The #dontgo movement is one of the latter stripe, which started as a relatively small number of activists using the social media service Twitter to broadcast updates on the floor protest among House members opposed to the leadership’s decision to go into summer recess before passing an energy bill. The name comes from the tag, #dontgo, which was inserted into each update to enable supporters of the protest to more easily follow the debate’s progress. By entering the #dontgo identifier into Twitter’s search function, activists could easily follow minute-by-minute updates from people on the ground at the site of the protest, which in many cases included House members and their staffs.

Also, by using the #dontgo tag, activists from across the country were able to communicate with the people on the scene and provide feedback from the grassroots. As interest grew, a web site was constructed which provided an opportunity for activists to opt-in to email updates. The number of email subscribers now stands at over 30,000 – a movement in its nascent stages, set to grow as it mobilizes to set up a 50-state organization on the Web to facilitate action at the grassroots level.

With the recent decline in oil prices easing the energy issue out of the national spotlight, one might expect a similar decline in relevance of the #dontgo movement. That would be a mistake, however. The rationale behind #dontgo has far less to do with oil and energy issues themselves than it does with a general belief that regulation and government interference in free markets exacerbates problems more often than it alleviates them. In the particular case of the energy bill, #dontgo fought to have government restrictions on drilling lifted which contribute to high fuel prices by constricting oil supplies.

Seeing an opportunity to broadly promote free market principles, #dontgo has expanded its focus to include other areas where government intrusion has a negative effect on freedom. In resisting alignment with a particular political party, #dontgo has chosen to promote its ideas among the voters themselves at the grassroots level. The underlying rationale is that entrenched powers among the political elite long ago ceased to be concerned about ideas and voter concerns and, instead, have put establishing their own entrenchment at the top of their priority lists. This desire to grab and hold onto power at the expense of basic principles became all-too-apparent to many free market advocates during the massive bailout of financial institutions this fall, and is becoming more so as corporations like General Motors increasingly turn to the federal government to remedy their self-inflicted woes.

Noting the effectiveness with which Democrats utilized social media and Web 2.0 to spread the message of the Obama campaign, the #dontgo movement is currently engaged in a push to replicate that success in promoting free markets, lower taxes, less regulation, and government transparency. At its web site, along with signing up for the movement’s email newsletter, users can view the ongoing Twitter stream that launched the movement, as well as join the #dontgo Facebook group, which currently has just over 1,800 members.

This is just the beginning of an overall strategy to use the latest online technology to reach voters and bring them into the process of forming an anti-tax, pro-growth, pro-individual liberty agenda. The ultimate goal is to completely reform the way agendas are shaped. The need for this was perfectly captured in the days following the GOP’s defeat at the polls on November 4, when a small group of conservative leaders gathered for a closed-door meeting to decide what direction the conservative movement should take going forward. This stirred considerable angst among the conservative online community because it showed a complete misunderstanding of what brought about the recent string of Republican failures.

By not including any of the emerging talent from the conservative online community, the establishment demonstrated a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of political activism in the digital age. This, of course, is nothing new among failed establishments. Having been successful in the past, and earning the deference of the rank and file over time, they become complacent and arrogant. The current conservative leadership serves as an object lesson in that phenomenon.

Rather than struggle with the powers that be within the existing structure, the #dontgo movement has chosen create its own structure and set its own priorities. Operating independently of the current regime, it will be able to allocate its resources where they will have the most impact rather than in ways that will placate those who cling to the old order of things. As an independent entity working directly and in constant communication with its rank and file, this new movement will be able to impose the will of the people on the current leadership, rather than perpetuating the status quo wherein the leadership makes promises in exchange for support, and then does as it sees fit and then counts on a short public attention span.

One of the integral parts of this movement – and one that has been woefully neglected by the conservative movement in recent years – will be the establishment of a citizens’ corps of investigative journalists, set to begin in January 2009. As currently conceived, each state will be a bureau unto itself, with state-wide coordinators and editors monitoring and managing contributors, potentially down to the precinct level. State editors will be responsible for aggregating and promoting content to highlight reporting that is most likely to have an impact on advancing #dontgo’s pro-freedom agenda. By exposing corruption, mobilizing public sentiment against initiatives that limit individual liberties, combating government intrusion into free markets, and working as an advocate for taxpayers, the #dontgo movement will send a message to the political establishment, regardless of party affiliation, that the American people have had enough.

