The Conservative Revolution

Today’s Washington Post has a piece by Jackson Diehl about human rights activists from Egypt who recently came to Washington to meet with American organizations about community organizing and new media strategies. I had the opportunity to meet these activists and offer my own advice and experience in a training session hosted by Freedom House, a human rights organization in Washington. There is a young generation of Egyptians that wants to move beyond the authoritarian ways of Hosni Mubarak and the Egyptian government. These activists deserve our support and friendship. Hopefully I helped them out a little in their efforts to bring human rights and democratic reforms to Egypt. Here is a quote from the Post article about one of the most energetic young activists from the group, Ahmed Samih.

“The majority of Egyptians are like us, under the age of 35,” said Ahmed Samih, the 28-year-old director of the Andalus Institute for Tolerance and Anti-Violence Studies in Cairo.

Samih, a fearless man who says he has been a political activist since age 17, founded a Facebook group called “What happens when Hosni Mubarak dies?” Mubarak, who has ruled Egypt under “emergency law” since 1981, is 79. But he is noticeably fading. And Samih’s group has attracted 2,741 members, almost all of them Egyptian.

Ahmed and his fellow activists are a brave group of people. They are also very creative in applying new technologies to spreading the word about their cause. I wish Ahmed and his fellow freedom fighters luck in their noble pursuit of liberty for all Egyptians.

Next week FreedomWorks is hosting its fall 2007 Liberty Summit.

This is the event where we bring in our top activists from all over the country to meet each other, lobby Congress and get grassroots leadership training from our staff.

You can rsvp on Facebook or visit http://www.freedomworks.org/conference

Looking forward to seeing everyone next week!

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We defeated it once before, and now it looks like it will be up to us to defeat it again in 2008.

http://www.freedomworks.org/stophillarycare

I am currently in the Nugget hotel in Reno, Nevada, taking some time to relax. I am attending the Conservative Leadership Conference hosted by Chuck Muth and Eric Odom. It has been a fun time, and I’ve met some fired up activists and bloggers. FreedomWorks Chairman Dick Armey gave a great speech this morning on the nature of politics today, and his views of how bloggers and activists should hold politicians accountable.

He was interviewed by a reporter from the Reno Gazette-Journal, and made national news (Drudge Report) by saying he thinks Hillary Clinton will be the next president. Bloggers have responded to his remarks at Red State and Granite Grok.

I happen to agree with Armey and after seeing Governor Mitt Romney live today I was not that impressed, just as I was not with Fred Thompson. Romney is a better speaker than Thompson and was good talking to people one on one, whereas Thompson avoided the bloggers at the Defending the Dream Summit in D.C. When asked, Romney didn’t come out in support of fundamental tax reform, and failed to mention anything about entitlement reform.

Congressman Duncan Hunter, Ambassador Alan Keyes and Congressman Bob Barr also attended the event this weekend. The folks here in Reno are really excited to have a conference in their home town, and I’ve invited a bunch of them to join FreedomWorks at our Liberty Summit in November.
Congrats to Chuck and Eric for putting on a great conference!

Newsweek has a good background piece on Fred Thompson, who is skipping this week’s GOP presidential candidate debate in New Hampshire, and will instead announce his candidacy on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno on Wednesday.

Thompson seems to be the most conservative candidate out of the leading four contenders in the GOP. He is polling second nationally, behind New York mayor Rudy Giuliani.

This week I am in New Hampshire meeting with FreedomWorks volunteers and organizing our strategy for the 2008 presidential primaries. We are working to build a constituency of expectations here in New Hampshire that will ask the candidates the tough questions about tax reform, the entitlement crisis and energy policy in the age of climate change hysteria.

The state is beautiful. I will take my first tour of Concord and Manchester tomorrow. I will post updates later in the week.

Update: I toured the state capitol building in Concord. It was pretty cool. There are 400 House members in New Hampshire but only 24 senators. I also did a district office visit with Sen. Judd Gregg’s staff. We talked about taxes, energy and social security. Tonight I am having dinner with the leaders of Students for Saving Social Security and two Brownback for President staffers in Manchester.

On the heels of his recent second place finish in the Ames straw poll, the media is showing new interest in Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee. But conservatives should not believe this “huckster” when he says he is a conservative.

Huckabee is a tax and spend big government Republican posing as a conservative.

Read this article by a liberal columnist in Arkansas.

Here is the truth about Mike Huckabee’s reign. He was largely a passive executive, who usually left initiative to the legislature. He was roused to passion for nine initiatives, each a sharp expansion of government activity or control: the dramatic expansion of government health insurance for children, the CHART program to combat health deficiencies with tobacco-settlement funds and later higher cigarette taxes, the sales tax for recreation, the consolidation of small and middle-sized schools (under 500 students), highway taxes, and two big bond issues each for highways and universities.

Then read the Club for Growth paper on Mike “Huckster” Huckabee.

Conservatives should not slip into thinking that Huckabee is the “conservative” candidate in the race. We can debate who the best conservative candidate is, but let’s not settle for someone who claims to be conservative when he is not.

I was one of probably 13 Americans who watched the Ames straw poll on C-Span today. There is some good coverage already in the blogosphere here and here.

Here are my quick thoughts on the speeches.

Romney - Gave a cogent and passionate speech about strengthening our defense, our economy and our families. He did the best job overall and had the most supporters.

Tancredo - Delivered a very strong speech on illegal immigration and protecting our culture. He performed better than I have seen him do throughout the campaign. 2nd best speech.

Paul - Had the loudest supporters and gave a good talk about the Constitution, liberty and peace. He even uttered the words “freedom works.” Laura Ingraham kind of took a shot at the Paul supporters by saying “The peace train is leaving the stadium.”

Cox - Who? Came in with the Rocky soundtrack playing in the background. Rocky was a long shot but John Cox has NO shot.

Brownback - My TiVo cut off so I missed his speech. I will have to catch it on YouTube and write something up.

UPDATE: Just read the text of the Brownback speech. He focused on life, faith and family. I like his support of a flat tax, but not his interest in more ethanol mandates.

Please take a second to vote for your favorite candidate in the FreedomWorks GOP Presidential Straw Poll.

http://www.freedomworks.org/strawpoll/

FreedomWorks Chairman Dick Armey and President Matt Kibbe have written a great article on grassroots political movements in American history.

One of the best excerpts is this one:

Adams was the first American to recognize that “it does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people’s minds.” In the early 1750s, Adams began recruiting activists to the cause of liberty, targeting men in taverns, and workers in the shipyards and shops of Boston. He also succeeded in recruiting wealthy businessmen like John Hancock to his cause because of the abusive trade and tax policies of the British government.

Samuel Adams’ tactics often involved anti-tax protests under the Liberty Tree, a large elm across from Boylston Market. Tax collectors were hung in effigy, and the Crown-appointed governor mocked. Adams also organized boycotts of British goods and town hall meetings at Faneuil Hall, packing the room with patriots so that Tory voices were not heard. Every new policy handed down by George III and the House of Commons was used to build the ranks of the Sons of Liberty. Taxes imposed by the Stamp act of 1765, trade duties created by the Townshend Acts – each was an excuse to rally new recruits to the cause of American independence.