Eberle Uses Web to Spread GOP Story; Bobby Eberle and GOPUSA circulate the conservative message throughout cyberspace with a blend of news and commentary that explains important policy issues

Insight on the News, March 1, 2004

Byline: Stephen Goode, INSIGHT

Bobby Eberle holds a doctorate in engineering and works for Lockheed Martin Corp. He's also the president and chief executive officer of GOPUSA, which he calls "a conservative news, information and design company dedicated to promoting conservative ideals."

He might be called a Republican activist. Eberle has served as president of the Houston Young Republicans, director of club development of the Texas Young Republican Federation and as a three-term state chairman of the Texas Young Republican Federation. He was a delegate to the 2000 Republican Convention in Philadelphia and was vice chairman at large of the Young Republican National Federation.

But Eberle has other commitments, too, and he speaks of them passionately. He is a Roman Catholic who insists genuine religious faith inevitably influences political opinions. And he is a man convinced of the importance of public service, working with Habitat for Humanity, for example, during the last decade.

Eberle played tennis during his younger years. Now he's devoted to golf. Understandably, he likes to point out that GOPUSA now gets about 30,000 page views every day. In 2000, when it started, it received about 3,000 views per month. GOPUSA is a 100 percent volunteer-run company, Eberle notes. "We have about 50 people involved nationwide with the day-to-day operations. We have folks in 40 of the 50 states who help update their state sections with news and commentary. Our e-mail magazine goes out on Mondays. And all that with no paid advertising," he concludes.

This magazine spoke with Eberle at the national Conservative Political Action Conference near the Pentagon at the Gateway Marriott in Crystal City, Va.

Insight: Engineers aren't usually thought of as being very politically active. They're often career-minded types for whom politics takes a definite second place, isn't that right?

Bobby Eberle: That's exactly right, and I was the same way. Through high school and college, I wasn't involved in politics at all, and even through graduate school. My idea of watching the news was getting to the sports pages.

But near the end of graduate school there were a couple of news stories that affected me differently. One of these was about two high-school girls, ages 14 and 16. I believe their names were Jennifer Ertman and Elizabeth Pena. In the summer of 1993 they were out walking one evening, stumbled upon a gang initiation, and never made it home. They were raped and murdered.

That tragedy hit me like a ton of bricks. I guess it was the first time I realized how terrible the world can be. My mind went back to the time when my father was still living, and how he helped in the community whenever he could. I decided I had to get involved with public service, helping out, volunteering for Habitat for Humanity. Then in the winter of 1994 I called the [Harris] County Republican Party, asked what I could do, and they said, "Come on down!" That was in 1994 and I've been involved ever since. I believe in personal responsibility rather than collectivism, so it never occurred to me to call the Democrats.

Q: What was your early experience in politics like?

A: In 1994 when I lived near Rice University there was an important congressional race. They didn't have a lot of volunteer help so the party said, "If you want to get involved that's a good place to start." So a friend of mine and I helped to run that campaign.

Being political novices, we were in for a shock, because 1994 was the year the GOP took back the House [of Representatives] after 40 years. It seemed like every Republican in the country was winning, but on that night we got only 24 percent of the vote and had our dreams of going to Washington shattered.

We knew nothing of the demographics of our district, so we did not know that it had been carefully designed by the state Legislature to ensure that only a Democrat could win there. Nonetheless, I was hooked.

Q: Getting involved in politics is one thing. Going so far as to start a Republican Website that's become an important source of news, information and commentary for conservatives is another. How did GOPUSA come about?

A: I was involved actively in Young Republicans with my good friend Bill Fairbrother, and as we were getting near the end of our involvement, we were talking one day and trying to decide what we would do next. Our two main areas of interest were politics and technology. Bill was a computer-science guy and I was an engineer. We began searching for a way to blend our skills to do something productive.

We started a Web-design company in 1999 for Republican candidates. We thought, "That's our perfect mix! We'll help get good candidates on the Web. And we'll use our design and technology skills to get out the conservative message!"

It didn't turn out quite that way, and in retrospect this was a good thing. We had come in at the tail end of the electoral cycle. In Texas, the primary is in March. We were looking toward March 2000, but we were just getting organized in December 1999. Most of the primary candidates either already had a Website or the idea was so new to them that they weren't convinced it could help. The result was that we didn't get a lot of activity, and during the spring when things were really slow we had a chance to re-evaluate. Was this the way we wanted GOPUSA to go?