More than anything, this movement provides an opportunity for all advocates of personal liberty, government accountability and free markets – after an election that can only be seen as a major setback – to rally around ideals rather than the same political parties that have failed them time and time again over the years. By promoting pro-freedom principles among the populace rather than engaging in a futile attempt to entice the establishment into promoting those principles in the corridors of power, the #dontgo movement is sending the message that the lip service that inevitably gets paid to the precepts enshrined in our Constitution by the Founding Fathers as Election Day draws near will no longer suffice.

Notice has been served: the #dontgo movement is underway.

To some, the failure was due to problems inherent in Free Markets, Capitalism, Limited Government, Social Conservatism and the rest of the foundations of Conservative thought. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Barack Obama’s message was electing John McCain meant “4 more years” of George Bush. He was right. Unsaid was that electing him would be worse! Apart from the War on Terror and SCOTUS picks, what Bush accomplishments would Obama have problems with?

Bush has grown Government with a GOP controlled Congress for 6 of his 8 years. Obama is unhappy about that? Congress passed the Medicaid spending increase. Obama is unhappy about that? Congress passed Kennedy’s Education Bill. Obama is unhappy about that? Social Security Privatization failed. Obama is unhappy about that? Immigration? The Bailout? Obama is even talking about Welfare disguised as Tax Cuts for heaven’s sake! One could go on and on.

On too many issues and at too many levels, Conservative principles did not fail, Conservative principles failed to be upheld!

There were bright spots. The defeats of Harriet Meiers’ nomination, the Immigration Reform bill and the Dubai Port Deal come to mind. Common to these successes was the grassroots involvement of everyday Americans refusing to allow Government to take the nation in the wrong direction. We did it then, we can do it again.

This morning, the #dontgo Movement gives us that opportunity! #dontgo was founded by Eric Odom and Allen Fuller on a Friday in August when Nancy Pelosi and Democrats turned off the lights in the People’s House and went home. Big Government and Democrats didn’t have time for you. But many GOP House members believed different! They stayed and told Democrats, “Don’t Go! Come back and finish the People’s business!” With no cameras or microphones, those voices went basically unheard.

Until Odom and Fuller put up a Twitter hashtag - #dontgo. The word started trickling out. Until Odom and Fuller put up a website #dontgomovement.com so cellphone video, pictures and blog posts could get out. Until the MSM picked up what grassroots, New Media activists were doing and for the next month, the message “Don’t Go!” followed Nancy Pelosi from book signing to book signing! Better, tens of thousands of people rallied to one of the most successful grassroots efforts on the Right in years.

That was 2 months ago. While the issue birthing #dontgo is no longer a rally point, people are still looking for a voice to speak to Big Government to foster change! Good news. Odom and #dontgo didn’t stop working and growing when the microphones moved on to the next issue. This morning brings us this:

“Center Right Movement Heats up the Internet”
Conservative Bloggers See Netroots As Key To Advancing Policy

On Monday, November 10th www.dontgomovement.com will host an e-launch party to celebrate its fully-functional website and new online radio show devoted to advancing conservative netroots activism.

#dontgo originally began as a simple internet tag that the founders would put on their blog posts while tracking the energy debate by the US Congress on August 1st, quickly it became used by hundreds of activists including members of Congress not just to track the energy bill, but to energize and push conservative values. Soon thereafter the site was created and to date has 30,000 opt-in email subscribers.

The #dontgo Revolution takes web-based strategies and tactics that Democrats used in the last election cycle to advance conservative views and values. The mission is to develop a fifty state strategy of blogs and internet social networks that would get more conservatives active in their communities leading into the 2010 elections.

Communications Director Juliana Johnson states, “As we witnessed in the 2008 elections web-based strategies are imperative. Conservatives have time and time again failed to use the internet to attract voters and get more people active. We hope that with the launch of this website we will be able to effectively wage the battle of ideas with the left in cyberspace.”

