It’s been called “the track too tough to tame,” but Darlington Raceway is likely to be a friendly venue this weekend for a grassroots conservative political group called American Majority, which will be trying to energize NASCAR fans during the Bojangles Southern 500 to vote to “Keep America Free.”
American Majority continues on its mission to identify and train conservatives across the country to run for office and to win. Jim Moldenhauer took the practical knowledge he gained from American Majority training in November 2011, and applied it in his run for Alderman in District 1 of Wauwatosa, Wisconsin.
Jim had been approached last year to run for office in Wauwatosa. Jim chose to challenge the progressive-leaning, hand-picked successor to the retiring incumbent, in a district won by JoAnne Kloppenburg in her attempted defeat of Justice David Prosser.
The odds were stacked further against Jim by the actions of a local progressive organization Grassroots Tosa. Every candidate they targeted with their last minute attack lost, except for one: Jim Moldenhauer. He overcame direct, motivated opposition by applying the lessons he learned from Matt Batzel and Matt Robbins at the AM training session.
Said Jim on what he learned: “Yard signs don’t get you elected… I ran my campaign without a single yard sign. Not one.” AM training allowed him to focus his campaign’s efforts on what would work best: fundamental door-to-door outreach, trying to win the votes of Democrats and Republicans alike with his common-sense message.
What does that message include ”I want to be a good representative of the people, while holding true to the conservative vision that I laid out at the beginning of my campaign,” Jim says. The most pressing problems for Jim’s neighborhood are high personal property taxes and a nearly 100 year-old sewer system in need of a serious overhaul. Jim aims to tackle these problems in a fiscally responsible way.
Jim’s advice to future grassroots activists becoming candidates? ”Be committed. Come up with a compelling vision, and be ready to verbalize it succinctly.” He also suggests that on top of being able to verbalize that message, having handy literature is a help. Learn what you need to do to win, and then do it.
RICHMOND, Va — Conservative activists are racing to snag the pole position with NASCAR voters this election cycle.
While brand names like Skoal, Coca-Cola and Sprint competed for the hard-earned dollars of middle-class race fans on the midway of the Richmond International Speedway on a recent race day, the American Majority tent used race car simulators and patriotic banners to vie for something else: swing state voters. More than two dozen volunteers for the conservative group worked the race in Richmond on a recent weekend, trying to get fans not only to register to vote but to sign a pledge that they would make it to the polls in November.
Even those who barely follow politics couldn’t avoid seeing Wisconsin constantly in the news last year. It started with Governor Scott Walker’s much-needed Budget Repair Bill, which curbed bargaining rights for many public-sector employees. A state Supreme Court race (considered a referendum on Walker’s bill) and state Senate recall elections followed. But despite tens of millions of dollars and hours of drum beating (literally-by protesters), the public sector unions failed on all three counts to gain the upper hand in Wisconsin.
American Majority’s goal is to identify and train conservative candidates and activists. Over the last four years we have trained over 20,000 of them and each has a unique story of what brought them into the fight and how they are working to impact the direction of their government. As one of the trainers, my hope is always that some part of the training is going to motivate those that attend to change their past behavior patterns, in regards to elections, activism and their government, and drive them to become more engaged.
Chris Koerber and his wife, Halcyon, attended an American Majority candidate training during the Summer of 2010. Up to that point they had a pretty typical level of political action: they voted and tried to stay educated on news and current events but had never attended rallies, worked directly to support candidates or run for office. They were concerned about the direction of their state and country though and wanted to become educated on how they could make their political voice heard.
During the day of training that Matt Robbins, our National Executive Director, and I conducted, we focused on effectively employing social media, building a campaign plan and precinct level campaign organization. We taught them about the importance of voter contact and that there was no substitute for actually knocking on a voters door, communicating your message and asking for their vote.
While they walked in as frustrated conservatives they walked out trained and focused activists. During the 2010 election they worked hard in their home town of Sierra Madre, California to elect conservatives and promote conservative policies.
Chris had never really considered the idea of running for office before attending the American Majority training but walked away thinking about the opportunity and knowing how to run a successful campaign. When an unexpired term on the Sierra Madre city council opened up earlier this year, he stepped up and put his hat in the ring.
While most candidates planned on waiting until late march to start block-walking and engaging voters, Chris and his campaign team began knocking on doors in January. They knew the platform they wanted to articulate would resonate with Sierra Madre voters but had had little name ID and only a small campaign budget.
