For years, conservatives looking to effect change have turned
their eyes to Washington, D.C., and the national political and
media scene. Naturally, a philosophy that promotes a centralized
solution to every problem finds a happy reception among the elites
who walk the halls of power. But for those who proclaim federalism,
it has been ironic to see many Washington, D.C.-based conservative
groups frequently fall prey to the same siren song of power, and
seem most interested in building their own Beltway empires. All the
while, the public sector unions and the groups formerly known as
ACORN have followed in the footsteps of their progressive
predecessors, and are working hard to capture power at the state
and local level.
It might seem paradoxical that conservatives who believe in
limited government would spend so much time in D.C. focused on the
national scene, while liberals, whose perch of power is not
eternally secure, would turn to state-based efforts to bolster
their cause and further their agenda. But that’s the reality. As a
result, local political scenes have fallen prey to liberal media
bias; a crop of left-wing or lazy political figures have come to
occupy positions of power, in some cases thanks to the weakness of
major political parties.
In Wisconsin, the nation saw the power of the professional left
on full display last year when throngs protested in the state
capitol against the conservative budget reforms proposed by Gov.
Scott Walker. Years of work at the state level in Wisconsin, the
birthplace of modern progressivism, gave the left and its media
allies a sense that they were entitled to a nearly unchallenged
dominance of the political scene. Some things were taboo and no
conservative had dare tamper with those issues, they thought.
Enter Media Trackers, a state-based conservative investigative
watchdog affiliated with American Majority, the group I head, not
coincidentally launched in Wisconsin in January of 2011. By the end
of the year, both the left and right, as well as the media, would
conclude that Media Trackers was an organization that changed the
Wisconsin political landscape.
During the Madison protests, Media Trackers was among the first
to report on doctors signing fake sick-leave notes for protesters,
including public school teachers who left their classrooms to
demonstrate against Walker’s collective bargaining reforms. The
story went national and now, more than a year later, many of the
doctors involved in the masquerade are being slapped with
embarrassing reprimands and stiff financial penalties from the
state Medical Examining Board.
Through every step of the legislative and subsequent recall
election fights launched by the left, Media Trackers researchers
pored over innumerable IRS filings, strategy memos, social media
pages, campaign finance records, and websites; they connected the
dots and built a comprehensive picture of the agenda and funding
behind the left’s machine.
When labor unions and the left began to lose, and then turned to
the courts, Media Trackers foiled the credibility of the attempt.
First, an activist judge struck down the collective bargaining
reforms as unconstitutional. Media Trackers found that the judge
and her husband had close ties to organized labor and radical
environmental groups. Hoping to sustain the ruling in the state
supreme court, liberals mobilized to defeat a conservative justice
running for re-election in an off-year spring election. But the
mask of impartiality was torn from the liberal candidate’s campaign
when Media Trackers discovered a litany of financial and
ideological connections that helped tank her candidacy. A later
attempt by a Soros-funded propaganda machine and others to smear
the conservative jurist failed after Media Trackers discovered
several layers of conflicts of interest within the transparently
partisan Dane County law enforcement community.
In its biggest story of the summer recall elections, Media
Trackers found a group with close ties to the SEIU handing out
tickets to a barbeque chicken dinner in exchange for voters taking
a free ride to an early voting location to cast a ballot in what
was termed the “crown jewel” race. Queried about her connection to
the group, the Democratic candidate told the media that there was
none. E-mails released by Media Trackers proved the Democratic
candidate wrong. When the media feeding frenzy began, it was game
over, and corrupt union thugs lost their chance to tip control of
the state senate.
FOR ITS WORK IN 2011, a Wisconsin-based Democratic consultant
speaking at a gathering in Chicago complained that Media Trackers
kept the left constantly and consistently off message. Even a
political columnist at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
admitted that Media Trackers had become an influential force on the
state political scene.
With 2012 already a contentious year in Wisconsin, Media
Trackers has continued to make national headlines with reports of
television station employees signing recall petitions, and even
substantial anti-Walker bias in the two most powerful district
attorneys’ offices in the state. Through old-fashioned
shoe-leather-style reporting, critical questioning of appearances,
and an unrelenting dedication to the work of holding liberals
accountable, a small but highly trained team of two people is
changing the very terms of political debate at the state level.
The best part is that due to its success in Wisconsin, in 2012
Media Trackers is expanding into Ohio, Florida, Colorado, and
Montana, which will seek to replicate its success in Wisconsin. For
too long the right in America has been on the defensive, forced to
react to attacks instead playing offense. But with Media Trackers
now on the scene, the rules have changed, and conservatives no
longer have to just sit there and take it on the chin.
Now they can punch back.
