Brian Montopoli was at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference, and found that while there is a very vocal block who support the legalization of marijuana, there is also some…er…resistance:

Another group looking to steer the GOP’s direction were the Ron Paul acolytes, who stood out for their youth and exuberance and hawked Paul’s book “End the Fed” to attendees. They cheered loudly and lustily when there man came on to speak, as though they were at a college basketball game.

When Indiana Rep. Mike Pence said during his speech that American should be standing with Israel, prompting a cheer from much of the crowd, Paul’s backers booed in protest of what they see as an interventionist foreign policy. The rest of the crowd quickly shouted them down, eventually erupting in a chant of “USA! USA!” that Paul backers would label ironic.

Before Paul spoke, I stopped by the hotel bar for some coffee, where I struck up a conversation with two Paul supporters who were waiting for their man to take the stage. I asked them what they thought of Gary Johnson, the former New Mexico governor who had just spoken to a largely empty conference hall.

The Paul supporters said they hadn’t heard of Johnson. I didn’t know much about him myself, and said, “I think he wants to legalize marijuana.” (That is indeed the case.) Suddenly, a woman standing nearby screamed in my direction, “stop spreading lies! He wants to leave it to the states!”

I tried to respond but she cut me off. “Are you a Ron Paul person?” she asked, eyes wide, finger pointed at my face. I said I was a member of the media. She seemed to think that was even worse. “Stop spreading lies!” she repeated again, jabbing her finger in my face.

That would be me laughing uncontrollably as the GOP writhes furiously in the death grip of the culture wars, which are now apparently raging between the young libertarians and the social conservatives within their own party. Good luck with that “leave it up to the states” business.