By Anna Akins
Former Vice President Dick Cheney will speak at Washington and Lee’s Mock Convention next month. He will serve as keynote speaker for the event, Feb. 11-13 in W&L’s Warner Center.
Cheney served as vice president under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2009. While in this role, he was best known for his involvement in national security matters. He has also served as chief of staff, secretary of defense and as a congressional representative for his home state of Wyoming.
W&L plans to host several other conservatives at the event, including former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and political commentator Ann Coulter.
Gingrich has attended past Mock Conventions, most recently in 1996. He served 20 years as a congressional representative from Georgia and was Speaker of the House from 1995 to 1999. He was a candidate for the Republican nomination for president in 2012. He currently works as a political contributor for CNN.
Ann Coulter is a political commentator, author and syndicated columnist who has appeared on several Fox News programs, including The O’Reilly Factor and Fox & Friends. She earned her J.D. from University of Michigan Law School, where she worked as an editor for The Michigan Law Review.
Other speakers include Matt Bevin, a Washington and Lee alumnus and recently elected governor of Kentucky; Rich Lowry, editor of National Review; and Grover Norquist, founder of Americans for Tax Reform. Additional speakers will be named in the next few weeks.
This year marks Washington and Lee’s 26th Mock Convention, in which students simulate a presidential nominating convention with the goal of predicting the presidential nominee for the party out of power in the White House. W&L students join one of 56 state delegations, which all gather at the convention to hear political voices from all over the country.
For more information, see Mock Convention’s website.