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ORIGINAL RESEARCHBill Berkowitz Brownback brands himself 'Full scale conservative'Kansas Republican Senator starts off his bid for GOP's presidential nomination by courting the religious rightAlthough he hasn't yet cracked double figures in early GOP presidential preference polls, Kansas Republican Senator Sam Brownback has achieved at least three things since announcing the formation of his 2008 presidential exploratory committee. He has set up the Brownback For President website, rounded up 20 or so high-profile folks for his exploratory committee, and he has adopted a catch phrase that he hopes will separate him from the stack of conservative competitors in the field. Tom Monaghan, the founder of Domino's Pizza, "is putting his money and influence" into making Brownback "the next president of the United States," McClatchy Newspapers' Matt Stearns recently reported. "I have decided, after much prayerful consideration, to consider a bid for the Republican nomination for the presidency," Brownback said in a statement. "There is a real need in our country to rebuild the family and renew our culture and there is a need for genuine conservatism and real compassion in the national discussion." "Despite his strong appeal among Protestant evangelicals and his Methodist roots, Brownback converted to Roman Catholicism in 2002 with the support of Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., another prominent social conservative," the Associated Press pointed out in early December. "He says his faith guides his opposition to abortion, gay marriage and embryonic stem cell research." "Brownback's faith also leads him to tackle social injustice around the world. He's spearheaded legislation to fight genocide in Sudan, cut down human slave trafficking and prison recidivism." All of which leads to Brownback calling himself a "full scale conservative." Full scale conservatismOn a recent edition of PBS' "Talk of the Nation," the American Conservative Union's David Keene said that movement conservatives have not yet found their perfect candidate. While most religious right leaders and other movement activists appear less than enamored with the conservative bonafides of the current crop of candidates, Senator Brownback thinks he will capture their fancy. According to The Right's Field's Matt Browner Hamlin, the Kansas Senator has been branding himself the "full scale conservative," using it at December events in South Carolina, Kansas, and Iowa, as well as on ABC's "This Week" in late November. "'Full scale conservative' is a powerful phrase, Hamlin has pointed out. "It conveys Brownback's commitment to movement conservatism and not some sort of watered-down, Johnny Come Lately conservatism that one might see in other GOP contenders. It conveys forcefulness and dedication -- themes that extend beyond ideology to suggest personal qualities that GOP voters want to see, particularly as it relates to how the next president carries on the Iraq war." "Full scale conservative could be to 2008 what compassionate conservative was to 2000. At least, that's what...Brownback's messaging consultants are hoping." However, as with much that comes out of the world of branding, "full scale conservative" is sufficiently ambiguous -- opening the door to multiple interpretations. Does it signify adherence to the anti-abortion, anti-gay, anti-immigration, pro-Iraq war agenda of the religious right? Does it include the right's smaller government, anti-regulatory, tax-relief-for-the-wealthy economic agenda of the think tanks? What about the recent embrace by some evangelicals of a kinder gentler agenda which includes AIDS in Africa, poverty and an assortment of environmental issues? During one of his recent trips to Iowa, Brownback dropped the line "compassionate conservatism" -- that oldie but goodie used repeatedly by George W. Bush during his 2000 presidential campaign -- into a conversation. Brownback's recent public events appear to come from his "compassionate conservatism" routine. On December 1 -- World AIDS Day -- the Kansas Senator showed compassion cred by appearing at Pastor Rick Warren's Saddleback Church's-sponsored conference on AIDS. He was also recently featured in a New York Times Magazine piece about conservatives who have come to "embrace prison reform." A picture of Brownback, dressed in what appeared to be a prison issue plain grey sweatshirt and jeans, talking to prisoners at Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, Louisiana, during a recent overnight visit, accompanied the story. According to the Times' Chris Suellentrop, Brownback is one of the leading backers of the Second Chance Act, "a bill that focuses not on how to 'lock them up' but on how to let them out," Suellentrop reported. If passed, The Second Chance Act would allocate close to $100 million over two years for individual states to develop programs to assist ex-offenders as they reenter society. According to Suellentrop some 700,000 ex-offenders "will leave prison in 2007 -- and two-thirds of them are likely to be rearrested within three years." Brownback, a strong supporter of faith-based prison programs, "seemed highly aware of the dangers, even for a conservative Republican from Kansas, of seeming the slightest bit soft on crime," Suellentrop pointed out. "I wouldn't say I represent the mainstream of this," he said. "I think we have to prove results." He continued: "I personally favor a number of these faith-based approaches. But if there are other approaches, let's try them. This is an enormous problem, and since the '70s, we have basically just said we'll lock people up." Later, in his office in the Senate Hart Building, Brownback implicitly raised the specter of Willie Horton -- the fear that he and the other sponsors of the bill would be blamed for crimes committed by the formerly incarcerated: "Imagine you get one bad prisoner coming out and committing a heinous crime, which is likely to happen. And people's reaction is, they get mad. They don't want this guy out on the streets that's doing this. If you can't show, look, by doing these programs we are cutting