That in and of itself illustrates the difference between conservatives and liberals.
Liberals believe that all is orchestrated from the top and everyone is just a puppet. Conservatives know that the key is bottom up organization and each of us have an amazing amount of control over our own destiny.
The granolas are very good freinds of mine. They are painfully misguided, however, and it has been a 8 year struggle to right their politcal ship. One of my favorite things out of them was the denial of the mass graves in Iraq, but complete embracing of Kosovan and Serbian mass graves. When pressed for a reason as to why they believed one and not the other, she said it was reported that way in the New York Times!