First Friday Hits the 500 Mark!

(Karri Bragg) – Was this First Friday April crowd HUGE or what?! I’ll take the rousing Facebook comments, big smiles in our First Friday photo collection on Flickr, and roaring buzz of 500 conservatives gathered at Stoney’s bar on Friday as a resounding “YES!”

As one of our astute guests noted, this was the first First Friday since candidate filing closed, and as always, all of the candidates and politicos were in the house to rub elbows with Las Vegas’ Center-Right base. The ever-pleasant Dr. Joe Heck and his wife Lisa took time out of their busy schedules to meet and greet with Clark County’s finest conservatives.

Among other notable congressional contenders in attendance were the CD1 pair, one of which will duke it out with Shelley Berkeley, Craig Lake and Michele Fiore. Both Craig and Michele worked the room and had a pretty large following of young supporters wearing their t-shirts and mixing with the older crowd.

Others seen and heard from at First Friday include the Republican Party’s bright communications director, Miss Ciara Turns, a couple of razor-sharp analysts from the Nevada Policy Research Institute, Ron Futrell, and even a few of the top-notch government affairs gurus from one of Vegas’s finest casinos.

A few U.S. Senate candidates were on hand as well, but none had time to schmooze your favorite event hostess so we’ll leave their names off the list of Who’s Who since we can’t be sure that their presence was more than just a mirage.

There is one Senate candidate who did leave quite a lasting impression however, and that was the would-be McCain Slayer himself, Mr. J.D. Hayworth.

J.D. took the stage to stirring applause (and that’s before the speech!) and stumped like we’ve never heard before! It’s safe to say that he was the most rousing speaker to ever take the stage at First Friday.

It’s also safe to say that the crowd was better than ever—full of excitement and hardy handshakes. Maybe the success of last weekend’s Showdown in Searchlight had a lasting effect? We’re happy to enjoy the afterglow, but suspect that our crowd won’t be dying down in time soon.

Next month, we have lined up two of the heaviest hitters in the national conservative scene to headline First Friday. It takes place on May 7th. If you aren’t on our list yet, you better get to it! Send an email to events@citizenoutreach.com and we’ll get you signed up. You don’t want to miss the happiest happy hour in Las Vegas!