Snapshot from CPAC

“We need to take a look back at 2008 and ask ourselves the fundamental question: what the hell happened to us and how do we keep it from happening again?” That was the question from Bill Wittel of Pajamas Television who opened CPAC’s Conservatism 2.0 panel Thursday.But driving the discussion was a realization that tech tools alone can’t bring the party back. Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and other online outlets won’t save a message that doesn’t resonate, panelists said.“They’re all using [new media], but if you don’t have the message, it doesn’t matter how you’re using it,” said Margaret Hoover of Fox News.  “We have to have a message, we have to know what we believe in, and then and then we can make it sexy.”Glenn Reynolds, a blogger at Instapundit, echoed a refrain heard again and again during CPAC’s opening day: “People might actually vote for Republicans who act like Republicans,” he said. “There’s this huge opportunity right now to reclaim credibility on one of the most important planks of the Republican Party, of conservatism: free market high capitalism,” said conservative columnist, author and blogger Michelle Malkin. “And I think that everyone from George Bush to John McCain to everyone in the GOP leadership squandered that.”