Monday’s radio show (online) will air at 5pm CST. In order to listen please go to www.dontgomovement.com and on the right there is a button “listen to #dontgo radio”.

CONTACT: Juliana Johnson, Director of Communications
(312) 575-9500 (office)
(847) 691-9278 (cell)
julianatjohnson@gmail.com

If you’re a an eActivist - a blogger, vlogger, podcaster, internet radio host or wiki editor - head to dontgomovement.com and sign up. If you’re a traditional activist - a door knocker, phone caller, envelope stuffer, poll watcher or election day driver - head to dontgomovement.com and get involved. You’ll be building the state-by-state, city-by-city, block-by-block structure needed to rein in Liberals regardless of Party. And you’ll enable the election of politicians who won’t just campaign to the Right, they’ll govern that way, too!

This is not just a hope! We’ve seen people work together, they can bring real change. Your passion has moved you in the past. #dontgo gives that passion an effective outlet. Come join us!

Blue Collar Muse

When then-Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) stepped down in 2006, Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) was elected to replace him. Boehner went on to lead Republicans with a bland, lame, uninspiring legislative agenda. Voters, led by conservatives who sat on their hands, rewarded him by kicking Republicans out of the majority in November of that year, hoping Republicans would wake up and change their evil ways before the White House was on the line.

They didn’t.

Learning nothing from that Election Day massacre, House Republicans re-elected Boehner as Minority Leader. He - and they, collectively, under his leadership - went on to bore the electorate with an unimaginative legislative agenda in opposition to a Democrat-led Congress under Speaker Nancy Pelosi which was even less popular, if you can believe it, than President Bush himself. Under Boehner’s leadership, Republicans couldn’t even agree to back a moratorium on “earmarks” and ended up backing that larded-up $700 billion Wall Street bailout.

Custer-like, Boehner then went on to lead his troops this week to yet another embarrassing election defeat against the most unpopular Congress in modern polling history. As conservative columnist George Will pointed out this week, Boehner has now lost some 55 seats in two short years.

“These are the worst Republican results in consecutive elections since the Depression-era elections of 1930 and 1932,” Will reminds depressed Republican voters. “If, as seems likely at this writing, in January congressional Republicans have 177 representatives.they will be weaker than at any time since after the 1976 elections, when they were outnumbered in the House 292-143.”

There are two things to take from Will’s point: One, Boehner has really stunk up the court; and two, under Boehner things could still get WORSE.

I’m not saying Boehner is a bad guy or that he’s not necessarily a good conservative. I’m saying that when a coach has back-to-back seasons as rotten as Boehner, the team usually fires the coach.

But not Team GOP.

Indeed, word coming out of Washington this week indicates Republicans are about to commit yet another act of political insanity by electing Boehner once again as House Minority Leader.

But don’t blame all conservatives in the House for this insanity. It appears it may be only ONE conservative responsible for this pending disaster - just like it wasn’t all of George Washington’s officers who sold out to the British.

Recognizing that Boehner, clearly enamored with power, was unwilling to do the right thing and step aside graciously, House conservatives, especially those who belong to the Republican Study Committee (RSC), were planning to run one of their own - highly regarded conservative Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) - for Minority Leader. Among those planning the conservative challenge and participating in the strategy sessions was former RSC Chairman Mike Pence (R-Indiana).

And then Pence sold them out.

According to a source close to the situation in Washington, on Thursday - unbeknownst to House conservatives - it was discovered that Pence had cut a deal to support Boehner for yet another term as Minority Leader in exchange for Boehner backing Pence for the #3 leadership position as Republican Conference Chairman. If true, Pence put his own personal ambition ahead of the best interests of the conservative movement and the Republican Party.

If this “deal” was indeed struck and is affirmed in the leadership elections scheduled to take place in a week, House Republicans will not only continue traveling down the now well-worn path of electoral failure, but Pence’s betrayal will divide the GOP ranks even worse than before. So movement grassroots conservatives, if they have any hope of turning their fortunes around in 2010, need to give John Boehner the old “Harriet Miers” treatment.

