Over the last year I was able to interview some wonderful conservative and libertarian leaders.  I decided to put together a list of my top 10 favorite answers.  Also, in case you missed it, I answered some of my own favorite questions here.

Ann Coulter
Tell me about the moment you decided to enter the political arena.
COULTER: It was a Thursday, I believe, in April. I had just gotten home from kindergarten and I realized that my teacher was just completely wrong on the causes and objectives of the Vietnam War.

Rep. Thad McCotter 
What pop culture souvenir do you own that people would be surprised to learn that you cherish?
MCCOTTER: Greg Gutfeld’s last shard of dignity.

Andy Levy
How do you think pop culture and entertainment affect people’s political beliefs?
LEVY: I don’t know if those things affect people’s actual political beliefs as much as they affect the way people look at the world. For example, we’ve been raised on a diet of movies that often portray businesspeople as evil and military personnel as crazy, and sadly, I think those attitudes have permeated our culture to a certain extent. (To be fair, people like Tony Hayward don’t help matters.)

But I think that when all is said and done, if you’re the kind of person who thinks Che Guevara was cool, a movie about him isn’t gonna change that. (Mainly because you’re a pus-swilling imbecile to begin with.) For whatever reason, I think that in the same way liberals and lefties are more likely to go into the entertainment business, they’re also more susceptible to it. But then again, I think liberals, despite the fact that they often consider themselves to be intellectuals and those who disagree with them to be sub-literate morons, also are far more susceptible to style over substance. (See: Obama, anybody named Kennedy, et. al.)

I mean, you just know that when Obama won, a ton of people who went with him to the White House were saying, “Dude, it’s gonna be just like ‘The West Wing.’” Which probably explains why a bunch of them are now leaving.

Michelle Malkin
What’s one of your favorite movie quotes?
MALKIN: Favorite movie quote of 2010: Barbie, Toy Story 3, “Authority should derive from the consent of the governed, not from the threat of force!”

Nick Gillespie
What’s your current “guilty pleasure” non-news television show?
GILLESPIE: I firmly agree with Michel Foucault and Mark Foley that pleasure is by definition guilty. I like watching “30 Minute Meals with Rachel Ray” because I’m waiting for the episode where she doesn’t actually get her slop on the plate by the show’s end. You know what that smells like? It smells like victory.

And I like watching “The Secret Life of The American Teenager” on ABC Family, because it’s the last place in the world where kids are having sex.

But when I want a real break from serious current events programming, I watch MSNBC.

David Limbaugh
Tell me about the moment you decided to enter the political arena.
LIMBAUGH: I have been active in politics all my life, beginning in grade school, but I began writing columns during the Clinton impeachment era and things have progressed since. So there was no epiphany leading to all of this. Rush and I knew about Karl Marx, the Communist Manifesto, Das Kapital and such concepts as surplus value and dictatorship of the proletariat before we were in junior high. I once accused my 7th-grade math teacher of adopting a Marxist approach to his grading when he proposed to give everyone a C on a test—he was proposing to spread the wealth around a little bit. Not making that up. When Nixon lost to Kennedy in 1960 Rush wrote on the wall in our upstairs bedroom, Kennedy Won, darn; Nixon lost; shucks, or words to that effect. Not only did my dad not get mad; he probably welled up with pride. We’ve been into this stuff a long time.

Jen Lancaster
Tell me about the moment you decided to become more vocal about your political beliefs.
LANCASTER: As an author, I’m actually less vocal about my political beliefs than I used to be as a blogger. I was working to get my first book published during the 2004 elections and I wrote a lot of posts about my politics. Regardless of how articulate I thought I was, I found that I was winning neither hearts nor minds and I was losing readers. On top of that, my agent warned me that being so forthcoming could keep editors from wanting to buy my book, so I stopped. I hated the idea of silencing myself but I was willing to do so in order to start a writing career.

As years have passed and I’ve built a fan base, I’ve become far less cryptic about my political beliefs. Readers know what I stand for, but that’s not something I stress in my writing, at least directly. I try hard not to let my politics become divisive. Rather, through my books I want people to see that even though we might vote differently, we still have many of the same interests and goals and feelings. I have so many readers tell me, “You’re the first conservative I’ve ever liked.” Convincing others that conservatism isn’t evil is the first step in getting others to open their minds to opposing ideas.

No one’s going to be won over by my spouting dogma in my books because that’s not why people buy my stuff. I don’t write essays on why liberalism doesn’t work or why Obama’s taking us down a slippery slope. People read my books to laugh, so that’s my goal. But if my goofy little stories just happen to emphasize conservative values like morality, self-determination, and liberty, well… let’s just say that’s not unintentional.

Andrew Breitbart
What’s the coolest thing you’ve been able to do because of your role in the political arena?
Exposing the organized Left is my fetish. Watching John Podesta’s entire well-funded Sorosian empire alter its day planner around my work to expose them as duplicitous and dangerous is pure joy. On a nonpolitical, non-job-oriented note, I’ve gotten to know a bunch of professional baseball players. I like hanging with middle relievers best. If I wasn’t in politics-based media, I’d have been quite happy pitching in the seventh inning in moderately close games.

Grover Norquist
Tell me about the moment you decided to enter the political arena.
NORQUIST: Not certain, but head hurt, everything quite sticky, and older voice said, “It’s a boy.”

