{"id":4291,"date":"2005-05-25T12:31:40","date_gmt":"2005-05-25T16:31:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/4291.html"},"modified":"2005-05-25T12:31:40","modified_gmt":"2005-05-25T16:31:40","slug":"the-leadership-institute","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/the-leadership-institute\/","title":{"rendered":"The Leadership Institute"},"content":{"rendered":"

Salon’s Jeff Horwitz has a tremendous item<\/a> in Salon today on the right-wing Leadership Institute, a training program founded by Republican activist Morton Blackwell (you might remember Blackwell as the Bush delegate who mocked injured troops<\/a> at the GOP convention). <\/p>\n

It’s a fascinating look at how young conservatives are being trained to win elections, generate media attention, and mount a conservative take-over of college campuses. The whole piece is great, but the anecdotal lead paragraphs really help set the stage for what today’s conservatives are learning to do and believe.<\/p>\n

One recent Sunday, at Morton Blackwell’s Leadership Institute, a dozen students meet for the second and final day of training in grass-roots youth politics. All are earnest, idealistic and as right wing as you can get. They take careful notes as instructor Paul Gourley teaches them how to rig a campus mock election. <\/p>\n

It’s nothing illegal — no ballot stuffing necessary, even at the most liberal colleges. First you find a nonpartisan campus group to sponsor the election, so you can’t be accused of cheating. Next, volunteer to organize the thing. College students are lazy, and they’ll probably let you. Always keep in mind that a rigged mock election is all about location, location, location. <\/p>\n

“Can anyone tell me,” asks Gourley, a veteran mock electioneer, “why you don’t want the polling place in the cafeteria?” <\/p>\n

Stephen, a shy antiabortion activist sitting toward the rear of the class, raises his hand: “Because you want to suppress the vote?” <\/p>\n

“Stephen has the right answer!” Gourley exclaims, tossing Stephen his prize, a copy of Robert Bork’s “Slouching Toward Gomorrah.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is the same “institute” that’s trained Karl Rove, Jeff Gannon\/James Guckert, Senate Majority Whip Mitch McConnell, Ralph Reed, Grover Norquist, and tens of thousands of right-wing activists few have ever heard of. The “school” has millions of dollars<\/a>, a track record of success, and a twisted conservative agenda. (Oddly enough, it also has a tax-exempt status<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

But the Leadership Institute’s real focus, from now on, is converting college campuses.
\n<\/p>\n

For most of its 25-year history, it has focused on grooming students to work in conservative politics; it’s now increasingly devoting its efforts to making campuses more conservative places. Through its Campus Leadership Program, the institute is leading a growing effort to found and support a national network of conservative student groups and publications capable of permanently altering the intellectual and social environment of universities to conservatives’ advantage. That goal alone is a stark rejection of the standard conservative complaint that post-Vietnam War higher education is not just grossly liberal, but irredeemably so. Already, the program has shown considerable success. Asked about his campus initiative, Blackwell simply says, “You’re talking about the major project for the rest of my life.”<\/p>\n

In the wake of the 2004 election, some progressive groups have been working to reinforce their positions on campus. Last February, the Center for American Progress launched Campus Progress, a student activism support center, to combat what Halperin describes as “30 years of effective organizing” by conservative groups like the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, Young Americans for Freedom, and of course, the Leadership Institute. But Blackwell is unfazed by the competition. “If they asked me, which they haven’t, I could let them know that it’s a lot harder than it appeared on the surface,” he told me. “You’ve got to work years before you see any results.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It makes sense that this would be the focus for activists like Blackwell. Last November, Bush beat John Kerry in every age group — except 18-to-29-year-olds where Kerry beat Bush 54% to 45%<\/a> (the widest margin of any of the four age groups). Making headway on campuses will help the right narrow this gap.<\/p>\n

Would now be a good time to ask why the left doesn’t have something like the Leadership Institute for our side?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Salon’s Jeff Horwitz has a tremendous item in Salon today on the right-wing Leadership Institute, a training program founded by Republican activist Morton Blackwell (you might remember Blackwell as the Bush delegate who mocked injured troops at the GOP convention). It’s a fascinating look at how young conservatives are being trained to win elections, generate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4291\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}