Throughout the entire campaign, Chris said that, “I had one A+ activity - the highest priority that trumped everything else: Talking to Voters!”
On Saturday’s he block walked. On weeknights he called voters on the phone. Wherever he was welcome he held meet-and-greet functions in supporters homes. The constant through all of this was the belief that the platform of fiscal responsibility the he held was the right plan at the right time for Sierra Madre and that if enough voters found out about it then he would win.
Sierra Madre is a LA suburb of about 11,000 people, roughly 7,000 of which are registered to vote. When all was counted on election night, Chris won his seat with 1535 votes and the second place finisher held 1290. In addition to his personal victory, where he received the highest vote total of all three City Council races, their efforts helped defeat a 20% city utility tax increase.
I asked Chris what was the most important piece of knowledge that he wanted to pass on to fellow conservatives and he said, “After Halcyon and I took your American Majority training in Ontario, CA, the biggest takeaway that I remember you and Matt giving was that: You have to knock on doors to get out the vote. I recall the training said it took about 20 pieces of mail or 10 calls, or 1 knock on the door to get the same results.”
Yesterday, Chris was sworn in as the most recent Sierra Madre City Councilman. He is now one of 5 city council members governing a budget of over $20 Million and 67 City employees.
We’re very proud of the work that Chris did and want to share the story of his victory as a case study in how conservatives with the right training and motivation can defeat liberal tax-and-spend fiscal policy and change the face of our government.
Great job, Chris!
In the smallish outbuilding on the Wausau Homes campus known as the “Prosperity Center,” a group of conservative activists last week plotted to take back America.
Actually, conservatives largely took back America in the Republican wave of November 2010, so maybe it’s better to say they plotted to keep it.
Organizers of an activist training by the conservative group American Majority graciously allowed me to sit in on part of the session and talk to a couple of participants. What I saw was part of a continuing story of how the conservative activist energy that started at the tea party rallies in early 2009 is being professionalized, not to say co-opted, and brought further and further into the traditional political system.
American Majority opened its Wisconsin office in 2010 in Port Washington, and since then has trained more than 1,000 candidates, activists and campaign managers throughout the state — among them, former state Sen. Pam Galloway. In this busy election year, the group is ramping up activity. Its Wausau training, attended by about 40 people by my count, was the first of seven it’ll hold in the next five weeks.
The conservative political group American Majority Action (AMA) has spent $1,000,000 on new software that it intends to distribute to local ‘Tea Party’ groups to help them run election efforts on the ground.
According to the president of AMA, Drew Ryun, the software in question called ‘Gravity’ will “rocket conservatives past the high-tech approaches of the DNC and other progressive political groups.” Ever since the impressive technological efforts of the first Obama campaign, conservative groups have been working to close whatever digital gap that existed. Ryun also described the application as a “fusion of old-school grassroots tactics with the state-of-the-art technology.”
Gravity will rocket conservatives past the high-tech approaches of the DNC and other progressive political groups.
WASHINGTON — All is bleak. All is woe! I speak of the tea party movement, the movement of 2009 and 2010 that was the hot news story of those years and led to the Republican rout of the Democrats in 2010. Now the tea party movement is, according to reports in the media, in decline.
Michael Schraa, an Oshkosh WI small business owner, has already taken on a career politician and won. State Rep. Dick Spanbauer announced he is retiring. Spanbauer was a RINO who voted against Gov Walker’s famous Budget Repair Bill last spring. That vote and others like them didn’t sit well with Michael Schraa. He decided to pursue a primary challenge against Spanbauer.
Schraa has taken a stand for conservative leaders and issues in the past but this is his first run for political office. He previously has put up yard signs in front of his business, Leon’s Frozen Custard in Oshkosh. Because of these signs, the local teachers union decided to boycott his business. But Schraa didn’t back down. Their boycott only further encouraged him to get off the sidelines and into the game.
Schraa attended an American Majority candidate training last November. About the training Schraa said I “felt more emboldened after sitting in on the training and hearing others stepping forward about bringing fiscal responsibility back to government.” He felt “motivated not to sit on the sidelines” and “found it very helpful.” Since he is “coming in green,” he appreciated how American Majority talked about vote goals and coming up with a win number, broken down by wards so that he can target the important townships he’ll need to win.
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