CPAC culminated with a dozen standing ovations for Sarah Palin. The queen of conservatism told the audience, “The President says small Americans, small-town Americans—we bitterly cling to our religion and our guns. You say, I say, we say—keep your change. We’ll keep our God. We’ll keep our guns.”

Throughout the three days of CPAC it didn’t really matter what a speaker said from the podium; if they hated on Obama or talked about guns, Washington insiders, the liberal media, God or Reagan, they were hailed by the audience.

Every major candidate did their best to bring all those factors into their speeches, but Palin, not a candidate and surprisingly still relevant, did it best.

On her 48th birthday, she extolled Washington’s wealthy and joked with Obama’s slogans to the amusement of her adoring audience. At one point a group of occupy protesters attempted to mic-check her mid-speech, but were drowned out by loud chants of USA! USA! then Sarah! Sarah!

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Fred Karger, the openly gay Republican presidential candidate, held his own party at CPAC last night. Despite being barred from exhibiting or speaking at the conference, he kept his suite door open, set up an open bar and attracted a crowd of young Republicans and reporters.

He’s been on a roll recently, after his home state of California put his name on the ballot on Monday. He’s now on ballots in six states. But, at CPAC, he has been ignored.

“I’ll represent about 30 percent of the population on the ballot and this group won’t even rent me a booth,” said Karger, when I spoke to him at his party, “It’s the second year in a row. Last year, I didn’t take any action, but this year… I said, OK, I’m going to apply in November and get the early bird discount.”

Despite his best efforts, organizers from CPAC ignored him. He said the group told a Buzzfeed reporter they were sold out.

“I knew you couldn’t be sold out if you still had an early bird discount,” said Karger.

So in January he filed a discrimination complaint with the DC Human Rights Commission. On Friday morning, he met with the Human Rights Commission who is moving quickly with his complaint, according to Karger

“It goes next to mediation and CPAC is going to have to show up,” said Karger, who noted the commission has subpoena power.

He said if the commission sides with him then CPAC will have to allow gay people at their convention next year, which has been booked at the DC convention center, or they’re going to have to move to another location that doesn’t have a discrimination policy.

“I’m not settling for anything less than that,” said Karger.

Last year, CPAC angered some of its large sponsors like the Heritage Foundation, Family Research Council, Concerned Women for America, and Liberty University after it allowed GOProud, the gay Republican organization, to have a booth at the conference for the second year in a row. But after a change in leadership from David Keene, who defended GOProud’s presence, to Al Cardenas, they changed their policy. This year, CPAC sent GOProud a letter in July of 2011 informing them they would not be invited to participate in formal events for CPAC 2012.

Karger said taking a strong stance against gay rights is not helping the Republican Party.

“We’re a minority party, we need younger people, we need new blood, we’re going to be going the way of the dinosaurs,” said Karger, who hopes the party will be more inclusive.

He said the number one reason he’s running for president is to open the door for future gay candidates, “so they don’t have to have their fingers slammed in the door for no reason.”

Then he got back to his party, where unlike CPAC, Karger invited everyone. Around 11 p.m. the party was crowded and guests were jovial.

But then a couple of hotel security guards came and shut it down.

“This party is over,” said the large man wearing a fake police badge that said Marriott Security.

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Down in the depths of the Conservative Political Action Conference are the booths showcasing the sponsors, co-sponsors and exhibitors. In perhaps the most prominent position, just to the left as you enter the exhibit hall after taking the escalator down, is Google's booth.

The booth sits next to NewsMax Media, a Republican news site, and across from the Heritage Foundation. Just to the right is a Tea Party booth. To get to Google's booth you have to walk by a large display put up by another sponsor, the National Rifle Association. Google is the only major American corporation that paid the $20,000 fee to be full sponsors.

I went up and spoke to to a couple of the young men that were operating the Google booth on Friday morning.

"I wasn't a part of the process," said Zachary Yeremian, when I asked him why Google had chosen to sponsor CPAC instead of just buying a less expensive co-sponsor or exhibitor booth, "We have no idea," he said. Yeremian said the booth was being used to show conference attendees how to use Google Plus and also to promote their new election page google.com/elections.

