New Leaders Needed

If you think the progressive left is going to just lay down in 2012 and accept that their ideas have failed, think again.

What We Face in 2012

The left is renewing their efforts to impact state and local elections. Moveon.org, New Organizing Institute, Democracy for America and other left-leaning groups have committed to finding 2,012 progressive candidates for state and local elections. Their efforts are going so well that they have now raised their goal to 5,000 progressive candidates for 2012. You can learn all about their efforts at www.2012for2012.org.

How We Stop Them

We launched the New Leaders Project in 2010, asking local groups to pledge to find 10 new leaders in their communities in 2012 and 2013 to run for state and local office. So far, we’ve had 538 groups sign the pledge!

The Project is aimed at getting 1,000 local tea party and 9.12 groups to identify 10 new leaders in their communities to run primarily for state and local office. Another key aspect of this project will be training campaign managers to run effective campaigns, and continuing to train activists on how to be effective grassroots workers in hardwiring precincts, doing GOTV, and conducting voter registration drives.

American Majority will train these new leaders on the nuts and bolts of running for office; since our launch in 2008, we have already identified and trained over 1,200 candidates for state and local office. These leaders will also be trained on how to articulate their message effectively and continue to raise awareness in their communities right through Election Day. As more and more leaders come into the process at the state and local level, not only will they impact those levels of government, they will also be creating a farm team for higher office. We will also be training people on how to run and manage campaigns so that these leaders will run the most effective campaigns possible.

The New Leaders Project is also about empowering the local tea party organizers: it’s important to remember that the movement would not exist, or be successful, without the local leaders. As I mentioned on Fox and Friends this morning, this movement, and its success, is about Chris Littleton and the Cincinnati Tea Party and the Ohio Liberty Council, Lesley Hollywood and the Northern Colorado Tea Party, Catherine Engelbrecht of the King Street Patriots, Ana Puig and Anastasia Przbylski of the Kitchen Table Patriots, David Crow of the Faulkner County Tea Party, Tim Dake of the Wisconsin Grandsons of Liberty, and the Jason Hoyts and Colleen Conleys and hundreds of other like them.

The Kenosha Tea Party of Wisconsin signed the pledge and has already identified more than 20 local candidates to run for office this spring. Focusing locally, their candidates are seeking election for county, school board, various city councils and village boards in Kenosha County. Dan Hunt, the leader of the group said, “American Majority got me thinking in this direction [focused on finding local candidates] in the first place. I am grateful for American Majority’s trainings in preparing us to win elections.”

Cross posted on RedState.com