Welcome to Day 2 of the Conservative Political Action Conference, which after a late night on stage for the debate party in the main ballroom feels a lot like an extended Day 1. (I feel a lot older than I did at my first CPAC a decade or so ago.) Today CPAC gets serious about the presidential race, as three of the Republican candidates arrive to make their case to the gathered conservative activists. At last night’s debate, the crowd in the Townhall Media Debate Party seemed somewhat evenly split between Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz, with the latter getting the most vocal audience reaction. (The straw poll is gathering votes throughout the conference and results will be announced Saturday afternoon.)

The three speaking today include the one who passed on attending last night:

• John Kasich (1:15 pm ET)
• Ted Cruz (4:10)
• Ben Carson (4:45)

C-SPAN will pick up these speeches, and apparently quite a bit more of the conference today than yesterday. Their broadcast schedule shows large blocks of time allocated to CPAC today starting at 10:30 am. Unfortunately, that will miss two terrific speakers — Dana Loesch at 8:30 am, and Mark Levin at 9:20. However, viewers at home will apparently get a great opportunity to see all three candidates and some other interesting speakers — and of course the Boss Emeritus:

• Reince Priebus (10:30)
• Jenny Beth Martin (10:50)
• Michelle Malkin (1:50)
• Jim DeMint (3:40)
• Matt Schlapp (3:55)

If C-SPAN covers the entire day after 10:30, then viewers will also get a chance to see the main stage panel discussions:

• Who’s Voting and Who’s Not? An analysis of the 2016 electorate (11:25)
• How Conservative Principles Meet Millenials’ Goals (noon, with Katie Pavlich)
• Are We Losing Our Humanity? Personhood From Womb To Tomb (12:35)
• Timeless Principles: The Reagan Legacy Endures (3:00, with Craig Shirley, Ron Robinson, Peter Schweizer, and Paul Kengor

All in all, it’s a great line-up for those here and at home, if C-SPAN follows through on its coverage of events in the Potomac Ballroom. Hot Air readers can catch up with me between 2-3 ET on NRA News, where I’ll sit in with Cam Edwards for a full hour to talk about Going Red, the upcoming election, and 2nd Amendment liberty. I’ll also be on the air with Dave Elswick on The Voice at 5:30 pm in Little Rock, Arkansas, and moving up and down Radio Row in between. Yesterday, I taped two video interviews — one with my friend Lauren Ashburn, who’s now at EWTN, and the other with Book TV from C-SPAN itself. Be sure to catch them when they air.

Also, for fans of The Circus on Showtime, we found out that they had a crew at the Townhall Media debate party filming the event, and thanks to RedState contributor Myra Adams, I met very briefly with Mark McKinnon, the co-creator and co-producer of the show. It’s possible that an upcoming episode will at least show a bit of the action, so … stay tuned!