the recidivism rate overall, I don't think it will stand the blowback when that situation inevitably happens." Picking up supportAccording to the Associated Press, Brownback's exploratory committee is "an eclectic mix ranging from anti-abortion activists to business executives, including": Domino's Pizza founder Tom Monaghan, former Major League Baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn, and the Rev. Frank Pavone, head of the anti-abortion group Priests for Life, and Iowa investment banker Kevin McLaughlin. "Baseball, pizza, priests - it's more than an exploratory committee, it's a fun-packed weekend" Oval Office 2008, which describes itself as "an entirely impartial, non-partisan blog, detailing the build-up to, and progress of, the 2008 US Presidential election," wryly observed. Tom Monaghan "is putting his money and influence" into making Brownback "the next president of the United States," McClatchy Newspapers' Matt Stearns recently reported. The extremely wealthy, and controversial conservative Catholic, "is advising the 2008 presidential exploratory committee for Brownback, a longtime social conservative who converted to Catholicism a few years ago," Stearns pointed out. "In the Catholic community, he's looked upon as kind of on the fringes," the Rev. Robert Drinan, a liberal Roman Catholic priest and former Democratic congressman who teaches at Georgetown University, told Stearns. "The worldview is, 'We have to get back to a Catholic civilization'. They want to go back to a Christian society imposed from above...It's just another world they want to build." Since unloading Dominos for nearly $1 billion in 1998, Monaghan has dedicated himself to the building of "his own utopia on 5,000 acres in southwest Florida: Ave Maria, a planned community of 11,000 homes, built around a massive church and a doctrinaire Catholic university also called Ave Maria," Stearns reported. "Monaghan has never before been a major player on a presidential campaign," Stearns noted. "Several people familiar with Monaghan and his work said they were surprised to see him involved. In a rare interview, Monaghan told Newsweek earlier this year that 'I believe all of history is just one big battle between good and evil. I don't want to be on the sidelines.'" The Right's Field, a blog "dedicated to providing coverage of the 2008 Republican presidential primary through news commentary, polling analysis, and research," recently pointed out that Kevin McLaughlin is "the founder" of Iowans for Discounted Taxes, "a group that supports the Steve Forbes' flat tax plan (McLaughlin worked on Forbes' presidential campaigns in 1996 and 2000)" and "has close ties to other wings" of Iowa's Republican movement. He "has frequently posted columns on the Iowa Christian Alliance's website" an organization whose "mission centers on getting people to vote on 'Christian principles,' which translates to advocacy of reducing abortion rights, banning gay marriage, and outlawing gambling." McLaughlin is also part of Team NCPA Social Security. Founded in 1983, the NCPA (National Center for Policy Analysis - website) is a Dallas, Texas-based think tank -- chaired by former Delaware Governor Pete du Pont -- whose "goal is to develop and promote private alternatives to government regulation and control, solving problems by relying on the strength of the competitive, entrepreneurial private sector." Its areas of interests include "reforms in health care, taxes, Social Security, welfare, criminal justice, education and environmental regulation." In a story dated August 7, 2006, and headlined "Mr. Compassionate Conservative: Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas considers a run for president. So why is he spending a night in prison?" The Weekly Standard's publisher Terry Eastland pointed out that Brownback "may be one of the few Republican politicians who believe that compassionate conservatism is still the ticket to the White House. National security issues are likely to remain dominant through 2008. And many conservatives are wary of compassionate conservatism, seeing it as a stimulus to government expansion and a seductive path to misguided policy. Brownback's 'compassionate' position on immigration -- he voted for the Senate bill, which would create a guest worker program and create a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants -- has drawn fire from Republican colleagues in both the House and the Senate, and from publications like Human Events." "The right side of the right's field is very crowded," The Right's Field Matt Browner Hamlin pointed out in a post dated December 23. "Brownback is trying to clear it out by staking linguistic claim to ownership of conservatism. Its smart branding and it certainly makes it harder for anti-Helmsians like Mitt Romney to make it far in this race." Paul Weyrich, widely considered the godfather of the modern conservative movement, has his doubts about a Brownback candidacy. The Free Congress Foundation founder recently described the Kansas Senator as a "wonderful" candidate for social conservatives, but one who appears to lack "fire in the belly." We'll know in about a year or so whether Brownback has survived Weyrich's forecast. sign in, or register to email stories or comment on them.
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MORE ORIGINAL RESEARCHBill Berkowitz PERC receives Templeton Freedom Award for promoting 'enviropreneurs'Right Wing foundation-funded anti-environmental think tank grabbing a wider audience for 'free market environmentalism' On the 15th anniversary of Terry Anderson and Donald Leal's book "Free Market Environmentalism" -- the seminal book on the subject -- Anderson, the Executive Director of the Bozeman, Montana-based Property and Environment Research Center (PERC - formerly known as the Political Economy Research Center) spoke in late-January at an event sponsored by Squaw Valley Institute at the Resort at Squaw Creek in California. While it may have been just another opportunity to speak on "free market environmentalism" and not the kickoff of a "victory tour," nevertheless it comes at a time when PERC's ideas are taking root.
