Tag Archives: American Conservative Union

The RSLC, with friends like these…

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I can’t say for TV but the Republican State Leadership Committee’s ads in support of local VTGOP candidates are being run in heavy rotation on Vermont radio this weekend – and, they are … everywhere!!! rslc-ads-2

The RSLC is a national conservative political action committee (founded and advised by Karl Rove and funded with donations from Koch Industries) dedicated to electing state level conservative GOP legislators. Their national big business funded ads, with no intended irony, are attempting to rally Vermonters around a banner for local control.

This spring they pledged $50,000 to target 22 Democratic Vermont legislators for defeat. In the 2014 election when all was said and done the RSLC ended up spending over $300.000.

A funny thing in the latest ad blitz is that three Democrats – Rep. Cynthia Browning (D-Arlington) and two NEK state senators, Bobby Starr and John Rodgers (D-Essex-Orleans) – who have been reliably friendly to VTGOP causes are on the RSLC’s hit list.

The American Conservative Union recently proclaimed the Vermont legislature had a “a small pocket of conservatism” and went so far as to give Democratic State Senators John Rogers, Bobby Starr and House Rep. Cynthia Browning’s 2015 voting records  a big conservative thumbs-up. Rep. Cynthia Browning’s voting record got a perfect 100% from the ACU. And NEK Senators Rogers and Starr came in at 43%, still respectably above the lowest rated VTGOP Senator, Diane Snelling at 29%.[corrected]

While collateral damage to three highly ACU-rated Democratic friendlies, if any, won’t show up until the votes are counted on November 8, the RSLC-funded ad war is keeping a lot of radio stations happily selling ad time.

And you know – as Karl Rove and the Koch Brothers want us to believe – nothing says local control more than big businesses’ national super-PAC ads bombarding Vermont.

Vermont conservatives perched on three legged stool

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The fabled moderate Vermont Republican has pretty much vanished, and if you believe the American Conservative Union, that respected personage of the past has been replaced by a small pocket of Reagan conservatives.

The American Conservative Union and the American Conservative Union Foundation were founded by William F. Buckley after the presidential election in 1964 (Barry Goldwater’s huge loss to LBJ). Along with a host of other activities they sponsor the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) once chaired by Carly Fiorina.

And now, the American Conservative Union says it is thrilled to announce “a small pocket of conservatism exists in Vermont: 33 out of 150 Representatives and 5 out of 30 Senators will receive ACU’s conservative award.”. ACUvt 1Vermont’s small conservative pocket is mostly Republican but a lone Democrat did well in the ratings: One outlier in the legislature is Representative Browning, a Democrat who will receive the ACU Conservative Excellence award for her 100% rating.

Rep. Cynthia Browning (D-Arlington) made the grade. She often votes with Republicans and has tangled with the Shumlin administration over access to healthcare funding details. And two NEK state senators, Bobby Starr and John Rodgers D-Essex-Orleans, hardly starting out as part of what the ACU termed the “coalition of the radical left,” might find their way into the conservative pocket with a little effort.ACUvt2

The ACU judged legislators on a wide range of bills from the 2015 session, selected to reflect an adherence to certain conservative principles.

We select bills that focus on former President Ronald Reagan’s philosophy of the “three-legged stool”: 1) economic: taxes, budgets, regulation, spending, healthcare, and property; 2) social and cultural: 2nd Amendment, religious freedom, life, welfare, and education; and 3) government integrity: voting, individual liberty, privacy, and transparency.

That seems to me less a description of a simple three-legged stool than some elaborate Empire dining room suite of issues. But who would know Ronald Reagan’s stool better than ACU and CPAC.