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January 25, 2007

The Vanguard Takes on MoveOn

A new conservative effort to take back Congress in 2008 is quietly underway in the form of a website called The Vanguard, which is intended to be the Republican's counter to MoveOn.org. Like MoveOn, The Vanguard was started by Silicon Valley talent and money. The site is headed up by Rod Martin who, by all accounts, is a charismatic rising star on the right. He is joined by an impressive Board that includes Grover Norquist, Marvin Olasky, and Jack Wheeler, among others. And just this week, he has been joined by Jerome Corsi, the man who wrote "Unfit for Command," the book that unraveled John Kerry's presidential campaign. Corsi will be focusing his efforts on bringing down Hillary Clinton.

Martin is a true insider on the right. He is a member of the Board of Governors of the Council for National Policy – a group that was founded by Tim LaHaye (author of the Left Behind books) and was called the "club of the most powerful" by the New York Times. Martin also, thanks to the personal recommendation from James Dobson, is a member of the Arlington Group, which coordinates the most senior leaders of the Christian Right. So it is no surprise that Norquist's desire to keep Christians in the Republican fold is shared by Martin. This morning, the sparse offerings featured on the front page of the website include an article advocating for Congress to "uphold the partial birth abortion ban" and an advertisement for the book "Help! Mom! The 9th Circuit Nabbed the Nativity." Yes, the phony War on Christmas continues to work its organizational wonders.

Martin offers an interesting quote: “The left has always been better at coalition building.” I've heard Democrats say the same thing about Republicans. If you want to know a little secret, the right isn't any more organized than the left. They just know how to use multiple entities, their noise machine, and a blustering air of confidence to make it look like they have their act together. But the grassroots are simply not there. The one exception is the Christian right. They are activated at the grassroots level. That is very likely a big part of why they matter so much to people like Norquist.

It doesn't take long to see that The Vanguard is offering the same core rallying messages as all the other leading right-wing Republican efforts – support the President's "war on terror," protect gun rights from the rabid liberals who want to take them away, stop killing pre-born babies, and return our culture to one based on Christian values as overtly expressed by government. What fascinates me is that these people actually believe that simply working harder and smarter at conveying the same tired messages they have delivered for years will somehow win them back Congress. Perhaps they convinced themselves that President Bush has messed everything up for them at the ballot box simply because he's a moderate; therefore, the electorate's rejection of the Republican party has actually been a rejection of moderation and the answer is a return to far right conservatism. How that explains the move by swing voters to the left last November is beyond me. But looking back over my life, I see now that I really never have thought like a Republican. That's probably why I don't get it.

Posted by Becky at January 25, 2007 09:32 AM