75,000-member-strong Restoring America Together Network seeks to unite conservatives

Greenville, South Carolina – April 25, 2014: “Don’t tell me what’s wrong, we know that; what are we going to do about it to get it fixed?” says Rollan Ross passionately, CEO of the 75,000-member-strong, pan-conservative grassroots Restoring America Together Network (RAT). He adds, “Everybody complains about our country and the direction in which it is going. We know that. What are we going to do about it? Our groups are focused on that goal!” RAT adds hundreds of members each day as many U.S. citizens are naturally drawn to the group’s simple yet succinct and elegant message of revitalizing American society by acting and living as our Founding Fathers intended. The group has been so successful because it is leveraging state-of-the-art communication technologies to organize and grow its ranks, such as the Facebook and Twitter social media sites, blogs/websites, YouTube, [i] and Internet radio. RAT is also successful because its membership reaches out to concerned citizens through word-of-mouth, phone calls, and local meetings – common grassroots tactics. This blend of technology and old-fashioned networking is one of the keys to Restoring America Together’s success.

RAT provides a multi-media forum where conservatives can come together and discuss, develop strategy, and above all, act to bring traditional values and attitudes back to the fore at the local, state, and national levels. “Conservative” values to Restoring America Together are those envisioned by our Founding Fathers in documents like the Constitution, the Federalist Papers, Poor Richard’s Almanac, etc.

Members engage in the democratic process, mainly through direct contact with elected representatives, to promote conservative policies. They support conservative candidates and incumbents at the local, state, and national levels. According to Ross, “We want our members to be ‘boots on the ground’ to help elect constitutional conservatives from dog catcher to the president of the United States. We need them to work at the grassroots level to help pass out flyers, deliver yard signs and call on their neighbors to get people elected who will ‘Restore America Together’.” People who might in the past have only turned out for a presidential election are now RATs, gathering nominating petition signatures for local judges, state house candidates, sheriffs, and U.S. Senate candidates – even becoming delegates to their party’s state pre-primary nominating conventions. RAT naturally coordinates with the Tea Party movement.

RAT’s CEO emphasizes, “We want to loosely unite all the Tea Party groups in the country by publicizing an agenda of all Tea Party events happening across the nation. Tea Party members can attend and volunteer at these events even though they were set up by other Tea Party groups. We do not want to create a nationally structured Tea Party. We believe it is not a separate party but a movement.” The RAT platform for coordinating Tea Party events is Conservative Activity News. [ii]

Ross states, “The Tea Party was formed by the silent majority in this country who believe in God and our country and the founding principles that our Founding Fathers held dear.” He adds, “If the Tea Party is ‘extreme,’ then our constitution is too.” Ross hopes the Tea Party can help in “cleaning up the Republican Party.”

To achieve Restoring America Together’s objectives, the group has established a Facebook presence comprised of “seven national groups and two groups in each state,” says Ross. For example, RAT’s largest Facebook [iii] group has 16,042 members, and is a forum for general political discussion while Conservatives for Freedom National Group [iv] is a forum where national RAT leaders and state group leaders come together to coordinate their efforts. New Mexico Conservatives for Freedom [v] is an example of one of Restoring America Together’s very active state groups. RAT has a Twitter account [vi], the Restoring America Together [vii] and Conservative Activity News blogs, and a new Internet radio show, Howling Wolves Radio. [viii] “We hope these media forums will grow and help advance our cause of electing constitutional conservatives to offices nationwide,” notes Ross.

Howling Wolves Radio has gotten off to a great start. It is hosted by Marcia Saulnier Stirman, a RAT member but also State Director of New Mexico’s Eagle Forum chapter. Already, Marcia has interviewed personalities like Daria Novak, [ix] who gave a recap of the recent Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), and Bill Sullivan [x] who discussed civil rights laws passed in the 1800's and spoke about how they may have hindered the upward mobility of Black Americans. Internationally renowned conservative feminist, author, and Middle East expert Phyllis Chesler will be appearing on Howling Wolves Radio on April 29^th at 9 PM EST. The show airs every Tuesday at 9 PM EST. Rollan has made sure that RAT is inclusive and diverse. He has reached out to Black American conservatives.

Restoring America Together has established several national Facebook groups focused on Black American conservatives like the Black Conservatives for Freedom Education Center. [xi] This grassroots group seeks to unify Black Americans in the elective process to place conservative candidates in local, state and national positions during an election period. The mission also includes how RAT can increase conservative voting in the black community and inspiring community leaders to discuss and tackle social issues. Allen West’s wife, Angela West, is a member of this group. Allen is a former U.S. House representative.

RAT’s CEO summarizes that, “The purpose of RAT is to unite conservatives no matter their party or individual standards or ethnicity into a strong army of determined people to keep America free. We have been divided by the media into different cliques and we must cooperate to bring all these groups together, united with one goal: The restoration of America as our forefathers intended.”

He concludes, “I never imagined that my group of three people discussing America’s current situation would grow into the force it is now four years later and 75,000 members strong.”

Ross was born in Miami, Florida. Both of his grandfathers were pioneers in Florida in the 1880’s. He has lived in several U.S. states, and in Mexico, New Zealand, and Australia. His work background has been concentrated in sales and marketing in the food business. He worked for Kraft Foods in the U.S. and in Australia. Ross worked for Ardmona Fruit Co. selling products all over the world. He started his own pet food company and a canning company in Australia. He has traveled extensively in his work, mainly in Southeast Asia.

Through his travels for work and pleasure he found “the United States is the best country in the world even with its flaws.” He became involved in politics when noticing that only 50 percent of Americans were voting. Ross saw that the country was moving too far Left and that people were not happy, but they were not going to the polls to change things. That inspired him to start RAT. He notes, “We have many members who have helped our groups grow like wildfire, but I must mention one who has been instrumental in this success. Mona Breed Johnson has been my right hand woman since she first joined our cause. This couldn’t have happened without her!”

Pictures of Rollan Ross and Phyllis Chesler used with permission. They retain ownership of their respective pictures, and you may not use or distribute their pictures separately from this document without their expressed, written consent.

This text may be reposted or forwarded so long as it is presented as an integral whole with complete and accurate information provided about its author, date, place of publication, and original URL.

You may not make derivative works from this text without the expressed, written permission of the Restoring America Together Network.

1 posted on 04/26/2014 8:39:45 AM PDT by forty_years

RAT? Not satire?

2 posted on 04/26/2014 8:44:02 AM PDT by onedoug

RAT? Not satire?

A serious movement having fun while doing serious work. They're helping conservative candidates across the country.

3 posted on 04/26/2014 8:48:07 AM PDT by forty_years

needs a name change

4 posted on 04/26/2014 9:00:34 AM PDT by WilliamRobert (Obama so loves the poor he created millions more.)

If the two photos are any indication, it is a ‘picturesque’ organization.

5 posted on 04/26/2014 9:11:45 AM PDT by RobinOfKingston (Democrats--the party of Evil. Republicans--the party of Stupid.)

bkmk

6 posted on 04/26/2014 2:37:59 PM PDT by AllAmericanGirl44

RAT ? c’mon.

marketing ? branding ?

no one thought this was important ?

7 posted on 04/28/2014 11:48:51 AM PDT by kingattax (America needs more real Americans.)

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