For its part, Google issued a statement saying the event was attractive because half the audience was under 25 and heavy users of technology. Yeremian gave me the Google representative's email who arranged the sponsorship, but she didn't respond to my questions.

Yeremian was careful not to weigh into the possible public relations issues Google's presence at CPAC may cause.

"We're not trying to advocate for anything," said Yeremian, "We're just here to promote google.com/elections and Google Plus."

There were only a few other major corporations that sponsored booths at CPAC: Koch Industries and Altria, the holding company that owns Phillip Morris, were listed as specialty sponsors and AOL and Microsoft/ElectionMall had bought a $5,000 co-sponsorship booth, according to the list of sponsors.

The majority of the other sponsors and co-sponsors were attending CPAC to push forward their ideological issues or companies. Co-sponsors included Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform, Christians United for Israel, FreedomWorks, The American Petroleum Institute, Tea Party Patriots and the New York State Conservative Party.

But in the way back of the hall, at the exhibition booths, there were some real characters. Back there I found a mannequin adorned with body armor and a fake m-16. There was a booth selling books by Glenn Beck, Scott Rasmussen and Herman Cain. A second amendment advocate told me, "guns are the civilian defense weapon." A student at the Students for Life of America booth told me he didn't support abortions for women who were raped, "Two wrongs don't make a right, even though the rapist is a criminal, the child is still innocent."

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Washington DC - I arrived at CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, around 9:30 a.m. People snaked around turnstiles waiting to get their badges certifying they had paid the $195 adult entrance fee.

Upstairs, the student line was much longer. They only had to pay $35. It's important to get young blood into the Grand Old Party.

They had paid to see the stars of the conservative movement. Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, Newt, Marco Rubio, John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, even Sarah Palin has come out of hibernation and is scheduled to speak on Saturday.

There was talk of an Occupy infiltration and the finely dressed attendants were on the lookout. One man, wearing a cowboy hat and wielding a digital camera approached a police officer outside, "have you seen any occupiers?" he asked. "No," the officer responded.

Around noon I was sitting in a chair near the VIP room. Rick Perry was scheduled to speak at 1:20 p.m. in the Marriott ballroom. Three tall white men wearing suits and earbuds were seated across from me. One was standing. They briefly discussed security.

"I asked him if he wanted a walkthrough... and he said, 'I'm drunk, I don't care,'" said the older looking gentleman, who had apparently talked to the person he was securing.

Another one said, "Thanks for taking one for the team Rick."

After Perry gave his speech I attempted to ask him if he preferred bourbon or scotch, but he ignored me.

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At the beginning of the day, I started off at an event called "How to raise money... the easy way" put on by the Leadership Institute, a Republican training organization.

The speaker, Joel Mowbray, told the audience of mostly young men that "You make up a lot of ground with one $10,000 donation."

He said that there's no such thing as altruism and when a big donor cuts a big check the donor is looking for access.

"Asking for money bestows a level of credibility onto the campaign," said Mowbry, "It says I believe in my campaign." He told the audience the only two things a candidate should be doing is asking for money or asking for votes. Noted.

From there, I went to the massive Marriott Ballroom, which has been adorned with giant television screens, a huge stage and thousands of chairs, all filled, for Marco Rubio's speech.

The Florida Senator took the stage to loud applause. He made a speech about American Exceptionalism, how important it is that the U.S. remains the most powerful country in the world, a point Republicans often make.

"What happens if we diminish because we can no longer be the greatest country in the world?" asked Rubio.

"The greatest thing we can do for the world is be America," said Rubio. He added that we have to be an example for other countries, "the shining city on the Hill" he said, quoting Reagan, who took the line "city on a hill" from the Bible and made it shiny.

Reagan symbolism is all over CPAC. Pictures of him hang in the main lobby, stickers of his face are handed out and many speakers tied their speeches back to him.

