I’m here at the Conservative Political Action Conference today, hoping to bring you some live-blogging from the year’s most important gathering for charting the future of the conservative movement and the Republican Party. But, like last year, the wi-fi is spotty to nonexistent, but I’ll my best try to bring you as much of the action as I can.

So far, the mood, oddly, seems more ebullient than last year, when a dispirited pall hung over the place, particularly after Mitt Romney used the venue to drop out of the GOP presidential primary. Somehow the attendees seem energized by the prospect of a fight against “the most radical president ever elected in this country’s history” (John Bolten) and against the creeping “European-style socialism” they believe is poised to take over the country. More on that in a moment, after I gather my thoughts on the first big speech of the morning, from Wisconsin Republican Congressman Paul Ryan.

–Sarah Posner

Sarah Posner’s coverage of religion and politics has appeared in The Washington Post, The New York Times, Rolling Stone, The Week, and many others.