That, and if Raindog wants to start a thread about prominent loony lefties, he’s more than welcome to. I’d participate to see who the crazy left-wing nutjobs are in our society.
‘Who is Saul Alinsky Alex!’
Dr. James Dobson count? (ie too “famous”? Really, it’s an incredibly fine line between “too famous for this thread” and "too not-famous that the first response is “who?” rather than “scary, yes.”)
I really don’t get the point of posts like these.
If you want to post someone, post someone and then we’ll debate the merits of your post. It’s really not as complicated as y’all are making it. I just didn’t want a thread taken over by Sarah Palin hate.
If you want to post James Dobson post James Dobson, but please can we stop getting these drive-bys asking whether or not someone is prominent? It’s hardly the point of the thread. Just wo/man up and post, and then we’ll tell you what we think. Just try and give it some thought rather than posting the usual Bete Noir suspects.
I haven’t read the book, but ‘Gang of five’
Is about 5 individuals who helped create the modern religious right GOP and make it go mainstream. Grover Norquist, Ralph Reed, Clint Bolick, David McIntosh, and Bill Kristol. However of those Kristol is a household name.
Someone named Kevin Phillips popularized the southern strategy, which encouraged blacks to vote democratic in the hope that whites in the south would vote GOP in retaliation.
According to Paul Krugman, most of the GOP’s ascendency comes down to the shift the south underwent from democratic to republican. He says when you ask political scientists about the rise of the GOP it usually comes down to 5 words: ‘southern whites started voting republican’. As it stands of the 26 potential senators in the south, 19 are GOP. Of the remaining 74 senators in the non-southern US only 21 are GOP.
Also there are a lot of millionaires and billionaires who are behind the GOP.
http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2008/07/29/newt-aswf-billionaires/
However to be fair there are millionaires and billionaires behind the democratic party too like the Democracy Alliance, hollywood celebrities or Soros.
Also, Francis Schaeffer
His son Frank was also a big part of the rise of the religious right, but abandoned the movement when he felt it was becoming unamerican and fascist. If you get a chance look up some of Frank Schaeffer’s stuff on Rachel Maddow.
William Donohue, of the Catholic League? According to Wiki, he taught at La Roche College in the late ‘70s, early 80s’. (La Roche is my alma mater!) I wish I had known – I could have asked my professors about him. My advisor was Catholic, but he was also Donohue’s exact opposite
He’s a nutjob, but the Catholic League creeps me out. Even some of the Jesuits and such say he’s a little too radical, from what I gather.
This guy.
In case you don’t know, he was hired by Rupert Murdoch to create Fox News back in '96.
Wesley Clark Funny that you mention Kevin Phillips. He came to positively loathe Nixon and made a career out of writing very well researched Bush family hit pieces.
Well that’s at least fair.
I don’t know that I’d call Bo Gritz a conservative, per se; he’s certainly really fucking scary, though. He is to the modern militia movement what Barry Goldwater is to modern conservatives, only he isn’t dead.
Speaking of Goldwater, though: I nominate Brent Bozell III*.
He’s the founder of the Media Research Center, which gave us the pet whine of modern conservatives, “the media is biased!”
He also founded the Parents’ Television Council, a “watchdog” group that among other things tried to blame the (then-) World Wrestling Federation for pretty much every instance of child-on-child violence that ever happened anywhere, and filed more than half of the complaints received by the FCC since 2002 (and close to 90% if complaints related to the Janet Jackson Super Bowl nipple slip are excluded). Their latest campaign is to get YouTube to censor its comments sections, apparently under the assumption that there are no naughty words elsewhere on the internet.
He is the author of several books, including And That’s the Way it Isn’t: A Reference Guide to Media Bias, Weapons of Mass Distortion: The Coming Meltdown of the Liberal Media, and the remarkably unprescient Whitewash: How The News Media Are Paving Hillary Clinton’s Path to the Presidency.
Amusingly enough, he’s also a former board member of the Catholic Civil Rights League, which claims to safeguard the First Amendment rights of Catholics.
In other words, he’s America’s most prominent censor, and he freely admits that he only censors things he doesn’t like.
*Bozell’s dad was a Goldwater and Joseph McCarthy aide and was a leading advocate of a preemptive nuclear strike on the Soviet Union. Fun times!
T. Boone Pickens financed the “Swift Boating” of Kerry. I am not sure many people know that.
I knew that, but is being against one particular politician for personal reasons the same as being largely for Conservative causes as a whole? Sure he swiftboated a guy that never should have been nominated in the first place, but he’s also a very big proponent of greener technologies.
According to Sourcewatch, it was financed by Sam Fox (whom W later appointed ambassador to Belgium, in a recess appointment bypassing Congress).
The chief propagandist, however, was Jerome Corsi, who also wrote The Obama Nation. PolitiFact found the latter to be full of errors/lies.
Anyway, Pickens is pretty damn liberal for an Oklahoma oil baron.
How about Emmett Tyrell? Founder of the The American Spectator, heavily involved in the Arkansas Project which aimed to bring down Bill Clinton. (Yes, Virginia, there was a vast right-wing conspiracy.) Bet he’s not a household name.
One vote for any senator from Oklahoma. They’re both entirely off the deep end. I have no idea how they even got elected. Not even the senators from Texas are this crazy.
Another vote for James Dobson. His organization, Focus on the Family, has a huge grassroots following with the fundamentalist Christian right. And he’s tremendously effective as an opinion leader with that group. To my knowledge, the biggest not-quite-prominent conservative operating in America today.
T. Boone Pickens Says No Deal on Swift Boat Bounty - The New York Times He was heavily involved.
HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost It is well accepted.
Having attended an evalgelical church for the past 30 years (as well as being raised in a household where my mom bought his stuff) I’m well aware of him and his “power”, which is why he got my initial nomination.
Basically I’d say he is to evangelical Christians what Oprah is to women.
Isn’t he the guy who gave replicants a four year lifespan? In that case, definitely evil.
He goes around leaving the keys to BRAND NEW CARS!!!1!! under people’s seats at church?