{"id":898,"date":"2009-07-17T09:03:00","date_gmt":"2009-07-17T13:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2009\/07\/17\/renting-the-right-wing-industrial-complex\/"},"modified":"2009-07-17T09:03:00","modified_gmt":"2009-07-17T13:03:00","slug":"renting-the-right-wing-industrial-complex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2009\/07\/17\/renting-the-right-wing-industrial-complex\/","title":{"rendered":"Renting the right-wing industrial complex"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve written before about what I call the right-wing industrial complex.<\/p>\n

That is, the network of lucrative business deals — speaking tours, books, radio shows, think-tank berths, etc. — available to conservatives who toe the Right’s line.<\/p>\n

My concern is that the strict requirements for dogmatic (and even ultra) conservative positions skews the Republican Party’s political approach.<\/p>\n

What satisfies the RWIC doesn’t necessarily resonate with voters…<\/p>\n

The lure of big $$$s also gives prominent politicians such as Sarah Palin a disincentive to stick with the thorny, complex and less-well compensated business of rebuilding the GOP.<\/p>\n

Now Politico has broken a story<\/a> that takes this trend one giant step further.<\/p>\n

The on-line political journal has uncovered evidence of a conservative group literally trying to sell its political influence to the highest bidder.<\/p>\n

The American Conservative Union asked FedEx<\/a> for a check for $2 million to $3 million in return for the group\u2019s endorsement in a bitter legislative dispute, then flipped and sided with UPS after FedEx refused to pay. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The ACU describes itself as the nation’s oldest lobbying group devoted to conservative principles.
But the term “lobbying” here may be a bit misleading.<\/p>\n

ACU isn’t your typical K-Street corporate shop.<\/p>\n

It is one of the leading right-of-center idea and agenda generators in Washington. Its board includes movement luminaries such as Grover Norquist and the organization hosts the influential CPAC conference.<\/p>\n

Here again from Politico:<\/p>\n

The conservative group\u2019s remarkable demand \u2014 black-and-white proof of the longtime Washington practice known as \u201cpay for play\u201d \u2014 was contained in a private letter to FedEx that was provided to POLITICO.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve written before about what I call the right-wing industrial complex. That is, the network […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}