A cigarette and a chat with Joe the Plumber

Freddy Gray meets Middle America’s radicals of the Right at the Conservative Political Action Conference, a gathering that is both bonkers and vitally important to the Republican party

In the basement of Washington D.C.’s Omni Shoreham hotel, a friendly young Korean–American is showing off his ‘Enoch Powell was right’ lapel pin. ‘People are like: “Oh, is that the British National Party?”’ he says. ‘And I’m, like, duh — it’s Enoch Powell.’ He is trying to recruit like-minded controversialists to protest against the EU on behalf of Geert Wilders. Nobody seems interested. ‘Come on …Come on,’ he urges, as rivers of sweat slosh down his face. All around him, in the exhibition hall, is a panoply of bizarre right-wing Americana. Somebody hands out fliers saying ‘Fight Leftist Scum!’; a man dressed as a policeman marches around in a T-shirt that reads, ‘Cops Say Legalize Drugs: Ask Me Why’; a bunch of pretty girls, in very short skirts and thick make-up, stand around discussing traditional family values. Welcome