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