Arizona

Group cited in “bitter GOP infighting,” putting at risk seats once considered safe in Colorado, Idaho, Arizona, and Rhode Island.

The voucher movement has been dealt some serious set-backs in recent months. In July, a study by the Department of Education found that public school students outperform their private school peers – undercutting the right-wing’s basic argument that private schools are better. In August, a similar study found that public school students also learn more than students in charter schools. Last month, a survey released by Gallup and the non-partisan education organization Phi Delta Kappa found that public support for vouchers is in a free-fall. A poll of Indiana residents by the Center for Evaluation and Education Policy came up with similar results. And recently major fractures have occurred between different factions of the Right over the proposed national voucher program and the Bush administration’s implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act. All this may have proven to be too much for one of the privatization movement’s biggest stars. An Arizona paper announced yesterday that Clint Bolick, president and general counsel for the pro-voucher Alliance for School Choice has taken a position with a Scottsdale law firm. In recent years, Bolick has committed himself to fighting against public education, he first rose to prominence a crusader against affirmative action as a disciple of Clarence Thomas. He was co-founder of the right-wing legal group called the Institute for Justice and a prominent player in the conservative libertarian community. This news may not indicate Bolick’s outright surrender in the Voucher Wars, but could it be the beginning of a strategic retreat and reorganization at the highest levels of the right-wing coalition against public education?

While The New York Times took note of Connie Marshner’s workshop on turning out churchgoers to the polls using deceptive tactics and The Los Angeles Times revealed that Jerry Falwell joked to a pastors’ breakfast that the Religious Right base would be more riled up about Hillary Clinton’s nomination for president in 2008 than Satan’s, the theme that reporters covering the Values Voter Summit latched on to was whether a disillusioned Right Wing would come through for Republicans facing daunting mid-term elections.

• Christian Conservatives Look to Re-energize Base, New York Times. “Openly anxious about grass-roots disaffection from the Republican Party, conservative Christian organizers are reaching for ways to turn out voters this November, including arguing that recognizing same-sex marriage could also limit religious freedom.”
• Conservatives Confident Base Will Vote, Associated Press. “Critical to the Republican base, conservatives expressed confidence Friday that their rank-and-file will vote Nov. 7 even though the GOP-controlled Congress hasn't delivered this year on their core issues.”
• Tactic Uses Pulpits to Power the GOP, Los Angeles Times. “[T]op evangelical leaders pleaded with their followers Friday to put aside frustrations and turn out for GOP candidates.” As a side note, Televangelist Jerry Falwell – who confided that God will save the Republican majority this November –
• Dobson: Rallying family values voters, Rocky Mountain News. Despite disappointment, Dobson is committed to helping the GOP this year – holding rallies in battleground states Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and Tennessee.

And while the Religious Right activists on the podium, at least, were sure of their commitment to the Republicans this election cycle, they still want to push through a few more items on their “values agenda.” At the conference, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins said that House Republican action on some of the items in their wish list this summer “brought some trust and confidence back”; now, FRC is asking its supporters to pray for a few more.

The conference was also an opportunity for Republicans looking to solidify their credentials with the far Right. The right-wing Washington Times called speeches by Newt Gingrich, Sens. George Allen (R-Virginia), Sam Brownback (R-Kansas), and Rick Santorum (R-Pennsylvania) as well as Govs. Mitt Romney (R-Massachusetts) and Mike Huckabee (R-Arkansas) “auditions” for potential Republican presidential candidates – and noted that the Family Research Council says it invited Sens. Bill Frist (R-Tennessee), John McCain (R-Arizona), Hillary Clinton (D-New York), and John Kerry (D-Massachusetts) as well. Maggie Gallagher, a speaker on the marriage panel, concluded, “I believe Mitt Romney may be the only hope social conservatives have in 2008.”

Minuteman Civil Defense Corps PAC spent $40,000 against national GOP, which fears Dem takeover.