As you’ll recall, President Bush tried to name his longtime friend and highly under-qualified Harriet Miers to the United States Supreme Court to replace Sandra Day O’Connor. The conservative movement was furious and rose up in unified opposition, eventually forcing Miers to withdraw from consideration.

Conservatives need to rise up and oppose Boehner’s re-election as the House GOP Minority Leader in the same manner - or forever hold their peace. Let the calls, emails and faxes begin!

Written by: Chuck Muth

But naturally, like any movement rooted in truth and hope, it has its nay-sayers. One theme that these nay-sayers echo is the idea that the world has changed so much over the last 20 years that the themes that worked for Ronald Reagan won’t work any more.

Hogwash.

Yes, the world has changed, in some good ways, and in some bad ways. But not in any way that affects long-term fundamentals.

Economic and political freedom, individual responsibility, and finite government are not matters of personal preference. Nor are they matters, as the wealth-spreaders like to claim, of greed, unfairness, or un-neighborliness.

They are principles that work. They foster prosperity, in the full sense of the term.

If this understanding has diminished, if these principles have lost some luster over the last two decades, that’s in no small measure due to the big-government Republicans who gave them lip service while collaborating with liberals in undermining them. And this craven collaboration is part of why the world faces economic trouble.

Republicans can continue to kow-tow to the whiners who want government to kiss away all their boo-boos, to bail them out of the consequences of their own irresponsibility, to regulate life into comfort and fairness.

And they will continue to lose. The dream of life enveloped by state-sponsored cushions is more than just the cop-out of weak and cowardly souls who think everyone else is responsible for taking care of them. It’s a prescription for impoverishment. When government micro-manages peoples’ lives, when it spreads the wealth around, when it overturns the natural justice that rewards virtue and punishes vice, it makes life worse; it dampens the human spirit, and human flourishing diminishes.

When government adheres to its proper, finite mission, the people prosper. A party that leads the way to prosperity is a party that can win.

Ronald Reagan once said, “I wasn’t a great communicator, but I communicated great things.” Those great things are true, and they don’t change.

Brilliantly written by: Leslie Carbone

A lot of the brains on the right are engaging in some deep conversations regarding our use of the internet to advance free-market ideology. While I agree there is a major gap in our message, and I concur with the idea that we haven’t, to date, used marketing in any coherent manner, I think a lot of us are missing the simplicity involved in succeeding with online activism.

But first, I want to opine on our use of technology. During the past three months I’ve had the opportunity to speak on quite a few panels at conferences and events across the country. In almost every one of the panels I’ve participated in, someone suggests that we’re “behind” when it comes to technology.

Personally, I feel this couldn’t be further from the truth. The idea that we’re behind in technology simply doesn’t fly with me. We have, in my opinion, some of the smartest people out there with regards to knowledge of the internet, the technology available today, and how social media creates the perfect vessel for ideas to spread and flourish.

We have guys like Patrick Ruffini, Micheal Turk, Erick Erickson (and everyone else at RedState), Katie Harbath, Aaron Marks, Ali Akbar, Jess Thomas, Allen Fuller and many more. This group has a full understanding of modern technology, social media, and how the two create the perfect marriage.

No, we’re NOT behind when it comes to technology. Where we ARE behind is community.

A major problem on the right is the apparent assumption of community. We have some brilliant developers and tech gurus who can crank out state of the art web properties that cost a fortune, but they build these sites without a community… AKA… foundation. In the end, tens of thousands of dollars are wasted on sites that sit dormant, with its few visitors being donors who are left feeling ripped off and cheated.

How many times have we heard about a new group looking to be the “MoveOn.org of the right?” Yet, when these big budget projects go live they fall flat on their faces because, well, because they do NOTHING to engage online communities. They launch their sites and say “come promote us”.

Well… Thanks, but no thanks.

The alleged leaders of the conservative movement have got to get off the couch and get their hands dirty. They need to be out in the states meeting face to face with bloggers. They need to be on Twitter, Facebook and other networks actively participating in online communities. They need to develop personal relationships with online activists, and they need to allow these relationships to drive projects… allowing the activists to take ownership of the project as it develops.

