New Majority Drives To Swell Numbers & Influence -- But To What End?

Orange County has given birth to and/or nurtured its share of people and organizations that have powerfully impacted the Republican Party -- for good or ill.

Richard Nixon was born here, and Ronald Reagan's political home base was here.

The state's two leading GOP groups -- the Lincoln Club of Orange County and the New Majority -- also originated here.

The Lincoln Club was formed in the wake of the bitter 1962 gubernatorial primary between Richard Nixon and Joe Schell. The purpose was to "build Republican strength by lowering the intensity of intra-party warfare and making party politics more orderly and business-like."

The New Majority was born in the wake of Dan Lungren's lopsided 1998 defeat and dedicated to "bringing a Republican majority to California by lending the necessary resources to candidates who support fiscally responsible government and an inclusive Party."

In April I was invited to attend a small media lunch with Tom Tucker, chairman of New Majority/California, and Paul Folino, chairman of New Majority/OC, where they talked about TNM's past and their plans for its future, gave us (me, Jean Pasco of the LA Times, Martin Wisckol of the OC Register, Alicia Robinson of the Daily Pilot and Michael Lyster of the OC Business Journal).

TNM's painful entry into politics with an ill-fated and ill-informed attempt to take over the Republican Party of OC Central Committee is well known in GOP circles. A lot of political observers dismissed them as dilettantes and expected they'd pack it in after that attempt ended in an embarasing disaster.

To their credit, TNM plowed ahead, reached out without rancor to conservatives and have worked hard to build of the GOP. For example, the OC GOP's recent closure of the registration gap (notwithstanding instances of registration fraud at the close of the drive) is due entirely to a registration program funded by The New Majority.

According to Tucker and Folino, TNM is already the most prolific GOP fundraiser in the state: since 2002, $30 has been raised by TNM and its members.

TNM established a Los Angeles chapter in 2004 (of which my good friend Andy Gharakani is the executive director). According to Tucker and Folino, their goal is to establish 7 more chapters in the next four years -- each chapter with about 150 members (the OC chapter is at 200 members and LA has 85 members).

They Inland Empire is currently in the making. At the time of the media luncheon, they had signed up about 2 dozen members after two recruitment lunches. They were planning a May 25 event with former Governor Pete Wilson to kick-off fthe formation of a San Diego chapter, and Bay Area and Silicon Valley chapters are next on their agenda for launching.

The New Majority/California was recently formed as an umbrealla group to coordinate the various clubs and to manage The New Majority brand."

Obviously, if their plans are successful, TNM will command serious fundraising firepower. Let's assume they are successful in establishing 7 chapters of 150 members each. Annual dues are $10,000. That's $10,500,000 right there. According to Tucker, they've been ablethus far to fund-raise 3.5 times the annual dues from each member, leading him to confidentaly predict they'll be able to rasie at least $25 million a year. That is an enormous amount of political capital.

The New Majority is already a significant player in GOP politics, and if their expansion plans come to fruition TNM will be an 800-poubd gorilla.

The question is, to what end will this weight be thrown around? Arnold Schwarzenegger entered state politics via Prop. 49 not long after TNM's formation, and support for Arnold heavily defines The New Majority's identity.

As Paul Folino said at the luncheon, "Arnold Schwarzenegger and Prop, 49 really rallied us. He was someone who shared our point of view. He is hugley important to The New Majority's growth. The Governor has accelerated our progress by five years -- if it weren't for him, I'm not sure we could have opened up two new chapters in two years."

I think The New Majority has been a very positive force in California Republican politics. Critics knock them for being more "pragmatic" than conservative, but it's that same pragmatism that led TNM to quickly abandon battling conservatives as a counter-productive enterprise, and decide to work with conservatives to build a bigger GOP.

At the same time, as long as The New Majority is planning four years out, they also need to think about their organization's overarching purpose post-Arnold. In a state where politics is dominated by labor union, casino tribe and trial attorney dollars, The New Majority's fundraising prowess is desperately needed. But just as desperately needed is a hard-edged commitment to battling for expressly for liberty and limited government that matches the ferocity the aforementioned liberal interest groups devote to expanding the power and scope of government (except for the casino tribes, who are really just concerned with expanding their own power and scope).

http://www.thenewmajority.com/

Welcome to the New Majority

The New Majority is an organization founded on a vision of bringing a Republican majority to California by lending the necessary resources to candidates who support fiscally responsible government and an inclusive Party.

