If you have not read The Declaration – recently or ever – I encourage you to do so now. It birthed our great Republic and is one of the greatest political documents ever drafted. You cannot understand America without it.
Jefferson’s personal account of the years, months, and days leading up to the drafting and signing are also worth reading.
My new AZ-based blogger-friend Rachel Alexander was in L.A. for the Heritage Resource Bank and AFP and ATR events last week. She wrote about some of it here.
I’m mentioned about 3/4 of the way down, along with the snark-lovely (snovely?) E.M. Zanotti and my new friend and reigning Twitter Queen Melissa Clouthier.
Also mentioned are new pals Eric Telford, Jon Fleischman, Todd Thurman and old pals at ATR.
Not mentioned is Twitter King Stephen Kruiser who has a great blog. And who also does a daily show for RFC Radio. And who has also been appearing on Pajamas Media TV lately. And who has been invited to appear on FNC’s Red Eye. He was invited the day time conference but mostly hung out after hours and kept us laughing. (Rising Star Alert!)
It would take half a day to create a complete Who’s Who list of who was there last week. So I won’t. But I will say this:
I was encouraged to hear so much talk – in lectures, on panels, in workshops, and after hours – about New Media and blogging and their place in the conservative movement.
My first mantra for the two-days can be summed up as this:
Conservative organizations need to pony up and budget money for Technology and New Media both internally and as part of their overall communications plan. We can talk about citizen-activists and grassroots efforts all we want – and volunteerism is powerful – but a lot of the things we need to accomplish cost money because they require significant time + intense labor.
The Left is already spending millions on online marketing and activism; the Right is still behind.
(Note to my blogger buddies: I’m going to see if I can get my hands on a few of Alex Castellanos‘ PowerPoint slides from Thursday so I can try to post some blurbs. If anyone knows him personally, help a girl out.)
Mantra Two:
Figure out some new messaging some of the time. There’s a huge demographic of conservatives (ages 18 to 49) who passionately believe in our principles but who do not fit the stereotype.
They are Middle Americans. They work and live regular lives. They budget and pay their bills and save a little. And expect their government to do the same. They don’t go to conservative leadership conferences. They don’t read National Review. They rarely (if ever) wear a tie. They own guns and would use them if needed. They’re pro-military, pro-defense, and pro-kill-the-SOB’s-before-they-kill-us-first. They live life enthusiastically and at times a little irreverently. They love rock-n-roll or sh*t-kickin’ country music. They hate political correctness. They love the flag. They spend time with their kids and then send ‘em to bed so they can watch their DVR’d TV shows, read their news online, and watch South Park. They laugh at (and make) off color remarks. They listen to RFC Radio. They are tired of conservatives who are not Conservatives and Republicans who are really Democrats. They are tired of being mocked and pigeon-holed and they really don’t give a damn about people in Washington D.C.
If you’re a movement person or organization, you should be asking yourself: “How do I reach these folks?”
It was bad form not to announce my absence, I know. Humble apologies to all who visited E!! and found me absent.
I decided to buy a MacBook and iPhone the morning before the night before my 3-day trip to L.A. for the Heritage Resource Bank Conference, Americans for Prosperity (AFP) New Media Workshop, and Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) Blogger Reception & Meet-up. (Great and fun and very worthwhile, all. More about them in another post, along with my after thoughts.)
Right after I made the purchase decision, I decided to unplug my home PC/tower and take it to the Apple store so the nice Apple people could magically transfer all my data to my new MacBook while I was out of town. Which meant I had access to Gmail and the Internet on my iPhone but was otherwise offline from Thursday morning until now, when I got my MacBook plugged in and configured and my iPhone synched up. (If I had been thinking ahead, I would have set up an iTunes account when I was still plugged in so I could have downloaded WordPress in advance of my iPhone purchase…but I wasn’t.)
Now that I have all this fabulous mobile/wireless technology, I will never again be separated from my blog, Twitter, Facebook, and other accounts.
Joy!!
My friend and fellow grassroots organizer, Eric Odom, debates a sarcastic and dismissive Bill Press about the TEA Parties – who started them, who’s funding them, and what they mean – on Fox News Channel. Here’s the video clip.
A few notes:
Bill’s opening quip – “I smell a rat” – made me roll my eyes. And his contention that the Tea Parties are “not genuine” and are “funded by big Republican groups” and that the “timing is politically suspicious”…are ill-informed, wrong, and frankly, silly.
The TEA Party movement was and is a grassroots thing. It started with a few small blogger-groups who organized some small demonstrations awhile back, and then the idea spread like wildfire online (“new media”) and on the “small” airwaves: via blogs, email forwards, BlogTalkRadio, RFC Radio, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Ning networking sites, message boards, and chat rooms.
The biggest evidence that this is a grassroots effort is the lack of funding and the lack of central control/planning. Here in Nevada, I’ve seen about a dozen different web pages posting 3 different locations and a dozen different time windows for the TEA (Taxed Enough Already!) Party events. People got wind of the idea, liked it, and started organizing their own mini-events among their own friends and networks. When they all show up today, it will be Big – but not because the mythical Vast Right Wing Consiracy and/or Big GOP is behind it.
Here in Las Vegas, there was/is NO BUDGET for our Tea Party event. A few dozen very committed leader-volunteers and about 800 local volunteer-helpers spread the word about the event/rally. The only money spent (that I’m aware of) was the $200 plunked down this past Friday by Chuck Muth of Citizen Outreach, for a picnic area at Sunset Park. Chuck offered to do this when he got wind that we (the organizers and volunteers) were being told that local radio station KXNT – which wanted/wants to cover the event – could not set up a broadcast table, nor could we set up a small podium, mic, and sound/speakers, on or near the sidewalks at the designated protest areas.
Most of the people I know who are attending here have NEVER participated in a protest or a picket line. General disgust and a wish to be heard has drawn them out.
Whatever the Snarkmeisters wish to say, the Tax Day TEA Parties are a grassroots, post-partisan/non-partisan thing. People are simply fed up with the endless bailouts, lack of accountability and transparency, ridiculous earmarks, huge deficits, frightening federal budget, and the like.
I agree with every word of this post called “Why I Hate Inaugurations” by the always thoughtful Joe Carter. Here’s most of it:
I cannot bear to watch the religious fervor, the tears and chants and beaming visages, for the promotion of a man or woman to a secular office. We do not live in a monarchy; we do not crown queens and kings in American.
Lest we forget, the President of the United States is the servant of the American people. (Despite what actors like Ashton Kutcher think, we do not serve him.) There is something unseemly, and dare I say, almost un-American, about making such a spectacle about a public servant taking office.
Transition ceremonies should be dignified, graceful, and modest – the exact opposite of all that Inauguration ceremonies have become. For this one, President Bush even declared a state of emergency for the entire city of DC so that taxpayer money could be diverted from the FEMA budget for this spectacle. This disgraceful action by our outgoing President barely raised a shrug from the populace. We no longer question our kings.
Many of our fellow citizens have lost all sense of decorum and perspective about this event. The transition of Presidential power from one man to another does not mark a significant transition in the culture of America. Our worries, fears, and concerns do not abate because there is a different man in the White House. Our dreams, hopes, and happiness do not increase because of who occupies the Oval Office. This change in government does not portend a change in human nature or the hearts of our fellow citizens. America — all that is good and bad about us — remains the same.
Fortunately, the unseemly pageantry of the Inauguration will be over by tomorrow, allowing us to move on to what truly matters in our country. Perhaps then all of us, even those of us in DC, can move beyond the deification of the political to focus once again on what truly matters.
© 2013 Elizabeth Crum. All Rights Reserved.