Male CPAC attendees almost universally wore suits and females wore dresses. There were booths for ALEC, Tea Party.net, Hot Air, the NRA, Citizens United Productions, the Washington Examiner and Newt 2012, among others. One booth was selling Santorum sweaters. Surprisingly, I didn't see any Ron Paul supporters, despite the fact that his fans rushed the event last year to give him a strong victory in the 2011 CPAC straw poll.

I saw a number of people sporting Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum stickers, but I didn't see one person outwardly supporting Mitt Romney. In fact, during one speech in the Marriott Ballroom a speaker mentioned Mitt Romney and a female in the audience yelled out, "Mexican!"

In another room, much smaller than the Marriott Ballroom, I attended a panel discussion on labor unions. At this one, four men discussed the repeal of SB5 in Ohio, Scott Walker's actions in Wisconsin and heaped praise on Chris Christie. I arrived a little late, but I caught the gist of the conversation.

"I don't think revolution is too big of a word to use to describe what Chris Christie is doing," said Kevin Mooney, a reporter for the Pelican Institute for Public Policy, 'the leading voice for free markets in Louisiana.'

F. Vincent Vernuccio, a speaker from the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said that after the repeal of SB5, an-anti collective bargaining bill, Ohio would have to build a Berlin-style wall to keep people in. He said they'd flock to Indiana and Wisconsin, two states that have fought unions.

He said the failure in Ohio was the messaging, "We have to get our messaging together, we have to get our funding together and we have to break up the bills."

I walked out and went up the escalator to get a late afternoon lunch. As I rode the escalator up, Hot Air was interviewing Michelle Bachmann. She was in an all white dress.

As I was leaving I caught this guy talking about the tea party:

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On the first day of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), I asked Andrew Breitbart and film director Steve Bannon what would make their upcoming video "exposing" Occupy Wall Street successful despite being panned by critics and audiences for their previous work, "The Undefeated" by about Sarah Palin.

Breitbart immediately went off.

Breitbart: Who's Andrew Metcalf, I want to see, this is always a fun gesture, is that your name?

Me: Yes that's my name, I just checked IMDB and ["The Undefeated"] got a 1.7; on Rotten Tomatoes it got a 0 percent.

Breitbart: Who do you work for?

Lady sitting next to me: Crooks and Liars!

Breitbart: Crooks and Liars, that's it, it's a radical left-wing website, he can answer for himself, the way you've presented yourself you represent Occupy very well.

Me: I'm actually asking a legitimate question, about one of your previous movies being panned by both critics and audiences. What's going to make this one any different?

At that point, Steve Bannon took over and notified me that the Sarah Palin flick did have a broad audience in DVD sales and pay-per-view orders. He said the movie was well-received by conservative critics and there wasn't one factual error in it.

Bannon: Professional entertainment critics, yes, they went after the film quite harshly, just like they did her... I showed the... the useful idiots of the entertainment business that completely vilified and eviscerated a woman that has a track record as a performer that actually stands for a populist agenda... you kind of asked it in a snarky way, but it is a legitimate question.

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Credit: Charleston Place Hotel

The hotel has sued the SRLC and its signatory, South Carolina political operative Robert C. Cahaly over the money dispute. The Charleston City Paper wrote a long feature about the issue.

In its federal complaint, the hotel says in March it originally entered into an agreement for the booking which ran from Thurs. Jan. 19 through Sun. Jan. 22. South Carolina political operative Robert C. Cahaly, who is named as co-defendant in the lawsuit, served as the group's signatory. The contract was amended on Dec. 20, 2011.

In the complaint filed in the Charleston County Court of Common Pleas, the hotel says it has come to believe that the SRLC "was grossly undercapitalized, failed to observe corporate formalities, was insolvent, and was mere[ly] used as a façade for the operations of the defendant Cahaly." In addition it says, "Cahaly, an individual businessman, has sought to hide from the normal consequences of carefree entrepenuring by doing so through a corporate shell.

"Due to their incompetence, the defendants failed to properly plan or manage the Southern Republican Leadership Conference, and it was poorly attended," the hotel says. "The conference was so poorly attended as to cause one Republican candidate, Newt Gingrich, to cancel his appearance.