I’ve had enough of hearing about “new beta projects that will rival DailyKOS and MoveOn.org.” I don’t want to hear about another “new media organization” launching that is ran by people who wouldn’t know the new media landscape if it walked up and back handed them in the face.

I want organizations, political organizations, politicians, and parties to personally reach out to me as a blogger and get to know me. I want to be listened to and I want to play a part in whatever it is they’re working on. I want to have input, and I want ownership in the part I help build.

And I don’t think I’m alone on this.

We have some great minds like Jon Henke, Justin Hart, Joshua Trevino, Rob Bluey and many others who are currently having a solid debate on message, but the rest of the movement needs to drop everything they’re doing and start thinking about developing a crowd powered, community based movement.

Community is where the success in online activism is, and community is an area where the Right Online has completely missed the boat.

My two…

-Eric Odom

Then came 2008… a whirlwind of a year that required countless hours of work on our part. Some of us spent the entire year working non-stop on the campaign trail, the rest of us spent the year developing online information tools and new media communities. Have no doubt, those of us working on politics, both paid and volunteer, put in a staggering amount of work leading up to this point in time.

And for what? If you were working for a Republican campaign, chances are you had your tail end handed to you on a silver platter. If, like me, you work in the free market movement, you witnessed some of the largest surges towards outright Socialism that our country has ever seen.

Last Tuesday night, I sat in Manchester New Hampshire pondering the next step as I watched the elections unfold. I remember bouncing around between polling locations in Manchester that morning, thinking “in just 24 hours I’ll be able to slow down and rest”. I remember thinking about how different things would be now that campaign season was coming to a close.

I was wrong.

The 2008 elections taught the center-right movement a valuable lesson. It’s a lesson that many of us already knew, but hadn’t until now fully grasped. That lesson is that Republicans aren’t going to do anything to advance the center-right movement. In fact, many of them, if not most, are actively trying to destroy it.

Let’s face it folks, the GOP is about as effective as a lead balloon in engaging people in citizen-powered politics. I realize that some of my friends on the right feel they have a chance at rebuilding the Republican Party, but I don’t share their optimism. Not to say that I completely give up, but we have to understand that the GOP has backed itself into a monster of a bureaucracy that will take years and years to tear down and rebuild.

Years that we as a movement simply do not have.

It’s time that we as a movement develop our organizational structure outside of the party. It’s time that we begin planning a full scale offensive assault on corrupt government at all levels. Local, state, and yes, even federal.

It’s time that we begin hammering school boards with fiscally responsible candidates. It’s time to move in on city councils and state legislatures. It’s time for us to call for incumbent power to end. Immediately.

We can no longer standby and watch our rights and freedoms be torn to shreds by politicians who make it their profession to find loop holes and remain in power. It’s time to end the game of favor exchanges and power plays using our hard earned money.

It’s time, friends. This political party nonsense has to be shoved to the side. If we’re going to be a movement, then we’ve got to move.

So let’s get moving.

We have no money, we have no huge donors, and we have no huge organization pulling strings to help us. Instead, we’re just a group of free-market junkies who see the vital need to move and move now. If you’re tired of listening to people who just talk the talk, and you actually want to walk the walk, please read on to find out how you can take actual action.

We need help in the area of marketing, tech support, SEO, organizing, strategy, graphic design, social media, talk radio, media relations, public relations, investigative reporting, blogging, newsletter marketing, regional coordinators, state coordinators, state site editors and a chief editor. If you’re interested in any of these positions and would like to know more… please read on.

NOTE: These positions will ensure credit for you, your online profile, your resume, and your blog/website. We will work in every way possible to ensure that the hard work of our team does not go unnoticed.

—————————————–
Communications Director
Do you have a passion for free-markets? Do you believe that Government should be far more transparent and accountable? Do you know how to craft a coherent message in the form of a press release? Would you like to join a major, full scale, grassroots movement and help advance a true freedom agenda?

If so, we want to talk with you ASAP. We’re looking for someone who can help us out with communications. This is a volunteer position and would require the ability to craft at least two press releases per week, monitor our online presence, and handle all media related communication.

Position: Communications Director
Status: Open
Type: Volunteer (possible eventual compensation)

—————————————–

Chief Editor
We’re getting ready to launch a network of investigative style news sites geared towards local content. Our Chief Editor would need to follow what is happening across this network of websites and organize content to be posted on the main site. This person would also be in charge of moderating posts submitted to the main site, and coordinating with bloggers who create content for the main site.

Position: Chief Editor
Status: Open
Type: Volunteer (possible eventual compensation)

—————————————–

Regional Coordinator
Once our new network of sites goes live early next year, free-market minded folks to help us coordinate and organize the state based editors. This will require that you spend about two hours per week communicating with each state editor in your region, and host a conference call each week with your editors. You will also need to participate in a weekly conference call with the communications director and organization leadership.

Position: Regional Coordinator
Status: Open
Type: Volunteer (possible eventual compensation)
Regions: West, Southwest, Midwest, North East, South East.

—————————————–

State Editors
In early 2009 we will begin launching state centered, heavy hitting, investigative style news sites that identify/expose corrupt and ineffective government. We’ll need an editor/blogger to oversee these operations and organize bloggers/content for these sites.

There are no direct pay opportunities associated with these positions, however, we are considering ways to help each state editor develop a revenue model for their site.

Position: State Editor (multiple per state)
Status: Openings
Type: Volunteer (revenue via state website)

—————————————–

Marketing Director
The center-right movement has been lacking in marketing. This is an area that we badly need to improve on. Are you an upcoming marketing ninja? Do you need a place to polish up your skills while helping the center-right movement do something that has never been done before?

We will need a marketing plan that consist of a 100% grassroots/grasstops effort. You will have help, of course, but you’ll need to layout the blueprint for a six month campaign.

Position: Marketing Director
Status: Open
Type: Volunteer (possible eventual compensation)

—————————————–

Social Media, SEO and Graphic Design
We need to develop a team of social media, SEO and Graphic design gurus who can volunteer about an hour per week to help develop our online operation and enable it to flourish. You’ll be working directly with Eric Odom and the Marketing Director to implement one of the most ambitious online grassroots efforts ever seen.

Position: Social Media, SEO, and Graphic Design
Status: Openings
Type: Volunteer

—————————————–

Blogger
We need bloggers in all fifty states. This is a VERY ambitious project that we believe will achieve results that have, to this day, never been seen. You absolutely want to be a part of this!

Position: Bloggers
Status: Openings
Type: Volunteer

—————————————–

Tech Team
Needed - PHP, HTML, CSS, Wordpress, Facebook Applications, iPhone Applications, Plugin Development, Linux Server Admin, MySQL Database Junkies, Template Coders and general support desk functions.

Position: Tech Team
Status: Openings
Type: Volunteer (possible eventual compensation)

—————————————–

This is it, folks. It’s our time to shine. It’s our time to take this movement to a whole new level. Join the revolution and TAKE ACTION!

Please contact us IMMEDIATELY if you see yourself fitting in any of the above positions.

The quill pens with which the Constitution was drafted had scarcely been replaced in their wells before cries rang out for the government to venture beyond these enumerated functions and misuse its power to molly-coddle some at the expense of others. As early as 1794, Congress was asked to consider a resolution spreading $15,000 of taxpayers’ money to a group of French refugees. James Madison, remembered as the “Father of the Constitution”, shot down this early wealth transfer with the words: “I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.”

For roughly a century, Mr. Madison’s integrity lived on in his successors. But a depression in the late 1800s gave rise to the so-called Progressive Era, which called for government to ignore its charter and start spreading wealth around. Within a couple of decades, Americans would be saddled with that favored tool of the redistributors: a graduated income tax. In another couple of decades, the New Deal expanded government with a panoply of programs and interventions. Then the Great Society extended its meddling fingers even further, to the point where it is nearly impossible to live without being the double-sided culprit and victim of state-sponsored plunder, at once ravaged by the moral cancer that afflicts both master and slave.

And so the temptation to rely on the federal government, as a matter of first resort, has become so ingrained that the Republican Party as a whole has forgotten how to stand firm against it, and even that it should. Instead of pointing out that it is simply not the proper purview of government to protect people living below sea level from hurricanes or to bail out irresponsible banks and borrowers from the consequences of their own errors, Republicans embraced these impossible, inappropriate tasks, and many others.

The result was the insidious undermining of the GOP’s commitment to limited government, the free market, and strict construction, and the Party’s well-deserved loss of the trust of its constituents.

The Democrats, on the other hand, are not afflicted with this split-personality disorder. They believe in misusing government to serve their own absurd dreams of utopia. They’re consistent; their disastrous policies match their ludicrous beliefs.

The Republicans’ disastrous policies contradict their correct, purported beliefs.

And a consistent message, no matter how asinine, will beat a correct philosophy undermined in word and deed every time.

If the GOP is serious about pulling America out of the moral morass into which it has dragged her, it must start by recovering its correct principles and adopting policies and rhetoric that match them.

Written by: Leslie Carbone

Being on offense is going to require a lot of work, and I believe we’re now in a perfect position to lead a major portion of the charge.

As mentioned on two radio shows last week, the #dontgo Movement is going live with the new website on Monday morning. We have a sleek new design that you’re all going to LOVE. And more importantly, the site has a lot of new community style features that will help us organize and work together as a single unit.

But before we unroll the new website, I would like to point out what I feel should be one of our first courses of action.

REGIME CHANGE

Many on the right, especially those in the GOP realm, claim to be “leaders” and refuse to give up their comfy positions of power. Our “leadership” in Congress has, to be quite blunt, completely failed on all fronts.

And now, when we need bold new leadership like never before, these same individuals are quickly scrambling to regain control and continue driving our movement in the wrong direction.

We simply cannot let this happen.

Starting next week, I propose we launch a widescale call/demand for any and all “leaders” who have failed us to get out of the way and make room for real conservatives to step up to the plate.

It’s time for much more than a movement. It’s time for a full scale revolution in the way the right functions. It has become apparent that Washington D.C. is not going to change anytime soon, so we need to bring our revolution OUT of the beltway and get local. We need to take the fight to our local school boards, our town councils, and our state legislatures.

We simply cannot allow our movement to be ran over by careless politicians who care nothing more than remaining in power.

We in the #dontgo Movement have quietly waited for the right time to step on to the battlefield, and I for one believe that time is now.

Please take the weekend to ponder ways we can work together to make politics local again, and let me know your thoughts and feelings.

On Monday, we come out swinging as a revolutionary Movement. We have a lot of work to do, so let’s get ready to get out there and do it.

Warm Regards,
-Eric Odom
#dontgo Movement

DENVER – The national free-market grassroots group Americans for Prosperity will participate in a news conference on Tuesday calling on Congressional leaders in Washington to reduce America ’s dependence on foreign oil. The event will also highlight American Energy Freedom Day, which is October 1, 2008. On that day, the bans on drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf and producing energy from oil shale on federal lands in the American West will expire – unless the Congress extends them

Americans for Prosperity’s Colorado State Director, Jim Pfaff, will join U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint, Coalition for a Conservative Majority (CCM) National Chairman Ken Blackwell and CCM Colorado Chairman Bob Beaubrez at the news conference.

Americans for Prosperity recently released its “Freedom from Foreign Oil” scorecard, which ranks lawmakers based on a composite score of eight roll call votes and co-sponsorship of three initiatives that would positively or negatively impact gas and energy prices. Lawmakers received positive marks for votes against punitive tax hikes on domestic oil and energy, and negative marks for a vote to oppose opening the outer continental shelf to natural gas exploration. The complete scorecard, which includes a summary of all votes and co-sponsorships used, is available online at www.AmericansforProsperty.org.

WHAT: Energy Freedom Day News Conference

WHEN: Tuesday, August 26, 2008

10:00 am Mountain Time

WHERE: Denver Athletic Club

1325 Glenarm Place

Denver, Colorado 80204

WHO: U.S. Senator Jim DeMint

Ken Blackwell, CCM National Chairman

Bob Beauprez, CCM Colorado Chairman

Jim Pfaff, AFP-Colorado State Director