On the evening of January 18, more than 120 people showed up to attend the ISI Young Alumni Association’s monthly series, “Conservatism on Tap.” This monthly event brings together young conservatives in DC, generally from the ages of 21 to 40, most of whom were involved with ISI as students and are no longer privy to the dynamic ISI programs they experienced while in college.
Each month, “Conservatism on Tap” brings a conservative intellectual speaker to a bar in DC. This idea was conceived about nine months ago. As Evan Baehr had told me when he approached ISI about the idea: “There seems to be a lot of Republicans in DC, and few conservatives.” We began this event in July and more recently, we have been using the fabulous location of the District Chophouse in downtown DC, which allows us to use a private room in their basement, “The Vault.” The room holds about 75 seated comfortably, but for this talk, over 120 showed up, and it was mostly a standing-room only crowd. T. Kenneth Cribb, President of ISI and formerly the top advisor to President Reagaon on domestic matters, gave the talk this evening, which was on the topic, “The Warring Turtles of Conservatism.”
Mr. Cribb talked about the history of the conservative movement and the “warring” factions within it – from the libertarians, the traditionalists, social/religious conservatives, neo-conservatives, and anti-communists. He spoke about how they each have their own “first principles” but how they found a way to get a long to make for a cohesive and strong conservative movement in America during the past half-century. He encouraged the young conservatives in the room to work together and bring the principles we have in common together to work towards the goals we have for our movement.
There was a lively Q&A session that followed. I had introduced the evening to everyone there, and we used the opportunity to formalize the group. One must now be a dues-paying “member” to attend future “Conservatism on Tap” events. Jeff Frazee, my friend from the Leadership Institute emailed me after the event and said: “It was definitely a very impressive turn out. I meant to ask you if you were taking pictures of the crowd too. Because I bet we can look back on those pictures 10, 15, 30 years from now and pick out the leaders of the conservative movement. I looked around the room a few times and thought to myself, I’m probably in a room full of important people to be one day.”
Given the nature of the talk, the lively Q&A session, and Jeff’s statements about what he felt he was experiencing at “Conservatism on Tap,” I feel the original purpose of the ISI Young Alumni Association in DC is being fulfilled: to build a community of young conservatives and continue to nurture in them the American ideal of ordered liberty. This group remains solely educational, and does not engage in “political” activity, but the group was started with the foundational belief that ideas have consequences.
The next speaker “on tap” is a Presidential candiate! Senator Sam Browback (R-KS) will be addressing the ISI Young Alumni Association on his topic, “Restoring a Conservative Vision for America”.