Since 2000, the New Majority has contributed more than ten million dollars to Republican candidates and causes. Many of our individual members have donated and directed millions more. In our first year we said we were “creating a group that was going to level the playing field in California politics.” Back then we had just four members. Today, with more than 215 members across two chapters and an annual budget of more than $2 million, it looks like our prediction could not have been more accurate.

Today, our focus remains on Governor Schwarzenegger, whom we played an instrumental role in the 2003 Recall Election. We are looking forward to a challenging and exciting year in 2006 which will determine the direction of our state.

We hope that you will take a minute to consider the New Majority.

http://www.thenewmajority.com/mission.php

Mission Statement

The New Majority will broaden the appeal of the Republican Party by promoting a fiscally responsible philosophy toward government and lending resources to Republicans who support an inclusive, mainstream approach toward politics.

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When a society lets businessmen exclusively dictate the policies of a political party the society has a problem. Political parties best serve the public interests when their agenda and goals are philosophically driven, not monetary.

When those policies are implemented by an influential party the society has an even bigger problem. The New Majority and its candidates will soon be in the headlines for their ancient, but freshly packaged, brand of public corruption. In the twentieth century it was called fascism. Today it's called the public-private partnership.

The New Majority and their handpicked Wilsonegger gang see the public sector only as a mechanism to further their business interests and line their pockets with public money. Follow the money, whether budgets or bonds, and it leads increasingly, directly, to the pockets of the New Majority.

Money, introduced into the political process, which was directly derived from public coffers, is not generosity and not free speech. It is an arch typical example of public corruption.

Annual dues are $10,000.

Sounds like a bunch of fat-cat, elitist Third Way types. Now that I know Schwarzennegger is one of these "New Majority" (really Third Way) types, I better understand why he governs the way he does.

There have been many "third way" movements around the world. The modern one is nothing more than an attempt to repackage socialism by shoring up its economic weaknesses while still adhering to a "progressive" governmental and social agenda. Third Way types are Leftists who cherry pick elements of Rightist fiscal policies. Then they try to marginalize both traditional Leftists and people on the Right by characterizing themselves pragmatists and centrists.

Remember the Democratic Leadership Council that pushed Bill Clinton to the White House? It's a Third Way group. Remember the group founded by Warren Rudman and Paul Psongas in the early 1990's? Same thing. Even Newt Gingrich was pushing the Third Way for awhile, because he was a friend of someone who wrote a book about the Third Way. (I don't know if he still adheres to that philosophy though.)

If you Google "Third Way," you'll find many references. There's even an official Third Way website. Here's a link.

Here's a link to the Democratic Leadership Council's website. You'll easily see the commonalities. Between the Third Way's site and the DLC's site.

I think this is the book Newt was pushing several years ago.

Here's a snippet of Amazon's review of this book:

The idea of finding a third way in politics has been widely discussed - not only in the UK, but in the US, Continental Europe and Latin America. But what is the third way? Supporters of the notion haven't been able to agree, and critics deny the possibility altogether. Anthony Giddens shows that developing a third way is not only a possibility but a necessity in modern politics. The third way represents the renewal of social democracy in a world where the views of the old left have become obsolete, while those of the new right are inadequate and contradictory.

Here's an excerpt from the description of Third Way on Wikipedia:

The term was appropriated by politicians in the 1990s who wished to incorporate Thatcher and Reagan's projects of economic deregulation, privatization, and globalization into the mainstream centre-left political parties (following the crisis of socialism after the fall of the Berlin Wall) so that in this context the Third Way is usually understood as a nickname for neoliberal social-economic policy. As such, it has become an important ideology in modern European democracies, especially by some Social-Democratic parties, as well as for some members of the United States Democratic Party (particularly, the Democratic Leadership Council). It gets its name from its alleged role as an alternative to both pure, free market capitalism and the kind of economic order represented by strong welfare states such as the Scandinavian countries and Germany, which are held to be too regulated and taxed at rates that are too high to compete with economies run on free-market principles.

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