2010 Speakers
January 2010 - Joseph D. McNamara
Joseph McNamara indicated right from the start that he wanted to bring the group into what he called "the strange world that is the policeman's." With some very humorous stories of his experiences in his early career in Harlem in New York City, he drew in the crowd. Joseph also shared some tragic stories of experiences on the streets of Harlem, Kansas City and San Jose. Before serving as police chief for 15 years in San Jose, he served as the Chief of Police in Kansas City for three years.
Sally Pipes attracted the largest Conservative Forum audience in history other than the special Global Warming debate held in November, 2008 (where we had 660 attendees at another venue). Approximately 260 people proved that we need to consider a larger venue as Sally Pipes provided a common sense free market approach towards any necessary healthcare reform.
Our main speaker was Tom Tanton, who made a very informative and entertaining presentation that covered both global warming and Cap and Trade. He started by discussing AB32 in the state of California that will cost Californians over $140 billion over the next 10 years. He referred to Cap and Trade legislation as a "faux market." It is not a market-based system.
Mike Brady, attorney and political activist, provided our last Standing-Room-Only audience at the American Legion Hall with lots of great ideas on turning the state and the country around. While most of his remarks related to creative ideas for the state of California, he started with comments about the national scene.
500 enthusiastic conservatives attended a meeting to listen to Brian Sussman talk about "Climategate." Brian Sussman started by talking about debating Al Gore on the topic of global warming; but he summed it up by saying that "debating Al Gore is like debating a sock puppet."
Dr. Taylor keyed his opening remarks around the media and people's use (overuse in his opinion) of the word "Great." At the same time, he used the word to describe two general events that have caused our current financial situation - the end of the "Great Moderation" that worked for so many years for the US economy. He calls the end of the Great Moderation, "The Great Deviation," which he describes as a series of policies that deviate away from what was working.
July 2010 - Pete Constant & Aryeh Green
The Conservative Forum continues to grow in members, and in attendance. 240 enthusiastic conservatives showed up to hear two very diverse presentations on July 13th. First was our conservative San Jose city councilman, Pete Constant. Our second speaker was Aryeh Green, who was making a record-setting thirdappearance before The Conservative Forum.
August 2010 - Steven Kirschbaum
Over 300 people attended our August, 2010 meeting with political consultant and strategist, Steve Kirschbaum. Steve first told the audience what they could do to help a campaign. He indicated that people could make signs; but they need to replace the Tea Party type message signs with signs that have the name of the candidate on them.
September 2010 - Steven Greenhut
Another crowd of over 300 people witnessed the September Conservative Forum meeting with Steve Greenhut. Steve is the director of the Journalism Center for the Pacific Research Institute, and the author of "Plunder: How Public Employee Unions Are Raiding Treasuries, Controlling Our Lives And Bankrupting The Nation".
October 2010 - Larry Greenfield
At the October Conservative Forum meeting, Larry Greenfield wowed the crowd of more than 320 people. Larry not only received a very warm and lengthy standing ovation at the end of his talk, but also another standing ovation after the Q&A. Larry started by congratulating The Conservative Forum and its attendees for being among the very few who were supporting conservatism before it was popular.
The November meeting was a unique meeting as we had our first Conservative-Tea Party-Republican Victory Celebration. There was a great deal to celebrate as conservative Republicans all over the country replaced liberal Democrats. An estimated 60-65 liberal House Democrats were replaced by conservative Republicans in the House of Representatives.
Steve Weber (aka, Forrest Gump) was the guest speaker. He spoke about the meaning of Forrest Gump’s “gumption”, saying that it doesn’t take superior intelligence or ability to have gumption. In his talk, he came across very much like the character he played, Forrest Gump. “Stupid is what stupid does” he said as he talked about holding politicians to a higher standard.