Rosemont, IL (a Northwest Suburb adjacent to Chicago) hosted Chicagoland’s first Conservative Political Action Conference yesterday. Great stuff, and I say that with no sarc. Here, have an excerpt:

Neither Romney, who was campaigning in Iowa, nor Walker, who was meeting with business leaders in his home state, attended the conference. Walker released a letter through Wisconsin radio talk show host Charlie Sykes.

“In a moment of crisis, there have been men and women of courage who dared to think about the future of their children and grandchildren more than they did about their own personal futures. Let this be one of those moments, not only in Wisconsin but across America,” Walker’s letter stated.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, also a potential vice presidential candidate, offered “my condolences” to Illinoisans in the crowd. Christie said that when he was a federal prosecutor and even now as governor, he thanks God in his nightly prayers for keeping Illinois ahead of New Jersey when it comes to government corruption and higher taxes.

Christie labeled as an “outrage” Obama’s comments Friday faulting Republicans for not doing more to help state and local governments because “the big challenge we have in our economy right now is state and local government hiring has been going in the wrong direction.”

“The president fundamentally believes that the way to support our economy is to take more taxes from all of you and spend it on more public workers who will then pay a fraction of that money back in taxes. If anybody ran a business like that, they would be out of business quickly and Barack Obama’s leadership is driving this business, the United States of America, towards a fiscal cliff,” Christie said. “He’s the one who put forward an ineffective, wasteful stimulus plan that did nothing to help this economy.”

Whether the New Jersey Devils win or lose tonight they should give Christie a personalized jersey, because he slapped Obama around like a hockey puck!