Bill Berkowitz Neil Bush of Saudi ArabiaDuring recent visit, President’s brother describes the country as a 'kind of tribal democracy' In late February, only a few days after Saudi Arabia beheaded four Sri Lankan robbers and then left their headless bodies on public display in the capital of Riyadh, Neil Bush, for the fourth time in the past six years, showed up for the country's Jeddah Economic Forum. The Guardian reported that Human Rights Watch "said the four men had no lawyers during their trial and sentencing, and were denied other basic legal rights." In an interview with Arab News, the Saudi English language paper, Bush described the country as "a kind of tribal democracy."
Bill Berkowitz Newt Gingrich's back door to the White HouseAmerican Enterprise Institute "Scholar" and former House Speaker blames media for poll showing 64 percent of the American people wouldn't vote for him under any circumstances Whatever it is that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has come to represent in American politics, the guy is nothing less than fascinating. One day he's espousing populist rhetoric about the need to cut the costs of college tuition and the next day he's talking World War III. One day he's claiming that the "war on terror" may force the abridgement of fundamental first amendment rights and the next he's advancing a twenty-first century version of his Contract with America. At the same time he's publicly proclaiming how "stupid" it is that the race for the presidency has already started you know that he's trying to figure out how to out finesse Rudy, McCain and Romney for the nomination. And last week, when Fox News' Chris Wallace cited a poll showing that 64 percent of the public would never vote for him, he was quick to blame those results on how unfairly he was treated by the mainstream media back in the day.
Bill Berkowitz American Enterprise Institute takes lead in agitating against IranDespite wrongheaded predictions about the war on Iraq, neocons are on the frontlines advocating military conflict with Iran After doing such a bang up job with their advice and predictions about the outcome of the war on Iraq, would it surprise you to learn that America's neoconservatives are still in business? While at this time we are not yet seeing the same intense neocon invasion of our living rooms -- via cable television's news networks -- that we saw during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, nevertheless, a host of policy analysts at conservative think tanks -- most notably the American Enterprise Institute -- are being heeded on Iran by those who count - folks inside the Bush Administration.
Bill Berkowitz After six years, opposition gaining on George W. Bush's Faith Based InitiativeUnmentioned in the president's State of the Union speech, the program nevertheless continues to recruit religious participants and hand out taxpayer money to religious groups With several domestic policy proposals unceremoniously folded into President Bush's recent State of the Union address, two pretty significant items failed to make the cut. Despite the president's egregiously tardy response to the event itself, it was nevertheless surprising that he didn't even mention Hurricane Katrina: He didn't offer up a progress report, words of hope to the victims, or come up with a proposal for moving the sluggish rebuilding effort forward. There were no "armies of compassion" ready to be unleashed, although it should be said that many in the religious community responded to the disaster much quicker than the Bush Administration. In the State of the Union address, however, there was no "compassionate conservatism" for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.
Bill Berkowitz Frank Luntz calls Republican leadership in Washington 'One giant whining windbag'On the outs with the GOP, legendary degrader of discourse is moving to California He doesn't make great art; nothing he does elevates the human spirit; he doesn't illuminate, he bamboozles. He has become expert in subterfuge, hidden meanings, word play and manipulation. Frank Luntz has been so good at what he does that those paying close attention gave it its own name: "Luntzspeak."
Bill Berkowitz Spooked by MoveOn.org, conservative movement seeks to emulate liberal powerhouseFueled with Silicon Valley money, TheVanguard.org will have Richard Poe, former editor of David Horowitz's FrontPage magazine as its editorial and creative director As Paul Weyrich, a founding father of the modern conservative movement and still a prominent actor in it, likes to say, he learned a great deal about movement building by closely observing what liberals were up to in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Bill Berkowitz Ward Connerly's anti-affirmative action jihadFounder and Chair of the American Civil Rights Institute scouting five to nine states for new anti-affirmative action initiatives Fresh from his most recent victory -- in Michigan this past November -- Ward Connerly, the Black California-based maven of anti-affirmative action initiatives, appears to be preparing to take his jihad on the road. According to a mid-December report in the San Francisco Chronicle, Connerly said that he was "exploring moves into nine other states."
Bill Berkowitz Tom Tancredo's missionThe Republican congressman from Colorado will try to woo GOP voters with anti-immigration rhetoric and a boatload of Christian right politics These days, probably the most recognizable name in anti-immigration politics is Colorado Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo. Over the past year, Tancredo has gone from a little known congressman to a highly visible anti-immigration spokesperson. "Tancredo has thoroughly enmeshed himself in the anti-immigration movement and with the help of CNN talk show host Lou Dobbs, he has been given a national megaphone," Devin Burghart, the program director of the Building Democracy Initiative at the Center for New Community, a Chicago-based civil rights group, told Media Transparency.
Bill Berkowitz Institute on Religion and Democracy slams 'Leftist' National Council of ChurchesNew report from conservative foundation-funded IRD charges the NCC with being a political surrogate for MoveOn.org, People for the American Way and other liberal organizations If you prefer your religious battles sprinkled with demagoguery, sanctimoniousness, and simplistic attacks, the Institute on Religion and Democracy's (IRD) latest broadside against the National Council of Churches (NCC) certainly fits the bill.
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