Liberals to Plant $2.6 Million, Hope New Faces Sprout (PROPAC)

[Khephra]

Liberals to Plant $2.6 Million, Hope New Faces Sprout

By David Von Drehle
Sunday, November 16, 2003; Page A04


If you can't beat 'em, copy 'em.

With hopes of winning back Congress someday, a new liberal political action committee has been studying the war plans of legendary conservative field marshal Newt Gingrich. PROPAC, as the group is called, aims to pour $2.6 million over the next year into recruiting and training left-leaning candidates at the grass-roots level -- the first step in a long-range project to fill the pipeline with a fresh supply of future winners.


According to executive director Gloria A. Totten, the name and the idea are conscious echoes of Gingrich's GOPAC, the vehicle by which the Georgia Republican rose from congressional backbencher to speaker of the U.S. House in 14 carefully plotted years leading up to 1994.

"We didn't take their entire playbook," Totten said at a briefing for reporters last week. "But we did look at a myriad of things they did."

Totten, a former abortion rights activist, allowed that most liberals -- including her -- prefer to champion issues than to hatch campaign strategy. And rounding up candidates is often a last-minute chore performed one-handed, with the other hand daintily holding one's nose. Liberals have a distrust of politics and a fear that they might be pressured into unseemly compromises.

more..............

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46528-2003Nov15.html

[Field Of Dreams]

1. As long as they don't grow bushes or shrubs

I'm all for it!

[La_Serpiente]

2. Well...

I don't want to turn into a News Gingrich. I just shudder at becoming someone that disgusting.

[stevedeshazer]

3. Ms. Totten,

Better late than never.

Please contact me.

Sincerely,

Me

[Code_Name_D]

4. About time we see something.

Getting canadates into Congress can no longer be considerd a "local" imparitive. As the Repugs control the congreshonl seats, the Dems must follow. And if the Demogratic party will not recrute and support candates from the botom, some one else must do it in there stead. Expecualy now that local campains now spend unheard of sums of money in the running. Campains for govoner and state house spend almost as much money as the federal level campains. And even school board elections are starting to tick into the 100s of millions of dollars. Well beyond what any local inisitive can bring to bare.