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Longtime conservative leader Morton Blackwell, a Reagan administration alumni and once the youngest Goldwater delegate at the GOP convention, is perhaps best know as the originator of the phrase “Personnel is policy.” Blackwell’s observation speaks a great truth about American government. Since no one man or woman can do it all, alone, we have followed the French in the development of bureaucratic systems that allow for power and authority to be delegated to subordinates who are responsible, on a daily basis, for the administration of public policy. It is these people, even more than the president, who directly impact the...

I have obtained a copy of the long-awaited and highly-anticipated responses to RNC Committeeman Morton C. Blackwell's questionnaire. All six declared RNC Chair candidates responded. The answers are below: Questionnaire for Candidates for Chairman of the Republican National Committee Prepared and distributed to candidates for RNC chairman November 25, 2008, by Morton C. Blackwell, Virginia Republican National Committeeman, 3128 N. 17th St., Arlington, VA 22201, res. xxx-xxx-xxxx, off. xxx-xxx-xxxx The 37 questions are in bold. The answers are just as provided by Saul Anuzis of Michigan, Ken Blackwell of Ohio, Katon Dawson of South Carolina, Mike Duncan of Kentucky, John...

The nine (at last count) candidates for the job of Republican National Chairman have been sent an eight-page questionnaire by one of the RNC's members — essentially attempting to determine what they would do to pick up the pieces following the 2008 disaster. This letter is bound to get much attention because it comes from a party activist whose prominence in the GOP and in the conservative movement has earned him the respect of those skilled in the craft of serious political science.

"She is dynamite,” said Morton C. Blackwell, who was President Ronald Reagan’s liaison to the conservative movement. Mr. Blackwell described vying to get close to Ms. Palin at a fund-raiser in Virginia, lamenting that he could get only within four feet. “I made a major effort to position myself at this reception,” he said, adding that he is eager to sit down with her after the election to discuss the future. Asked if the weeks of interviews had tarnished her among conservatives, he replied, “Not a bit.” Brent Bozell, president of the Media Research Center, a conservative group, called it...

Youth Leadership School Radisson Hotel Chatsworth Chatsworth, CA May 3rd – 4th, 2008 Since 1979, no other organization has prepared as many people with the nuts-and-bolts techniques necessary to be effective youth leaders as the Leadership Institute. The Institute was founded in 1979 by Morton C. Blackwell to train the next generation of conservative leaders; to date we have trained over 59,000 conservatives. Attend the Youth Leadership School and join the ranks of Morton Blackwell’s notable graduates: • Karl Rove, Former Deputy Chief of Staff for President Bush • United States Senator Mitch McConnell, Kentucky • United States Congressman Patrick...

Thursday, January 24, 2008 Romney Scores Veteran Conservative Endorsement Posted by: Matt Lewis at 4:19 PM Jonathan Martin reports that conservative icon (and personal hero to yours truly), Morton Blackwell has endorsed Mitt Romney for President. (Previously, Morton had endorsed Fred Thompson.) While Morton Blackwell may not be a household name, he is, without a doubt, one of the most important conservative leaders in America. It's safe to say he has acolytes serving in the highest echelons of government -- as well as in every major GOP presidential campaign. Here's one small example that will give you a glimpse into...

WASHINGTON -- Republican insiders, puzzled by the sudden rise of Mike Huckabee as a serious presidential candidate, are overlooking the role played for him by actor Chuck Norris. Called "Huckabee's Oprah" in Hollywood, Norris is helping the former governor of Arkansas in much the same way that Oprah Winfrey boosts Sen. Barack Obama's bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. Huckabee began his ascent from the depths of the second tier of candidates after his endorsement in late October by Norris, called the "marshal of martial arts." Norris's endorsement is featured in a Huckabee TV ad, which his money-short campaign has...

Virginia National Committeeman Supporting Thompson MCLEAN, Virginia, Dec. 11 /Standard Newswire/ -- Today the Fred Thompson campaign announced that conservative leader and Virginia Republican National Committeeman Morton Blackwell is endorsing Senator Thompson for President of the United States. "Of all the candidates who have a chance of winning the Republican presidential nomination, Fred Thompson is my choice," said Morton Blackwell. "Senator Thompson has the most conservative instincts on the public policy issues that are important to America." Morton Blackwell is well known in conservative circles as the Founder and President of the Leadership Institute, an educational foundation, which trains young...

