The Chairman of the Louisiana Republican Party, Roger Villere who is running for Lt. Governor, served as the official host of the Southern Republican Leadership Conference at the Hilton Riverside Hotel downtown, and it was not an accident that the convention's first unofficial event was a $5,000 a person fundraiser for Villere's campaign.

The event, who's keynote address was delivered by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, was attended by State Party Chairmen from across the South. Much of the talk centered around a potential candidate to run against Villere.

The Louisiana Weekly has confirmed that Democratic Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell had spent the early part of that week courting support on the left for a bid for Lt. Governor.  Villere supporters believe this is really good news for Villere. A prominent Democrat like the former gubernatorial candidate and populist leader has great potential to cut into Secretary of State Jay Dardenne's crossover appeal with Democrats and Independents, leaving Villere's stronger base with Republican activists even more influential in the October 2, 2010 primary.  

If Campbell were to take enough of a Democratic core in the primary and Villere held his support on the right together, the two men could easily freeze out Jay Dardenne from a runoff-a scenario which would have seemed impossible when the Sec. State announced for the position of Lt. Gov just under two months ago.

Villere's fundraiser kicked off three days of what the GOP Chairman called "the kickoff to the 2012 Presidential contest on the Republican side".  

Following the fundraiser, Villere opened the first general session of the convention, and proved that point.   He and Mary Matalin brought Liz Cheney, former State Department official and daughter of the former Vice President onto the stage.  She began her speech giving advice to the next president, whomever "he or she may be..." and at the word "she", the crowd went wild.   

Liz Cheney spent most of her speech urging party activists to rally against policies of the Obama Administration, particularly the new health care law. "We still have time to stop this dangerous power play, which I think was among the most arrogant power plays in American history," Ms. Cheney declared. "We're going to elect a Congress in November that's going to pass repeal and reform and we're going to elect a president in 2012."

"Six months from now, almost exactly, the American people will have our first chance to review and judge the performance of Obama and Reid and Pelosi," Ms. Cheney said. "I have no question that the results on Nov. 2 will be a resounding message: Stop damaging this nation and start listening to the American people."

The opening day of the Republican meeting on April 8 concluded with a rousing entrance from Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, who strode into the Hilton Hotel ballroom to the Survivor's, "Eye of the Tiger" blasting from the loudspeakers, a song made famous in the movie Rocky III where the one-time champion returns to fight.  (Gingrich admitted to people at Villere's fundraiser that he is leaning towards running for President, and said to a questioner on the floor that he would make his decision in February 2011.)

The former U.S. House Speaker urged the Republican crowd to recruit strong candidates for political races at every level, from school board and city council to governor and member of Congress. That will initiate, he said, at two stage political transformation in America.  

"When we win control of the House and Senate this fall," Mr. Gingrich said, "Stage One of the end of Obamaism will be a new Republican Congress in January that simply refuses to fund any more of his programs."

Moreover, rejecting the label of "the party of no," Republicans should begin every conversation saying what the party supports.  "We should decide we're going to be the party of yes," Mr. Gingrich explained, outlining a GOP message of lowering taxes, creating jobs, decreasing spending, and balancing the budget.

"My prediction is we will win in '10 and in '12 - decisive elections - because we will represent the values, the visions and the hopes of the American people," Mr. Gingrich said, "and they will represent a future that is absolutely unacceptable to the vast majority of Americans."

"We have a chance in the next three years to fundamentally reset American government and American politics, I think, for the first time since 1932," he said. "The radicalism of this administration and the incompetence of this administration make it possible to have a decisive choice for every American and we need to make sure it's a choice of two positive versions: Not Obama vs. anti-Obama, but America versus a secular socialist machine."

This article was originally published in the April 12, 2010 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper