And Still They Rise

Bill Berkowitz

June 12, 2007

Bill Berkowitz is a freelance writer who covers right-wing groups and movements.

Paraphrasing General Douglas MacArthur’s famous quote about old soldiers not fading away, old conservative politicians don’t fade away; they join high-powered lobbying firms and right-wing think tanks.

If you thought you’d heard the last from such conservative stalwarts as former California Congressman Richard Pombo, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum and former Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, fuhgeddaboutit. Despite each of them being handily defeated last November by Democrats, these three right wing ideologues have landed squarely on their feet in well-funded positions, affording them multiple opportunities to continue agitating for various aspects of their political agenda.

During his tenure in the House, Pombo was an ethical and environmental nightmare. As chairman of the House Resources Committee—before he lost his seat in 2006 to Democrat Jerry McNerney—Pombo was the proud author of a number of environmentally insensitive proposals, including the authored the "Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act of 2005" which gives the authority to charge and retain recreation fees for the use of public lands and which serves as the bedrock upon which the pay-to-play Disneyfication of the national parks and other public lands, is being constructed.

Pombo was closely linked to GOP uber-lobbyist and now imprisoned Jack Abramoff, and in September 2005, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington named Pombo one of the "13 Most Corrupt Members in Congress."   

Pombo’s defeat has move him from the electoral arena to a lobbying position, having recently been appointed chairman of an organization called Partnership for America. Earlier this year he signed on with Pac/West as a senior partner.

Partnership for America bills itself as a "grass-roots alliance" promoting freedom, jobs and a clean environment. 

Pac/West Communications is a lobbying/consulting firm that has managed to secure a $3 million contract with the state of Alaska to "educate" Americans about the value and importance of drilling for oil in the state, a project dear to the heart of Pombo.

According to the Anchorage Daily News , Pac/West is run by Paul Phillips, a former Republican state senator from Oregon, “known as his legislature's ‘premier operator,’ both praised and criticized for his sly mastery of the legislative process.

“A consummate dealmaker and pro-business Republican, Phillips was investigated for mixing politics and private consulting. A 1990 ethics fine may have derailed congressional aspirations, said the Oregonian.” Phillips retired in 1996 and joined up with Pac/West. “Using Alaska's funds, Pac/West funded a media-message group, Americans for American Energy,” the Anchorage Daily News reported.

The group was located in the same Golden, Colo. office of a subcontractor called Policy Communications Inc., “which received $125,000 for professional services in May and June last year, according to state billing records.”

And here, according to the Anchorage Daily News , is where the story really gets interesting:

Policy Communications is headed by Jim Sims, the former communications director for Vice President Dick Cheney's 2001 energy task force. That task force became controversial when environmental groups accused the White House of letting energy companies help set administration policy. Its inner workings remained guarded after federal courts ruled they were protected by executive privilege.

Meeting regularly with the state's D.C. office was Pac/West executive vice president Tim Wigley, who has been involved in similar campaigns involving logging ("the healthy forests initiative") and changing the Endangered Species Act (the Save Our Species Alliance). According to his company biography, Wigley is a graduate of the American Campaign Academy, a tactical training organization set up in the 1980s by advisers to Republican leader Newt Gingrich.

Wigley was author of a 2005 e-mail, later leaked and published on the Internet, explaining how the forest-products industry finally succeeded by stealing the rhetoric of environmentalists to win over urban and suburban voters.

Since joining the company in late winter, Pombo told reporters that his first job involved a trip to Alaska.

In May, Pombo signed on as the new national chairman of Partnership for America, which, like Americans for American Energy, gives as its headquarters the Golden, Colo. office of Pac/West subcontractor Jim Sims.

Two other high-profile Republicans defeated in November have landed at Washington, D.C.-based public policy institutes.

Rick Santorum, the hard-boiled conservative Republican Senator who lost his Pennsylvania Senate seat to Bob Casey Jr., has landed on his feet in Washington, D.C. heading up a new program called "America's Enemies," located at the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC), a Washington-based think tank formerly headed by neocon hawk Elliott Abrams. According to a statement issued by the Center, the project will study

threats posed to America and the West from a growing array of anti-Western forces that are increasingly casting a shadow over our future and violating religious liberty around the world.

According to published reports, Santorum is planning two documentary film projects to "tell the other side of the story." What story is he talking about? The Morning Call Online explains that the projects are aimed at

counter[ing] what [Santorum] characterized as the stream of left-wing documentaries coming from Hollywood and independent filmmakers.

The newspaper reported that Santorum first project

would explore the relationship between radical Islam and the radical leftists in various countries around the world, including Latin America. It would be about an hour in length. The second would be a longer, broader documentary that he said would aim to 'change the culture of America.' He declined to go into specifics about the proposal.

Santorum has also landed a spot as a regular contributor to the Fox News Channel, and he has signed on to work part time with a high profile Pittsburgh-based law firm.

Kenneth J. Blackwell, Ohio’s former secretary of state, long-time GOP political operative and an African American darling of both religious and economic conservatives. who was handily defeated in his race for governor by Democratic candidate—was recently hired by the Family Research Council (FRC)  as a Senior Fellow for Family Empowerment at Washington's premiere right-wing religious lobbying outfit.  

"Over the years, we have known and worked with Ken Blackwell on the toughest issues facing families and our country," FRC President Tony Perkins  said in a mid-March news release.

We have witnessed Ken's willingness to stand and fight for preserving marriage and defending the unborn. His unwavering commitment to tax relief and conservative fiscal policies has supported family enterprise.

Blackwell’s first official FRC duty was speaking out against the reintroduction of legislation in Congress in support of the Fairness Doctrine at a conference organized by Paul Weyrich’s Free Congress Foundation.  "If it passes [The Media Ownership Reform Act, which would bring back the Fairness Doctrine] radio stations that air conservative talk shows to also air liberal shows, regardless of their listener interest or sponsor support," Blackwell explained. "It is a strategy that intends to silence ... voices with whom the left disagrees."

"While liberals hold a virtual monopoly on broadcast television and print news, many on the left just can't stomach the reality of a dominant conservative presence on talk radio," Blackwell stated. "They want to give Mr. Franken or Mr. Springer and their talk-radio comrades something they cannot obtain on their own: market share." If they aren't able to effectively compete with the likes of Limbaugh and Hannity, Blackwell suggested that "they should focus on what they do best—make ice cream."