Last night’s edition of “Hannity & Colmes” featured a segment on an immigration reform/counter-anti-immigration rally in Phoenix with Arizona State Senator Jack Harper appearing on the show to represent to anti-immigration forces. Co-host Alan Colmes noted that one anti-immigration protestor wore the Mexican flag as a diaper while another tied the flag to the bottom of her shoes and asked Harper if he supported that type of protest, to which Harper squinted and mumbled some incoherent reply alleging that areas at the rally had been cordoned off where “they would not allow US citizens to go but Mexican illegal aliens were able to go” and that there were some “prominent anarchists … who protest everything that tears down America” in attendance.   Harper then went on to say

Well, I’ve dubbed this the Million Moocher March, because there is no reason – if they came here to work, there is no reason why they need citizenship. They only want citizenship; most of – many of them because they want to be able to collect welfare and I don't believe the American taxpayers support that.

Colmes rightly responded that such an allegation was “pretty insulting,” at which point the other guest jumped in, thereby saving Harper from having to defend his contemptible comment.       View the video highlight: Broadband or Dial-Up.

The Washington Times has been dogged in its attempts to find out how the Minutemen has handled its finances, as well as investigating the tight alliance it has formed with organizations run by Alan Keyes.  

The Times’ most recent report notes just how intertwined the Minutemen and Keyes have become

Last month, several Minutemen questioned what happened to donations collected since the group's first border vigil in Arizona in April 2005. They said they had no idea how much money had been received, how it had been spent or why it was being routed through a Virginia-based charity headed by conservative activist Alan Keyes. 

… 

Last month, Mr. Simcox said $1.6 million in donations had been collected, although he had no documents to verify the claim. He said $1 million went directly to MCDC and $600,000 for a fence on the U.S.-Mexico border, all of it handled through the Herndon-based Declaration Alliance, founded and chaired by Mr. Keyes.    

Mr. Keyes has endorsed the Minuteman organization as programs of Declaration Alliance and the Declaration Foundation, another Virginia-based charitable organization he heads. He also accused critics of being "decidedly racist and anti-Semitic," saying they had been removed as members of the Minuteman organization.    

For a fee, American Caging manages money collected by nonprofit groups, their telemarketers and direct-response agencies. Caging firms give nonprofit organizations the ability to receive and disburse donations without having to hire a staff.   

In addition to MCDC, the firm's clients include Declaration Foundation, Declaration Alliance and the Declaration Alliance Political Action Committee. It also has handled funds for Mr. Keyes' unsuccessful political campaigns, including his failed 2004 senatorial race in Illinois, for which it was paid $30,530.    

American Caging also handles other clients aligned with MCDC, Mr. Keyes and the Alliance organizations, including Diener Consulting Inc., which serves as the Minuteman group's public-relations arm, as it did in Mr. Keyes' unsuccessful presidential and senatorial campaigns; and Renew America, a fundraising organization founded by Mr. Keyes that provides a link for donations to MCDC through Declaration Alliance. 

Other American Caging clients include Response Unlimited, which makes mailing lists -- including the MCDC membership -- available to conservative mailers and telemarketers and has an "exclusive contract" with Declaration Foundation; and RightMarch.com, which raised $500,000 for Mr. Keyes' 2004 senatorial campaign and helps raise Minuteman donations through a link on its Web page to Declaration Alliance.

The Declaration Alliance’s primary mission is to “protect and defend our God-given, inalienable rights, enshrined in principle in the Declaration of Independence, and codified in our Constitution and our Bill of Rights” while the Declaration Foundation is committed to “restoring the principles of the Declaration of Independence to their rightful place in American life.” 

Considering that, among the “abuses and usurpations” set out in the Declaration of Independence was King George III’s attempt to “prevent the population of these States [by] obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners” one has to wonder just how the Minutemen’s harassment and intimidation of immigrants fits into Keyes’ supposed reverence for the document. 

Or, for that matter, how the Minutemen’s belief that immigration will lead to “political, economic and social mayhem” meshes with the Declaration’s most famous principle:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.