Posted on 03/28/2011 8:28:36 AM PDT by EternalVigilance
You might expect that the man who is incoming president of the National Rifle Association and was chairman of the American Conservative Union would be a double-barrel ideologue.
Not quite.
David Keene’s friends include liberal-leaning types like Al Hunt of Bloomberg News, former ABC correspondent Sam Donaldson, former New York Times reporter Adam Clymer, and former Democratic presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy.
Keene never hesitates to mention that his mother and father were labor union organizers in Wisconsin or that, as a teenager, he passed out literature for John F. Kennedy during the presidential primary.
Moreover, Keene has stood firm against attacks from within the conservative movement over his decision to keep the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) open to participation by such groups as GOProud, an organization of conservative gays.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
Swell...
Looks like I’m out for good.
David Keene is a FRAUD! He and CPAC are NOT conservative. Watch what this guy does closely.
Left NRA years ago, and what especially sealed it was the FACT that they donated more to the Dems...especially that d-bag Harry Reid last year alone. I don’t have that much problem with Gun Owners of America and unlike the NRA who loves stuffing my mailbox which useless crap, GOA mails me 1 letter per month.
what major legislative victories has GOA scored for the second amendment?
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/207573/not-so-keene/james-justin-wilson
July 22, 2003 11:00 A.M.
Not So Keene
The ACU chairman sells out.
David Keene is a man of many hats. He’s best known to conservatives as head of the American Conservative Union (ACU), which describes itself as the oldest conservative advocacy group in the nation. He’s also a columnist for The Hill newspaper. Finally, he’s a managing associate of the Carmen Group, a Washington, D.C. lobbying firm.
Recently he’s also been the target of a tough letter signed by 33 House Republicans, including Sue Myrick, chairman of the Republican Study Committee. “The individual actions of Mr. Keene have placed in doubt the ACU’s commitment to” conservative principles, they wrote.
They were objecting to Keene’s endorsement of Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter, a liberal Republican, over his conservative primary challenger, Rep. Pat Toomey. Keene called Specter a “standup guy” despite his “anemic” 47 percent rating from the ACU. Toomey received a “spectacular” 97 percent, which was still not good enough to garner Keene’s endorsement.
Specter just made that impossible case even harder for Keene to make when he announced his opposition to a bill that would offer $13 million dollars to Washington, D.C.’s public schools and another $13 million towards vouchers. Evidently Specter isn’t willing to stand up for the District’s struggling students (even though California Democrat Sen. Dianne Feinstein, among others, is).
The problem appears to stem from Keene’s work as a lobbyist. As Ramesh Ponnuru recently pointed out, Keene has business before Senate panels chaired by Specter.
This is not the first time Keene’s commitment to conservatism has been called into question. Since 1998, Keene has lobbied on behalf of Citizens for State Power (CSP), a coalition of interests opposed to federal energy deregulation. In the late 1990s, Keene and fellow ACU board members Craig Shirley and Grover Norquist lobbied against federal energy deregulation. With the help of Shirley’s public-relations firm, Citizens for State Power produced a number of anti-deregulation ads that claimed federal involvement violated the traditionally conservative notion of states’ rights.
With billions at stake, lobbyists of every persuasion wanted a piece of the pot. While Keene and Citizens for State Power were lobbying Republicans with their concern for states rights, the Electric Utility Shareholder’s Alliance (EUSA) used populist rhetoric to lobby Democrats against federal involvement. So much money changed hands during the debate that it led one lobbyist to remark in CQ Weekly that it was a “two-Lexus issue,” referring to the number of cars lobbyists could each afford for their efforts.
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/207573/not-so-keene/james-justin-wilson
Big time.
“Keene worked for the presidential campaigns of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Robert Dole, and Mitt Romney.”
Downhill all the way!
The 2nd Amendment is ideologically incompatible with the leftist agenda. No one drove them away from self defense - they took themselves out of the game.
My distrust of leftists is well-earned and totally justified. They always reveal their true intent eventually.
No good can come of this.
I let my membership lapse in ‘08 after they endorsed Murtha for the umpteenth time. I’ve never regretted it.
Whether Conservative or Liberal, many people who are well known for the political label they carry, have carried that label for the money connections to be gained from it as much as any reasons of principles. Mr. Keene seems to be just such an opportunist.
http://www.truth-out.org/071709J
Conservative Group Offers to Sell Endorsement for $2 Million
Friday 17 July 2009
by: Mike Allen | The Politico
The American Conservative Union asked FedEx for a check for $2 million to $3 million in return for the group’s endorsement in a bitter legislative dispute, then the group’s president flipped and sided with UPS after FedEx refused to pay.
For the $2 million plus, ACU offered a range of services that included: “Producing op-eds and articles written by ACU’s Chairman David Keene and/or other members of the ACU’s board of directors. (Note that Mr. Keene writes a weekly column that appears in The Hill.)”
The conservative group’s remarkable demand - black-and-white proof of the longtime Washington practice known as “pay for play’ - was contained in a private letter to FedEx , which was provided to POLITICO.
http://www.truth-out.org/071709J
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