Virginia Sen. John W. Warner has said little about whether he will run for re-election, but the 80-year-old Republican is giving clear indications that he will not return for another term and that his coyness is merely an attempt to help Rep. Thomas M. Davis III, a fellow Republican, replace him. "There has been considerable discussion about the possibility that [Mr. Warner] might delay an announcement of candidacy, then announce he wasn't going to run, to allow Congressman Tom Davis to build up at the beginning of the campaigns, which would give Davis an advantage," said Morton C. Blackwell, chairman...

Source: This letter is taken from Chapter 17, page 571 and 572, of the book Reagan – A Life in Letters which is Edited with an Introduction by Kiron K. Skinner, Annelise Anderson, and Martin Anderson with a Foreword by George P. Shultz. Editor’s Note: Robert Bork, a distinguished legal scholar and member of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, was nominated for the Supreme Court on July 1, 1987. The confirmation proceedings were protracted and contentious. The nomination was defeated in the Senate 58-42 on October 23, 1987. The Democratic majority in the Senate made...

News media reports from meetings organized by billionaire George Soros say he and some rich allies are now funding groups intended to counter the efforts on college campuses of the Leadership Institute and other conservative educational organizations. Although Soros and his allies hope through their spending to increase the effectiveness of the left on campus, I do not fear that activities they bankroll will significantly increase the left's campus influence. Nor can Soros stop the growth of campus conservative activities. My Leadership Institute's Campus Leadership Program, for example, grew its number of active, independent, conservative campus groups from 216 in...

If John Kerry is elected president, he will have many people to thank, but the list may start with Michael Whouley. A legendary Democratic field operative, the reclusive Mr. Whouley is in charge of the thousands of Democratic grassroots organizers who are charged with getting out the vote. Similarly, if George W. Bush wins he will owe a great deal to Morton Blackwell, a GOP national committeeman from Virginia, who helped persuade the party to supplement its paid advertising with a ground game that worked so well in Senate races in 2002 that it became the model for this year's...

My right-wing degree How I learned to convert liberal campuses into conservative havens at Morton Blackwell's Leadership Institute, alma mater of Karl Rove, Ralph Reed, Jeff Gannon and two Miss Americas.   - - - - - - - - - - - - By Jeff Horwitz   May 24, 2005 | One recent Sunday, at Morton Blackwell's Leadership Institute, a dozen students meet for the second and final day of training in grass-roots youth politics. All are earnest, idealistic and as right wing as you can get. They take careful notes as instructor Paul Gourley teaches them how to...

Here are some predictions. They are dead certainties. 1. Night will follow day. 2. Average temperatures in Florida will exceed those in Alaska – which, by the way, has nothing to do with the phony trumped-up alarm over "global warming." 3. After a steady drumbeat of leftist attacks on House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (aided and abetted by the media), you will suddenly read about push "polls," whose purpose will be to see how effective the organized smear job has been. And sure enough, the charts will show the wolf pack has done its job. DeLay's "public approval" ratings will...

Fellow Conservatives, I'm writing to ask you to join me in doing something effective against the leftist organizations and liberal media who have launched truly vicious attacks on U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. They attack Tom DeLay for just one reason: Congressman DeLay is one of the most effective fighters for conservative principles. Time and again, Majority Leader Tom DeLay manages the strategy which wins for conservatives in the narrowly divided House of Representatives. I know personally that Tom Delay is almost obsessively careful to get good legal advice before he takes any step which might conceivably be questioned...

In 1973, when Richard Mellon Scaife and Joseph Coors kicked together some seed money to start the conservative Heritage Foundation, the Democrats held the Senate and had a 50-seat majority in the House. As progressives are starting to understand, the funding, planning and coordination of the conservative movement has led to tremendous success in elections and government policy. But another arena of ideological competition has gone largely beneath the radar. An asymmetric political war is raging at universities across the country, and once again conservatives are running circles around progressives. The campus left, which is still organized for the most...

When speakers at the Republican convention discuss Senator John Kerry's service in Vietnam, they use words like "respect," as Rudolph W. Giuliani did on Monday, giving nary a hint of the unsubstantiated charges by a veteran's group that Mr. Kerry lied to get his war medals, which dominated the campaign for two weeks before the convention began. But the charges are coursing through the convention like an undertow, a key topic of conversation at parties, hotels and on the convention floor. Party elders and campaign officials are not above delving into some of the criticisms raised by the veterans group,...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Any of you watching the convention last night, even if you weren't watching, you may have heard about this. A couple delegates out there have little Band-Aids that they're wearing. They're little Purple Hearts that are painted on Band-Aids. The story today by Will Lester of the Associated Press. "A GOP delegate handed out bandages with purple hearts on them Monday night at the Republican National Convention in a swipe at Democratic nominee John Kerry's war record, but national GOP officials have asked him to stop. The bandages were handed out by Morton Blackwell, a longtime GOP...

