PITTSBURGH, Pa. -- Donna Scala was surprised to find she felt so
at home among her fellow attendees at this weekend's RightOnline
conference.
"I've never been in a room with this many conservatives before,"
Ms. Scala, a Democrat from Beaver Falls, Pa., said
after attending the two-day conference sponsored by the
Americans For Prosperity foundation.
During Saturday afternoon's final panel discussion, Ms. Scala
drew applause when she stood up to ask a question, which she
prefaced by introducing herself as "a Democrat who did
not vote for Obama."
A trio of panelists -- Red State's Erick
Erickson, Robert
Bluey of the Heritage Foundation and Matt Lewis of
AOL's Politics Daily -- had been discussing how
conservatives can have influence with Democrats controlling both
the White House a majority in Congress. Ms. Scala stood up
to say that many of her Democratic friends have been
dismayed by the broken promises of the Obama administration.
"I'm talking to Democrats who voted for Obama, but this isn't the
'Change' they voted for," she said.
In an interview afterwards, Ms. Scala explained that many
Democrats in her community are "disappointed, but they're afraid
to speak out, because they've always been just Democrats."
Ms. Scala said she was excited to learn the online
technology skills taught during RightOnline seminars. A fan
of Fox News and radio talk-show host Glenn Beck, she said that
Twitter fit Beck's advice to "find one thing and focus on it."
Such moments of discovery are encouraging to RightOnline's
director,
Erik Telford.
"Honestly, for me, the highlights [of the conference] are seeing
the grassroots activists who come to learn how to start their own
blogs, how to use Facebook, Twitter and other online tools," said
Telford, who estimated the total attendance at the Pittsburgh
conference as exceeding 700.
Among the speakers at the conference were Michelle
Malkin, James Pinkerton, Ed Morrissey of HotAir.com, the Wall Street Journal's
John Fund and Stephen Moore, and Pennsylvania Senate candidate
Pat Toomey.
While many older activists were learning New Media technology,
there was no shortage of young grassroots conservatives on
hand -- an encouraging development, said Barbara Espinosa,
who traveled from Scottsdale, Ariz., to attend the event.
"If these young bloggers are the future of the news media then we
are in for a treat in reading the daily news. The attendees were
all age groups involved and active in their community and
politics,"
Ms. Espinosa wrote on her American Freedom blog.
Ms. Espinosa, a widow, grandmother and native Texan who does not
wish to disclose her age, said that the first Republican
presidential candidate for whom she voted was Ronald Reagan in
1980.