Jedediah Bila
Tell me one of your favorite conservative-at-a-Manhattan-cocktail-party stories.
BILA: I hate the cocktail party scene, so I typically avoid it at all costs. However, every now and then I have to attend one. Last year, I was invited to a party on the Upper East Side by some of the left-wing elite’s finest. The air-conditioning system went out and it was about 100 degrees in their apartment. There were whining, screeching women EVERYWHERE. Someone had to make it stop.

So, in the midst of listening in on a third discussion about the “intellectual rock” that is Barack Obama—and trying my best to ignore the screeches—I removed my button-down shirt to reveal a “Reagan Was Right” baby tee. The silence felt so good.

Over the last year I did an interview feature asking well-known politicos about their pop culture obsessions.  It was a fun column that attempted to showcase the quirkiness and sense of humor of political leaders.  Some of my favorite interviewees included Ann Coulter, Sen. Marco Rubio, Sean Hannity, Robert Davi, Rep. Thad McCotter, Nick Gillespie, Greg Gutfeld, Andy Levy, Jen Lancaster, Ted and Shemane Nugent, among many others. (Check out the archives here.)

Since the column has now come to an end, I decided to answer my own questions.  Some of them were harder than I thought, so kudos to all of those who gave thoughtful answers and to those who read them!

1. If there was a television channel that only showed one movie over and over, what movie should it be?
LOTUS: The Godfather I and II. Every time it’s on I have to watch it. There’s no reason to channel surf because it’s guaranteed to be the best thing on TV.

2. What’s one of your favorite movie quotes?
LOTUS: “My offer is this: Nothing.” – Michael Corleone, The Godfather II

Side note: I have two sides to my personality – Sonny and Michael. The hard part is figuring out when to be Michael and when to be Sonny.

Side note, part II: Favorite Godfather scene is when Kay tells Michael she had an abortion in The Godfather II.

3. In A Clockwork Orange, Malcolm McDowell is strapped in with his eyes propped open and forced to watch images until he was “cured.” If you could give President Obama the “Clockwork Orange treatment,” what movie would you make them watch?
LOTUS: Most answer this question with conversion in mind. I think we’re beyond a cure, so I would have to go for punishment and see this video of the President’s ums and ahs.

4. What pop culture souvenir do you own that people would be surprised to learn that you cherish?
 LOTUS: I have a paper target that I shot up and got Ted Nugent to sign. Oh, and my talking Ann Coulter doll. [Update: There’s one available on eBay here.]

5. What’s your current “guilty pleasure” non-news television show?
LOTUS: It would be impossible to only name one show. The short list: Dance Moms (Lifetime), Project Runway (Lifetime), The Rachel Zoe Project (Bravo), Millionaire Matchmaker (Bravo) and reruns of The Golden Girls (Hallmark).

6. Which movie, television or rock star would cause you to lose your ability to speak if you ever met?
LOTUS: Russell Crowe (easiest question on the list)

7. What was the first rock concert you ever attended and where did you sit and who went with you?
LOTUS: When I wrote this question it was because I had in mind the first concert I ever had tickets for – REM in 1995. I grew up in Tallahassee, FL and only country singers and groups came to the Civic Center. I was so excited that my favorite band was finally coming to town. About a week before the concert, a hurricane came through the panhandle and tore the roof off the Civic Center. I was devastated. Consequently, I don’t remember what my actual first concert was. I’m sure it was something at Floyd’s Music Store in Tallahassee. Probably a local band like Creed or Sister Hazel.

8. Tell me about a public or private moment when you thought to yourself, “This is what Elvis felt like every day.”
LOTUS: In 2009 I had the honor of introducing Rush Limbaugh at CPAC. I don’t think my time at the podium was Elvis-like, but when Rush’s intro music started and the crowd went wild I experienced Elvis-by-osmosis.

9. What is your cell phone ring tone?
LOTUS: The theme from The Godfather. If I really put my mind to it, I could probably answer every question with a Godfather reference.

10. What’s the coolest thing you’ve been able to do because of your role in the political arena?
There are really so many amazing things I’ve done over the last 12 years. Shopping at Target with Ann Coulter, meeting Rush Limbaugh, walking through a Vegas casino with Ted Nugent, seeing Donald Trump’s hair up close.

11. What is your favorite home-cooked meal?
I once wrote a food diary for Washingtonian magazine and joked that I must have been born at a bridge game because I love snack foods more than meals. I would rather eat cheese and crackers or chips and guacamole than a regular meal. My absolute favorite thing to eat is homemade Chex mix. Three kinds of Chex, mixed nuts (no peanuts), Cheez-its, minimal pretzels.

UPDATE: I should have included some home-cooked items from others.  I love my dad’s sauce and meatballs that are the size of tennis balls and my mom’s carrot cake. 

12. Tell me about the moment you decided to enter the political arena.
It was March 1999 and I went to D.C. for a long weekend during my college’s abbreviated “spring pause” (my college was in Florida and less than two miles from the beach, so they reasoned we didn’t really deserve a full spring break). I had it in my mind that I was going to find a job before graduating from college. I originally wanted a job with a newspaper or magazine. I ended up being interviewed for a program director position at a conservative organization. It included writing their newsletter and designing a website for them. It was a good starting point for learning how conservative organizations work even though the pay was awful. After 12 years split between two organizations, I’ve appreciated the experience, but I’m done with the non-profit world. On to the next challenge!