California Conservative

You say you want a revolution…

With press and pundits currently obsessing over “Hillary vs. Obama,” there’s another story flying under the MSM radar that deserves greater coverage. It’s about a new force entering the political arena, one that really promises to shake things up.

As the battle for 2008’s Presidential Election gets underway, the footsoldiers of liberal activism are being rallied, both on the ground and online.

Four years ago, when Howard Dean ran for President, MoveOn.org drew significant media attention as a major player in the emerging practice of campaign fundraising via the Internet. With the backing of George Soros and other millionaires on the Left, the online group continued to make news through their activist support of all things anti-Bush, anti-war and, quite often, anti-American efforts. Conservatives could only grit their teeth because there was no competing organization online — and on the Right. Until now.

“Founded by some of Silicon Valley’s most successful conservatives, TheVanguard.Org is here to take the battle to the enemy,” declares the organization’s website. “Read more about how we’re going to fix the Republicans and beat the Democrats in 2008, and be part of our Plan for Victory.”

Them’s definitely fighting words. A welcome breath of fresh air.

And the latest news suggests that liberal Democrats and activists have plenty to worry about.

Last week, TheVanguard.org proudly announced that Jerome Corsi is joining their efforts. If his name sounds familiar, that’s because he elevated two words into the political lexicon: “swift boat.” Widely credited for helping sink John Kerry’s presidential ambitions, Mr. Corsi is the author of “Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry” (along with John O’Neill), among several others.

Corsi is a force to be reckoned with. But TheVanguard.org has no shortage of brainpower and moxie.

Conservative journal Human Events recently published an article asking the question, “The Next Moveon.org?”

From the looks of it, the answer is “Yes!”

The piece gives us an introduction to the man behind the movement: TheVanguard’s founder, Rod Martin.

“Martin is bigger than life, physically and every other way. Whether speaking to groups of 10 or 10,000, all across the nation he draws the crowd in, bringing them to tears or lifting them to their feet at will. His overstuffed agenda includes a weekly conference call with the White House. He keeps the talk-radio schedule of a candidate (he denies running for anything), and slips effortlessly between topics as diverse as tax reform, the disposition of military forces across the Middle East, and the implications of his friends’ technological endeavors over the next five decades. He’s friendly, jovial, self-deprecating. You can’t help but like him.”

So, what about Mr. Martin’s ambitions to advance the conservative agenda via the Internet?

“The left has been brilliant at leveraging technology,” he says, “and so have we to a point: our bloggers and news sites are amazing, and the RNC’s get-out-the-vote software is unparalleled. But no one on our side has even begun to create anything like MoveOn. And after 2006, if we want to survive, much less build a long-term conservative majority, we better start, and fast.”

So he’s setting out to do just that, at a still-small site called TheVanguard.org.

As Californians, we’re very happy to recognize that Mr. Martin also has personal ties to Silicon Valley — and that his team includes some top-name conservatives in technology.

Launched as an organization last March, TheVanguard.org already has a top-drawer cast, including Silicon Valley heavy-hitters like Eric Jackson (a former PayPal colleague of Martin’s, where he was head of marketing) and Gil Amelio (former CEO of two Fortune 500 companies, including Apple Computer), among others.

And what about the unique name of the organization?

If TheVanguard.org sounds familiar, it is: Martin’s earlier, all-volunteer Vanguard Policy Action Council, has been around for years. And the name has deeper origins still. “It comes from Lenin’s description of the Communist Party as ‘the vanguard of the revolution,’” he says. “We’re tweaking the left; we’re also asserting the revolution of Washington and Madison.”

But revolutions don’t happen overnight. They take planning and strategy. They require risk and personal sacrifice.

In business, success is usually determined by developing a good product, creating consumer demand for it, making the sales and, simultaneously, staving off the competition through continuous innovation.

In politics, we see similar requirements for campaigns: developing a strong message, delivering it to the people, and convincing voters to buy into the ideology your selling. Unfortunately, when it comes to dealing with competition, there’s been a lot of noise but little innovation. Certainly nothing revolutionary.

We look forward to seeing TheVanguard.org evolve and grow, cutting through the current mess of modern politics by introducing new ideas and ambition into conservative government — and winning elections.

CaliforniaConservative.org is very proud to support the efforts of TheVanguard.org.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 30th, 2007 at 9:13 pm and is filed under Activism, Announcements, Culture, Elections. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.