NEW YORK - A GOP delegate handed out bandages with purple hearts on them Monday night at the Republican National Convention in a swipe at Democratic nominee John Kerry (news - web sites)'s war record, but national GOP officials have asked him to stop. The bandages were handed out by Morton Blackwell, a longtime GOP activist from Virginia, with the message: "It was just a self-inflicted scratch, but you see I got a Purple Heart for it." Kerry won three Purple Hearts, a Silver Star and a bronze star for his service in the Vietnam War. A group calling itself...

NewsMax's Wes Vernon spoke with Morton Blackwell, the GOP National Committeeman from Virginia and head of the Leadership Institute. Reports that Michael Moore was gracious and friendly to convention goers may be unfounded. Here's what Blackwell observed: "In this hallway here [just outside the convention arena] roughly a half hour before [McCain refered to Moore as a 'disingenuous filmmaker'] a conservative lady from a mid-western state, whom I happen to know, went up to him [Moore] as he was walking and said something like 'May God save you' -- in essence, in a very nice Christian way, calling on him...

GOP bigwigs put the screws on a Virginia delegate mocking John Kerry's war record last night after Rep. Charles Rangel, a Democrat, blew up at the Republican convention and demanded that President Bush put a stop to the attacks. Morton Blackwell, a GOP activist from Virginia, was distributing bandages with purple hearts on them over the message: "It was just a self-inflicted scratch, but you see I got a Purple Heart for it." Kerry won three Purple Hearts, a Silver Star and a Bronze Star in Vietnam. National GOP leaders first said they knew nothing of the bandages, which popped...

<p>The conservative movement has scored historic gains but has yet to achieve several of its basic goals.</p> <p>That's the verdict of some of its founding fathers (and one important mother).</p> <p>"We won the battle against communism, but I guess we've largely lost the battle against big government," says Eagle Forum President Phyllis Schlafly, 79, who defied conventional wisdom by leading a women's crusade that defeated the Equal Rights Amendment in the mid-1970s.</p>

Some people bluntly say they don't read. Others offer an excuse: They would read if only they had the time. I will also be blunt: People who don't read cheat themselves. By not reading, they limit what they can achieve, make mistakes they could avoid, and miss opportunities that could improve their lives. Finally, as the gaps in their knowledge become apparent, they must reconcile themselves to not being taken seriously. Before going any further, I must make clear that I do not urge you to spend the rest of your days nestled in a cozy spot at the local...

July 8, 2003, 11:00 a.m. By Jim Boulet Jr. Two Hispanic men of achievement have been suggested for high office by the Bush administration. You have undoubtedly heard of Miguel Estrada, a Bush judicial nominee who is the victim of a filibuster by Senate Democrats. You may soon hear of R. Alexander Acosta, whose prospective nomination as assistant attorney general for civil rights has provoked praise from the same foes of official English who oppose Estrada. The National Council of La Raza (NCLR), while tepid regarding the Estrada nomination, is red hot in its support for Acosta because: During his...

PlatonNot your father's coterie of campus conservatives: from top, Charles Mitchell, a founder of the Bucknell University Conservatives Club, and his fellow members Denise Chaykun, Allison Kasic and Michael Boland. The temptation, upon entering Charles Mitchell's dorm room at Bucknell University, is to assume that he's kidding. The doormat features a picture of Hillary Clinton and the injunction, ''Wipe Liberally.'' A vast American flag festooned in red, white and blue Christmas lights adorns one wall, along with a faded Reagan-Bush '84 poster and a small photograph of the cowboy-hatted Gipper himself. The sole concession to any interest outside right-wing...

Conference for conservative thinkers coming to Chicago Tuesday, May 06, 2003 By The Leader-Chicago Bureau Conference website is www.conservativeconference.com. CHICAGO -- Conservatives in Illinois will be meeting together with national speakers such as Grover Norquist, Morton Blackwell and Janet LaRue next Saturday, May 17 at the Palmer House in downtown Chicago. "Winning with Ideas," the theme of the conference, reflects the mood of Illinois conservative political activists who suffered loss at the statewide level last November, but achieved political victories at the national level. The conservatives of Illinois say that they are not represented by the leaders in either of...