"Poor attendance caused many of the conference sponsors to leave the conference," it continues. "Poor attendance left the defendants responsible for a significant payment to the plaintiff under the terms of the contract."

The article continues by saying, "at 3:01 p.m., the time when the defendants were due to check out of the hotel, the defendants emailed [hotel] management and cancelled the meeting at which they were supposed to settle the bill." In the email, the SRLC allegedly accused the hotel of difficulties with refunds or adjustments, poor overall treatment and a hotel manager instructing an SRLC staffer to engage in illegal activity, according to the City Paper article.

Sounds more like bitterness over the poor attendance of their conference than mismanagement by the hotel.

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The city of Chicago, at the behest of Mayor Rahm Emanuel, has taken rigorous steps to ensure enforcement of laws in anticipation of protests during the G8 and NATO summits that will take place in Chicago during May. But protesters are showing little fear in response.

The Mayor now has the ability to permanently install surveillance equipment, deputize federal law enforcement officers from the FBI, ATF, DOJ, as well as state and county police, and even hire private contractors for independent security thanks to a new ordinance that passed the City Council in mid-January.

“I think the city and the mayor have created a circumstance that is unnecessary,” said Ed Yohnka, the director of communications for the Illinois ACLU on Friday.

He said it would have been a better idea for the city to converse about the notion of free expression and encourage it.

“I think what is vexing and is troubling is that there was this sort of hysteria that was built around this, that caused people to overreact and the administration contributed to that with these 'get tough' ordinances,” said Yohnka.

Emanual said in a press release after the ordinance granting him greater security powers was passed, “Working collaboratively with our federal partners, we will provide public safety services for residents and visitors while fulfilling our obligation to protect the public and enforce the laws of the city.”

Meanwhile, AdBusters, the anti-consumerist magazine that put out the call to Occupy Wall Street, has recently released a tactical briefing asking their supporters to Occupy Chicago on May 1. They’re calling it the “Showdown in Chicago” and calling for over 50,000 people to attend.

“This time around we’re not going to put up with the kind of police repression that happened during the Democratic National Convention protests in Chicago, 1968 … nor will we abide by any phony restrictions the City of Chicago may want to impose on our first amendment rights,” States AdBusters’ “tactical briefing.”

Protesters and journalists that have been covering the movement were discussing the call to Occupy Chicago at a crowded sandwich shop in Washington DC on Wednesday.

Sam Jewler, an Occupy DC media group member, called Emanuel a fascist in the way that he’s handled Occupy Chicago. In October, police arrested over 300 protesters for attempting to establish a camp at Grant Park. Despite this, Jeweler said protesters wouldn’t be deterred.

“I think it will be bigger than Occupy Congress,” said Jewler, in reference to the DC gathering on January 17 that attracted over 1,000 Occupy protesters.

Michael Patterson, a particularly vociferous DC protester, said “This will be our Saratoga.” He emphasized the importance of protesting a gathering of the leaders of the most powerful governments and most powerful military alliance in the world.

Luke Rudkowski, a videographer that has gained a following as an activist, said he’d be heading to Chicago to film the protests. Rudkowski has covered and participated in other protests around the world. In 2009, he was in Pittsburgh for the G20 conference of finance ministers and central bank governors.

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National Park Police invaded Occupy DC, McPherson Square in the early hours of Saturday morning with riot police, a dozen horses and a strategic plan to eliminate the encampment.

Then throughout the day, they went section by section with a fully dressed hazardous materials team, cordoning each part of the camp off with heavy wrought iron fencing and inspecting and bagging up protesters' property. Any tent with a semblance of camping materials inside was confiscated along with all belongings inside.

By the late afternoon only a few tents were left standing in the cleared sections. The small number of protesters, which never grew over 200 people, attempted to shout down and fight back police, but they were easily overwhelmed by the large police presence. Most of the time the police matched protesters in numbers.

The clearing of the camp signals a possible end for the rowdy, 128-day-old McPherson camp, which had gained notoriety after a testy protest at an Americans for Prosperity event at the DC Convention Center. The police action proved that even federal police will enforce camping bans at Occupy protests, even if there is doubt about whether it's constitutional under the First Amendment.

