Finding the Funding for Conservatives

0 Comments | Insight on the News, July 23, 2001 | by Stephen Goode

The National Conservative Campaign Fund raises money for top conservative candidates running in the most crucial elections for the House and Senate.

The National Conservative Campaign Fund (NCCF) set up shop in the summer of 1999 "with the main goal of contributing to the campaigns of the top conservative candidates for Congress," explained NCCF Chairman and longtime conservative stalwart Tom L. Phillips, writing in the first issue of the organization's newsletter in January.

NCCF's honorary chairman is former attorney general Ed Meese. Ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick is the honorary vice chairman, and the NCCF board includes such conservative figures as publisher Alfred Regnery and Ambassador Faith Ryan Whittlesey.

During the elections of 2000, NCCF contributed to the campaigns of 54 candidates in 31 states. That broke down to 47 House candidates and seven candidates for the U.S. Senate. Of that number, 29 were elected, including Sen. George Allen, R-Va., and Reps. Melissa Hart, R-Pa., Mike Rogers, R-Mich., and Jo Ann Davis, R-Va.

J. Brinley Lewis is NCCF's national director and Jeff Hollingsworth is its executive director. Insight sat down with the two men to talk about NCCF's role in future elections at the organization headquarters at 1 Massachusetts Ave., N.W., in Washington.

Both Lewis and Hollingsworth have full-time jobs elsewhere (see "Personal Bios") and volunteer their time to NCCE "Unlike other political-action committees," Lewis tells Insight, "we're not paying out hundreds of thousands of dollars for staff and fancy office space. We have one tiny office, and we keep our overhead low so we can turn around and give more money to candidates."

Insight: The Democrats hope to take back the House and increase their numbers in the Senate in the 2002 elections. How should conservatives prepare to meet this challenge?

Jeff Hollingsworth: First and foremost we need to raise campaign funds, and candidates will follow. Raise the money and they will come. So we're raising money off the bat and not waiting until the 11th hour. Money is mother's milk to politicians, and early money is even better.

There are corollaries to raising the funds. For example, we need to make the conservative movement aware of the critical importance of this election cycle and how much it costs to run for office. Unless you're a millionaire, you've got to start earlier and earlier to chase ever larger amounts of money.

If we can make conservatives more savvy about the importance of providing funds to good candidates early in the election cycle, and if we are able to sustain that support throughout the campaign, then I think we'll achieve the goals of this organization.

J. Brinley Lewis: There is no lack of good conservative candidates. There may be a lack of sufficient support for conservative candidates, and we hope to fill that gap by alerting people about who those candidates are so conservatives will give us the money to send where it will do the most good -- such as in the swing races where, otherwise, contributors might not know to write a check for a particular candidate.

It is very important that we have able people out there presenting the conservative point of view, explaining the conservative message, preventing the liberals from defining the terms of the debate and establishing conservative issues as those on which the campaigns will be fought.

Insight: What is crucial about the elections of 2002?

JH: I can't think of a time in recent memory when government has been so closely divided. There's a Republican in the White House who won by the narrowest margin. We have a Senate that's still teetering on the edge, who knows, we may have a Democrat decide to switch to the Republicans tomorrow! And we have a House of Representatives with a narrow margin between the parties. This had been the first time since [President Dwight] Eisenhower's day that Republicans controlled the House, the Senate and the white House. Then Jim Jeffords of Vermont stabbed the GOP in the back and our dreams died aborning.

So while there's a Republican plurality, there's not necessarily a conservative majority. This is very important because it will affect the second half of [President George W.] Bush's first term and determine the direction of policy for years to come. We need to strengthen and increase the conservative ranks, not just the Republican ranks, but it's important who gets elected. It makes a difference who's in charge.

Insight: Is it realistic to think in terms of a lot of conservatives winning in 2002?

JH: I think it's realistic to think of that happening but only if they stick to the conservative message. It's when they start wandering away, diluting the message, beginning to sound like liberal Republicans or even Democrats that they lose.

You have to stick to what you believe because, whether liberal or conservative, people respect you when you stand up for your principles. As Ronald Reagan said, "We don't need any pale pastels." It's when a candidate waffles that people become convinced that they're all just politicians, not men and women of principle. Suddenly, it looks like they just want to get elected and will say and do whatever is necessary.