This Laura Rozen report at Mother Jones is a glimpse into a future conservative coalition. The piece focuses on the perceived failure of Sheldon Adelson, major contributor to Freedom's Watch, to build a formidable infrastructure to challenge what progressives have built during the Bush years:
In not-for-attribution interviews, a few conservative think tank hands and activists expressed frustration that Freedom's Watch has yet to develop a comprehensive strategy, and they gripe that it has been slow to set up a MoveOn-style infrastructure. Freedom's Watch hasn't realized its full potential, they say, in part because Adelson overly involves himself in the group's decision-making and won't heed the good advice of...well, people like them.
"He is both meddlesome and attached to his own agenda," says a conservative think tanker. "And he is not listening to people who are giving him good political and strategic advice. ... Everyone I know comes away very frustrated from their experience" with Freedom's Watch. "They are late to the game and they need to recognize that," he adds. "MoveOn has had a microphone to itself for a number of years. Freedom's Watch is not entirely ineffective, but they are not well organized or maximizing their impact." (Conservatives may be too obsessed with MoveOn to realize that it's a membership-based organization and not a precise model for a top-down outfit like Freedom's Watch.)
Indeed, this is what I find strange about Freedom's Watch (and similarly with Richard Viguerie's Conservative HQ). Both groups say they want to build grassroots movements but each, as the article notes, is a top-down affair. Adelson makes direct decisions about how his money should be used and that leads to a dearth of mid-level managers who can coordinate between the organizations and build upon each other. It's not news that the Republican party is a hierarchal organization compared with the Democrats.
Now it appears the the conservative movement -- which started with grassroots groups -- is headed in the same direction as the party it took over. To put it another way, it's progressives who have learned to emulate the successes of past grassroots organizing and conservatives who have become institutionalized. And when the latter try to re-organize and re-capitalize the results are stymied by a top-down approach that leaves the conservative base out of the picture. This is quite evident in the early successes of Mike Huckabee, who appealed to evangelical conservatives who felt they had been left out of the big tent.
To borrow the trendy Hollywood franchising concept, the conservative movement needs to be "rebooted." As I said earlier, that precise configuration remains to be seen. But clearly they need to get back to their roots, as it were, if they wish to have any wide electoral appeal in the future.
--Mori Dinauer
