During the epic primary battle between sitting liberal
Republican Senator Arlen Specter and conservative challenger Pat
Toomey, I traveled in April to a Philadelphia gun show to watch
Specter try and burnish his credentials. The senator was stumping
with only a few aides in tow, and dogged every step of the way by
college students brandishing Toomey signs and pamphlets.
“My voters might not be as intense as his,” Specter answered
when I asked him what he thought of this conservative militia
following him around. “But there’s a lot more of them if I can get
them out on Tuesday.”
Well, perhaps “a lot” was a bit of an overstatement on Specter’s
part. A few days later Toomey lost the primary by only 17,000 or so
votes out of more than a million cast. This near victory was in no
small measure aided by more than $2 million of support cash from
the Club for Growth, an organization Pat Toomey was (probably not)
coincidentally chosen to lead this week when Stephen Moore stepped
down.
Still, there was some truth to Specter’s words. The major flaw
of the Toomey campaign, in my eyes anyway, was its inability to
harness the power and enthusiasm of Toomey’s ever-burgeoning ranks
of supporters. Perhaps it all happened too fast to know exactly
what should be done. This is where one typically invokes the
lucidity of hindsight, but ye shall be spared this time because the
essence of Toomey’s campaign has turned out to be about the future,
not the past.
HISTORICALLY, MILITIAS TEND TO disband after the last skirmish
ends, especially if the militia in question came out on the wrong
side of victory. Not so with the young warriors who exalted the
Reaganite Toomey this past year. If anything, they’ve decided to
further organize themselves with Young Conservatives of Pennsylvania (YCOP), a
fiery and principled group for conservatives under 40 who are
interested in grassroots activism. In the months since Toomey’s
defeat, YCOP has set up 37 chapters throughout the state.
The group’s state chairman, 25-year-old Duquesne University law
student Chris Lilik, has a refreshing take-no-prisoners attitude
towards politics. The Scranton Times has called him “the
man who nearly blogged Specter out of office.” When he describes
one of his YCOP compatriots as “the next Karl Rove,” for example,
it isn’t an epithet. His website Grassroots PA has
been a flashpoint of this conservative revolution.
“With a little better statewide organization, conservatives
would have easily come up with the extra one percent needed to put
Toomey over the top,” Lilik said. “Young people are generally
passionate, principled, and hard workers. By creating a massive
young statewide network that cares about conservative values we
have an opportunity to advance a strong conservative agenda.”
Joe Sterns, a former Toomey press secretary and current YCOP
vice-chair of Grassroots Coordination, believes the Toomey campaign
gave those fed up with politics as usual a glimpse at their power
to actually affect change.
“Though perpetually Herculean, the battle to place principle
over party is, thanks be to God, no longer Sisyphean,” Sterns said,
in a mini-rhetorical tour de force. “There will always be
politicians who are corrupt, not in the sense of illicit activity
but rather in terms of whoring themselves out to their own
self-interest. However, the deficit between principle and party is
narrowing significantly.”
For many former Toomey supporters, the near success of his
campaign as well as the Republican establishment backlash against
it were formative experiences.
“When I heard about Pat Toomey challenging Arlen Specter, I
didn’t know what the heck to do,” Lilik said. “I knew people were
going to kill me if I backed Toomey, a man who I had admired for
many years, and people kept telling me I was throwing my political
career away. But the thought of Arlen Specter chairing the Senate
Judiciary Committee sent chills down my spine. I had to back
Pat.”
In the end, Toomey’s campaign may have come up short, Lilik
said, but it created a conservative community willing to draw a
line in the sand.
“For many of us, the Toomey race is a litmus test for whether or
not you mean it when you say you are a true conservative or a party
hack that only cares about power,” he said. “The major lesson is:
never again.”
Thus, Lilik said, YCOP will operate as a non-partisan group that
promotes conservative ideals and not a party.
“Needless to say, too many politicians base their decisions on
party affiliation rather than principle and ideology,” he said,
adding that it “would be irresponsible of us to give big government
Republicans a pass when they vote like liberals.”
Pointing to the current red/blue divide, the rise of Republicans
In Name Only, and conservative Democrats like Zell Miller, Lilik
contends that putting party blinders on does a disservice to the
conservative cause.
“In some districts it is impossible for a Democrat to be
elected, and in others it’s impossible for a Republican to be
elected,” he explained. “Isn’t it better to have a Democrat that
supports tax cuts and socially conservative policies in a solid
Democrat district than a Howard Dean liberal? Likewise, isn’t it
better to have a Pat Toomey conservative in the solid Republican
district than the Arlen Specter liberal?”
This was not all bluster and talk, Sterns said. His optimism, he
contended, was results driven.
“We are amassing a grassroots strike force in every country that
will mobilize behind conservative candidates and conservative
policies,” he said. “Recently, we were successful in crushing the
state legislators’ attempt to give themselves a 20 percent pay
increase, for example. We will have a prominent role in the 2006
GOP gubernatorial primary, which is already gearing up.”
BETTER YET FOR CONSERVATIVES, it’s looking like this Revolt of
Principle is threatening to spill over the Pennsylvania border.
Young conservatives in other states have been contacting YCOP
leaders for advice on how to set up organizations in their
states.
“The major thing is regardless of whether it’s a YCOP chapter in
your Keystone county, a Young Conservatives-type organization in
your state, or some other vehicle, young conservatives need to keep
getting involved and pounding the rock,” Lilik said. “We have a
potential to change this nation for the better if we all continue
to network and grow. Rome wasn’t built in a day, but as Ronald
Reagan’s movement proved, anything can be accomplished if you keep
at it.”
