Posted on 03/14/2009 7:03:16 PM PDT by GOP_Lady
A broad coalition of left-leaning groups is quietly closing ranks into a new coalition, "Unity '09," aimed at helping President Barack Obama push his agenda through Congress.
Conceived at a New York meeting before the November election, two Democrats familiar with the planning said, Unity '09 will draw together money and grassroots organizations to pressure lawmakers in their home states to back White House legislation and other progressive causes.
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The online-based MoveOn.org is a central player in the nascent organization, but other groups involved in planning Unity '09 span a broad spectrum of interests, from the American Civil Liberties Union to the National Council of La Raza to Planned Parenthood, as well as labor unions and environmental groups.
The group is still in its early stages, and its organizers have adopted a secretive posture: Several of the people involved did not respond to emails over the last two days, even though one of them, former MoveOn executive director Eli Pariser, has programmed his MoveOn email account to assure correspondents that he is using the account for messages "including Unity '09 work."
People familiar with the planning said that the White House is not directly involved in the group's formation, though Unity '09's main day-to-day staffer, Aaron Pickrell, was a senior aide on Obama's presidential campaign. Aides to Obama and to Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel didn't respond to inquiries about whether they were familiar with the group.
Unity '09 comes at a time of increasing coordination on the left, including an effort this week by the Democratic National Committee, Obama's grassroots network and other groups to defend Obama's budget and attack the GOP as obstructionists.
But Unity '09 is setting a broader, and longer-term agenda, aiming to exert grassroots pressure on lawmakers in their home states over the next several years on the entire spectrum of political issues.
"When progressive activists are working in concert and the right is forming a circular firing squad, you know it's a new day," said consultant Paul Begala, who said he's not involved in the new organization.
Unity '09 is, informally, the field organizing compliment to another new organization, Progressive Media , which launched a month ago to coordinate the liberal groups' messages and their attacks on Republicans and on critics of Obama's policies. That group's 8:45 a.m. daily conference call has helped bring such unlikely groups as the League of Conservation Voters into an effort to cast Rush Limbaugh as the leader of the Republican Party, and has coordinated attacks on two leading critics of Obama's health care plans.
But while Progressive Media is an in-house project of two existing organizations, the Center for American Progress and Media Matters, Unity '09 requires more commitment from its members in the form of a $25,000 contribution to the group's future organizing campaigns, a source said.
Unity '09 is conceived as ultimately including 20 to 30 organizations, people familiar with the planning said. The groups have overlapping, but different, groups of members and financial resources at their disposal, and the idea behind the organization is that they can share resources to fill in geographical and organizational gaps. Labor unions could, for instance, put their weight behind environmental campaigns in regions where environmental groups are relatively weak, and vice versa.
Along with the groups previously mentioned, others involved in planning discussions include the Sierra Club, Media Matters for America, and Health Care for America Now.
Unity '09 is not to be confused with Unity '08, a bipartisan group of political operatives that sought to nominate New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg as the top of an independent presidential ticket last year.
The new organization is likely to stir fears among conservatives already feeling organizationally outgunned and flatly alarmed by the new progressive infrastructure.
"This, ladies and gentlemen is, a threat to America," Fox News's Bill O'Reilly said, responding Saturday night to POLITICO's report on the birth of Progressive Media and its morning conference call. "The Obama administration would be wise to avoid this crew. If the new administration gets involved in this, it would be like the Nixon dirty tricks squad."
And ACORN isn't?
BOR...is clueless once again.
I feel like conservatives aren’t effectively countering this stuff.
My apologies to those that DO have the courage to back their keyboarding with a little action.
Don’t discount blogging. Effective blogging can be really useful. I have a blog now getting 100 hits a day. Seems small, but it used to be 10 hits a day.
The right is organizing as well; they’re going to find it is not as easy to get through their agenda as they’d like, and they are fighting reality; Obama’s policies will only make things worse. They’re going to get overwhelmed and the leftists Marxist philosophy will be discredited!..
I agree. The rats are will be given a “statement” come November 2010.
I feel like conservatives aren’t effectively countering this stuff.
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And I don’t either. We need to get a ‘voter registration movement’ going, here, just like ‘the nuts’. There are many, many tax payers that just don’t vote because they feel ‘disenfranchised’. We need $$$$$$ and we need coordination. It’s the only way, I feel, the ‘Potomac fever’ sufferers are going to listen to “THE PEOPLE’.
Glenn Beck has the right idea to kick this off.....though (don’t kick my @ss, here)....he needs to ‘tone down the tears and apply the rage’ (though I know full WELL where Glenn is coming from. Feel that on a daily basis!!!).
Grass roots, folks. Grass roots. Leave the ‘country club RINOs’ to ‘fend for themselves’.
What do you think the “Tea Parties” are about?
Precisely. Where is the conservative equivalent to this organized effort by the libs to advance the cause of socialism? Why can’t the Pubbies get it together?
It’s time to take back the country.
Yep, BOR has his ego cloud obscuring the obvious. But the rest of America (or a large segment) will finally start see the persecution of left-wing stalwarts as a sign of their fate. Attacking Rush is cool and poses no threat. Attacking Cramer, a former lieutenant (useful idiot and man with a megaphone), begins to lift the cloud and show discordant views will not be tolerated.
Well, the Left is giving us issues to rally behind, like the cut in the charitable deduction, the attacks on the RTKBA, higher taxes, a weak military posture.
To be blunt, we got soft in the Bush years.
They can not sell their policy based upon merit. If they could, they wouldn’t have to resort to smear tactics, the kind of politics Obama was going to “change.” But you won’t hear that in the MSM ... they are in bed with the left.
To be honest with ya’ it’s Beck that finally got me to join here. I’ve read now and then. His 912 site was unavailable all day yesterday. I got annoyed because how do you invite people and then have that kind of problem? They’d better fix it. It’s been a long time since I was a member of any kind of political board. Eight years ago I joined a private board, I was invited to as a conservative and gradually all of the conservatives were bullied ‘till they left or kicked out. I was kicked out. A liberal ran the board and she’d tolerate derision and scorn as long as it came from people with her beliefs.
The Republicans just scattered. The libs are still posting there feeding each others’ hate. I fought to good fight for a long time and was always civil, but liberals don’t want to debate with you or discuss values or philosophy, they simply want to “re-educate” you. And when you reject their ideas time and time again...they eliminate you.
To be blunt, we got soft in the Bush years.
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I TOTALLY agree. The left took advantage of us because they knew we put our emotions on Bush to help solve things after 9/11. It is US who needs to solve the problems....and stop relying on a ‘leader’ to do that. JMO. :)
Some of us have posted call after call for meet and greet organizing as outlined in Mr. Robinson`s thread http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2188527/posts or calls to support the peaceful tea-party protests, whats the response? Hit or miss! People, WE NEED TO DO BETTER!
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