In less than 24 hours since announcing the great "SEND LEONARD TO CPAC 2008" project, you guys have come through like gangbusters! I've already gotten nearly enough donations to pay for plane fare, and you've coughed up close to 20% of the total needed for me to go to Washington in February and rub greasy, disgusting elbows with the likes of baby-drowning tax-hater Grover Norquist, antifeminist crone Phyllis Schlafly, professional virgin Ben Shapiro, terror-appeasing immigrant Dinesh D'Souza, race hustler Roy Innis, screeching dingbat Michelle Malkin*, and all-around horrible human being Richard Viguerie. And that's just the first day!

Some of you have asked: since there are lots of legitimate charities that need our support, and since many of your readers are strapped for cash, and since you yourself are doing well enough to subsidize this trip on your own, why don't you just pay for the whole thing yourself? The answer is complex and difficult, but to put it as simply as I can, I don't want to. And that's where you come in! But I feel like you should get something more personal out of this than just reading about it after it happens. So I'm offering PREMIUMS! Yes, that's right: if you give to the Send Leonard to CPAC 2008 Project, depending on the amount, you will receive one of the following exciting giveaways, tailored especially for you!

- for a donation of $5, I will send you one of the horseshit begging letters I'm going to get from GOP bigwigs for the next year after going to CPAC!
- for a donation of $10, you will receive some crazy right-wing nut literature I pick up at CPAC!
- for a donation of $20, time and availability permitting, I will ask the CPAC panelist of your choice an embarrassing question you select!
- for a donation of $50, I will wear an item of clothing of your choice that will get me stared at by the CPAC mouthbreathers!
- for a donation of $100, you will receive a special tailor-made t-shirt featuring your favorite right-wing conservative!

This is going to be so much fun. FOR ME! But also for you, in the knowledge that you helped make something wonderfully stupid happen. TO ME! Please, my generous hippie friends, gather any spare change you have sitting around the house and use the PayPal button below to hurl it with great force. AT ME! God will bless America for it.

*: Do you know what the panel that Michelle Malkin hosted at CPAC 2007 was about? "Accuracy in media". Michelle Malkin hosted a panel on accuracy in media. No, really.

Send me to CPAC!