The police did not close down the park, or ask protesters to leave. In that way they respected the occupiers' right to a 24-hour vigil while simultaneously enforcing a camping ban, which they notified the camp they would do last Friday.

"They've met us intellectually," said Kelly Mears, a programmer who has helped out the Occupy DC tech team, "They're allowing the 24-hour vigil while enforcing camping regulations. I'm glad they didn't just come in here and beat people."

"You can't fault the cops for doing this, they can't just let them live here forever," said a bystander wearing a peacoat who had come to watch the clearing.

The only times the clearing became violent was when protesters attempted to block police from fencing off sidewalks to clear sections of the camp. Police slowly moved down the sidewalk with their riot shields forcing screaming protesters off to the side while they set up barricades. I saw one man get knocked down by a riot shield and multiple protesters struck with batons as they tried to force police back.

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Around 10 p.m. on Tuesday night, Mitt Romney's (independent) Super PAC released its six month campaign finance data, just a few hours after his big win in the Florida primary. This is what the campaign to Restore Our Future looks like (all info compiled from FEC Data between Jul. 1, 2011 and Dec. 31, 2011):

Total raised from individuals and organizations: $17,947,952

Total spent: $6,535,213.64

Greatest amount raised from one donor: This is actually a tie between four donors, each gave $1 million:

1. Rooney Holdings, Inc - a large Manhattan private investment firm and construction company. Rooney Holdings built Cowboys Stadium, the U.S. Capitol Visitors Center and the George H.W. Presidential Library. The CEO and President L. Francis Rooney was the U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See from 2005 - 2008.

2. Robert Mercer of East Setauket, N.Y. - Mercer is co-CEO for Renaissance Technologies Corp., one of the world's largest private hedge funds. He owns this house and pays $303,678 per year in property taxes on it.

3. Julian Robertson of Locust Valley, N.Y. - Robertson is a former hedge fund manager who founded Tiger Management Corp. In 2011, his fortune was estimated at $2.4 billion, according to Forbes.

4. Paul Singer of New York, N.Y. - Singer is the founder and CEO of the hedge fund Elliott Management Corporation. His firm manages $17 billion in assets, he personally has a net worth of $900 million, which is almost four times as much as Mitt Romney

Top five total contributions by state:
1. New York - $4.63 million
2. Florida - $3.33 million
3. California - $1.90 million
4. Massachusetts - $1.67 million
5. Texas - $1.58 million

Total raised from corporations, with no individual name given (7/1/11 - 12/31/11) - $6,540,000

The average contribution was about $98,000. Romney and Restore Our Future spent a combined $6.28 million on Florida ads in the final week leading up to the primary, according to the Associated Press. $4 million came from Restore Our Future. In case you aren't sure what a Super PAC is and how the Supreme Court's Citizen's United decision allowed them to exist - read this.

And here's a chart of the data that shows what this all means to the average American:

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A day after an Occupy DC protester was tased in the back by a Park Police officer, the media was out in force at Occupy DC. Monday to cover the Park Police’s noon deadline against camping at McPherson Square and Freedom Plaza, the largest remaining Occupy encampments.

Before their arrival the youthful protesters at McPherson draped a massive blue tarp over the statue of Gen. James B. McPherson and moved some of their tents underneath it. They dubbed it the “tent of dreams.”

The hope, among the protesters I spoke to, was the tent would force the Park Police into a confrontation, rather than allow them to arrest protesters one by one. At noon, there were just about as many members of the media as there were occupiers. They too were hoping for a confrontation.

That’s how the media has covered this movement, a series of confrontations with police: Brooklyn Bridge, Oakland tear-gassing, raid of Zuccotti, UC Davis pepper spray, McPherson “occubarn,” flag burning in Oakland.

Around 1 p.m., Park Police Sgt. Schlosser addressed the media horde about their plans. He said the camping ban enforcement will be ongoing, but they have no deadline for police action. Around 2 p.m. most of the cameras were gone.

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