Nationwide Grassroots Movement Seeks Permanent Center-Right Majority

NewsMax.com ^ | Thursday, Nov. 27, 2003 | Wes Vernon,

[vladog]

WASHINGTON – A grassroots movement marrying the business community to family-issue conservatives to achieve a permanent “center-right” electoral majority has quietly sprouted up all over America in just the past three years.

It had started with weekly off-the-record meetings here in Washington involving a broad spectrum of the conservative community. Those meetings are now duplicated in 40 meetings in 36 states from coast to coast.

Eight more states (Alabama, Michigan, Tennessee, North Carolina, Kentucky, West Virginia, North Dakota and Rhode Island) expect to have such meetings regularly by the end of this year.

Only six states (Alaska, Idaho, Wyoming, Arkansas, Louisiana and Delaware) do not yet have plans for startups by year’s end.

“Our goal is to earn 60 percent of the electorate,” says Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, instigator of the spreading movement.

In an interview with NewsMax.com, Norquist said the 90-minute meetings, in Washington and elsewhere, involved information packets handed out to the attendees representing interests all across the “center-right” spectrum.

Conservatives need to “work together, recognizing that we need all parts of the movement,” Norquist told us.

He tells the business community that “if they want to fight trial lawyers and lower taxes, they had better know who the home-schooling community is in their state.” Years ago, he would get some “blank stares” on that one.

Now “they have a lot better understanding.” In the state capitals, “guys in business community” are thrilled to be allied with such diverse interests as gun rights advocates, snowmobilers, and “the biker community” concerned with laws forcing them to wear helmets.

Norquist emphasizes the need for conservatives to “earn” 60 percent, which does not necessarily translate into 60 percent of the vote every election, allowing a margin for some drop on single issues.

For example, there are the “little old ladies in Mississippi who agree with Ronald Reagan on everything but are still mad about Sherman [marching] into Atlanta.”

Similarly, “you have Irish-Americans in Boston who agree with Ronald Reagan on everything, but the guy who was mean to their great-grandfather was Protestant Republican 150 years ago, and so he’s voting Democrat.”

Bottom line, as Norquist sees it: “You’re losing votes for what I consider no damn good reason.”

Beyond historical factors, some allowances are likely to be made for issues dividing otherwise natural Republican voters on libertarian vs. national security concerns. A good example of that is the split in Republican and conservative ranks over the Patriot Act, which was passed shortly after 9/11. It has set off a new storm of debate in Congress over how to balance civil liberties against heightened homeland security.

“We need a broad enough coalition to earn 60 percent of the votes in order to guarantee that we carry 51 percent.” That is street-smarts conservatism, applied nationally and on the state level, as well.

Although ATR itself obviously emphasizes economic issues, Norquist considers himself “a generic conservative of all stripes." He recently spoke to the Legal Life Defense group in California (the “ACLU of the pro-life movement”). Moreover, he helped write the multi-issue Contract for America when the voters gave the GOP control of Congress in 1994.

ATR steadfastly resists attempts to raise taxes. Norquist cites his group’s anti-tax pledge, signed by officials throughout the country, including the president of the United States, whose tax relief is widely credited with an improved economic outlook.

[vladog]

No good enough! Center is where the road-kill is. Center/Right is just a tad over from the main road-kill area. Either a full blown right winger be, or join you friends in the road-kill stew.

[akbaines]

I thought it looked like a good idea to bring people together.

[hchutch]

That is not a bad thing, particularly in terms of building coalitions. If there is mutual understanding and at least a willingness to listen to certain viewpoints. Both sides bring key things to the table. Business generates funds, and other elements devote the activists and volunteers that also help campaigns.

The problem is coalition-building sometimes means compromises. For ideological purists, that is worse than allowing Hillary Rodham Clinton to win the Presidency.

The "bash Norquist" bunch will also show up as well.

[PhiKapMom]

You want to elect conservatives to office, then you have to start somewhere. Until the "purists" put their all or nothing approach away, they are not going to be happy. You change from within and once people see conservatives are their neighbors and friends and not some nutcase who doesn't know the meaning of the words give and take, then you will consistently elect conservative Republicans.

Oklahoma is a perfect example of that -- liberals don't win here -- conservative Republicans do for national office.

[ovrtaxt]

So, where would Bush fall in the spectrum? He certainly isn't conservative, given his spending record. He's great on the war, pro-life, an impressive politician, but he's endangering the recovery by his spending. (I'm talking abou the stuff like Kennedy's education bill, and the Medicare bill that just passed.) Would Bush be a supportable candidate to a truly conservative coalition?

[vladog]

Not for me he would not. Gw is just better than anything the Dem-O-Rats can put forth. And you are right GW is not a truly Conservative man, contray to what the Left has written. (Of course the Repub's are getting more Liberal and the Dem's are going off the deep end of Liberalism)