At CPAC Saturday, the final day included a range of popular speakers, from Rob O’ Neill (former Navy SEAL on Team Six) to Rick Harrison of “Pawn Stars” fame. Harrison, a business owner and regular guy, acted every part the entrepreneur audiences see when they watch the popular show, although his outspoken conservative views and call for action on education might have surprised some.
Harrison gave a quick summary of his biography: At eight years old, Harrison experienced his first epileptic attack despite not having “a TV in my room or anything.” He would read a lot of books his mom would get him from the library. He recalled enjoying a series of books by John Fitzgerald called “The Great Brain” wherein the main character, a 10-year-old Utah con-artist named Tom, figures out various ways to make money.
Later, Harrison dropped out of high school to become an entrepreneur. Eventually, Harrison said he got his pawn license, after much persistence and patience. Even though he struggled to be an entrepreneur at first, eventually he became successful. He told the audience, “This is the only country in the world, when you’re a person like me, with everything I went through, I could do that. I was sick, I didn’t have an education, but in this country it doesn’t matter who you are.”
Harrison’s conservative views seem to come from a combination of his upbringing, hard work, and free-market capitalism. Still, his main suggestion for an agent of change was simply education; he’s specifically an advocate for vouchers, and trade schools over colleges in certain cases.
“We’re talking about how all these problems need to be fixed but I truly believe none of those are going to be fixed unless we fix the education first. We learn capitalism is bad. It’s absolutely crazy. We really have to change the way we educate our kids,” he said.
Harrison is a huge proponent of trade work — his son is a master plumber who makes six figures. “A large portion of our kids aren’t going to college, yet we teach them to go to college. You can probably make a lot more money as a welder than you can with a marketing degree. We have to get school vouchers; we have to make it so kids can go to trade school. The average age of machinist in the United States is 55 years old. We need welders, we need plumbers … these are honorable jobs. We need to bring back trade schools.”
Harrison’s comments about school vouchers and trade schools, as well as his straightforward demeanor and honest personality, seemed to be a breath of fresh air to the young audience, at an event that regularly features politicians and panels on more traditional topics.
Nicole Russell is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. She is a journalist in Washington, D.C., who previously worked in Republican politics in Minnesota. She was the 2010 recipient of the American Spectator’s Young Journalist Award.
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