Remarks at the 2023 Pipe Creek Consulting Christmas Party

Thank you all so much for coming out tonight to celebrate Christmas, and the launch of Pipe Creek Consulting.

Over the last year, we’ve been trying to build something different. There are a lot of PR firms in D.C., some of which are doing really good work. But in the current media landscape, it is hard to find folks with enough faith in the American people to root their message in the permanent things. 

I’ve been lucky, though, to work with clients willing to do just that and say no to the “trendy things.” Many of you are here tonight, and I want to thank you for taking a chance on a new firm like ours. 

I also want to take a moment to thank my wonderful staff, Sydney Novak and Lorenzo Meigs. I couldn’t ask for better partners in this adventure. Words fail to describe my gratitude. 

Now, this wouldn’t be a Michael Lucchese speech if I didn’t end things with a quotation from some conservative hero. 

In 1795, one of Edmund Burke’s young followers wrote asking for advice about whether or not he should stand for Parliament. By this point, Burke had retired to Beaconsfield. Abroad, French armies occupied much of Europe. And at home, radicals had thrown the nation into an intense ideological struggle that destroyed Burke’s old party.

Burke, however, refused to give in to pessimism. He encouraged his friend to join the fight and press on. And he turned to an image from the Bible for inspiration. 

"I would add my part to those who would animate the people (whose hearts are yet right) to new exertions in the old cause,” Burke wrote, “Novelty is not the only source of zeal. Why should not a Maccabæus and his brethren arise to assert the honor of the ancient law and to defend the temple of their forefathers with as ardent a spirit as can inspire any innovator to destroy the monuments of the piety and the glory of ancient ages?" 

As the celebration of Hanukkah begins tonight, and as we look forward to the joy of Christmas, we are in a perfect moment to remember that the permanent things are worth defending. 

And so would you raise a glass with me and say a toast to “new exertions in the old cause.” Merry Christmas.