appearing: Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, pundit Ann Coulter, Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist, Weekly Standard founder Bill Kristol, Citizens United Chairman David Bossie, and the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre, among many others.

The tea party, meanwhile, is about to boil over. FreedomWorks Chairman Dick Armey and the group’s president, Matt Kibbe, also have a little something planned. On Friday, they launch “FreedomWorks for America Super PAC,” which the two say will showcase true grass-roots, door-to-door voter outreach rather than flashy, expensive TV ads.

“The objective of FreedomWorks for America in 2012 is not about turning blue states red, but rather to turn every state a bright shade of Gadsden yellow,” Mr. Kibbe says, referring to the famous Gadsden “Don’t tread on me” flag that has been embraced as an emblem of the tea party.

SPIRITUAL CONSERVATIVES

American liberals today are “much less likely” than conservatives to feel there is an ultimate meaning and truth to life, or to indicate that they actively seek “eternal wisdom,” report Baylor University sociologists Paul Froese and Aaron Franzen, part of the research team behind a massive survey of faith in America during “tumultuous times” released Tuesday.

Conservatives also tend to be less pessimistic about life and are less likely than liberals to worry, be anxious or “feel unexcited about the day,” the pair say. Among the findings: 81 percent of conservatives say life has an “ultimate truth,” compared with 52 percent of liberals. Meanwhile, 93 percent of conservatives say it’s “likely” they will be reunited with loved ones after death, compared with 64 percent of liberals.

See the wide-ranging research here: www.baylor.edu/2011religionsurvey.

STANDING WITH ISRAEL

Mike Huckabee and former U.N. Ambassador John R. Bolton are among 19 luminaries staging a daylong counter-conference against “the expected Israel-bashing-fest” at the U.N.’s “Durban III” gathering Thursday, an event currently boycotted by the U.S., Australia, Austria, Canada, Czech Republic, France, German, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand and Poland.

Also attending: Noble Peace Prize winner Elie Weisel, actor Jon Voight, former New York Mayor Ed Koch, Hoover Institute fellows Shelby Steele and Anne Bayefsky, and Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy.

For background, the U.N.’s official description of Durban III can be found here: www.un.org/en/ga/durbanmeeting2011.

Meanwhile, organizers of the counter-conference — staged in the swank Millennium Hotel directly across the street from the world body’s headquarters — say their meeting will respond to the “peril-fraught Palestinian bid for a U.N.-backed statehood status” that does not include a negotiated settlement with Israel.

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