Meese Helps Social Conservatives to Stay Relevant
By Janie Lorber
Roll Call Staff
July 25, 2011
Every Wednesday morning, about a dozen prominent conservatives led by former Attorney General Edwin Meese huddle over a Dunkin’ Donuts breakfast in a quest to prevent their movement from fragmenting.
The strategy sessions — held at the headquarters of the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian advocacy group based in Washington, D.C. — bring together some of the old guard’s familiar figures, including Meese, who ran the Justice Department under President Ronald Reagan; Tony Perkins, the president of the council; and Alfred Regnery, former head of the conservative publishing house bearing his family’s name, according to sources familiar with the gatherings.
For the past two years they have served as ambassadors to the days when advocates for conservative social causes and fiscal causes were united at the hip — and the ballot box. The group is trying to reinforce the notion in conservative circles that issues such as faith, gay marriage and abortion are inherently tied to deficit reduction and limited government. “One of my abiding passions is to facilitate the rejoining together of the various strands of the conservative movement into the single most potent and effective political force,” said Colin Hanna, president of the advocacy group Let Freedom Ring. Hanna attends the weekly meeting but declined to discuss details of its proceedings. “Over the last couple years social conservatives have realized that the entire movement is stronger when all are collaborated together,” he said.
The breakfast meetings, led by Meese, began in 2009 as an outgrowth of the Council for National Policy, a group founded 30 years ago by the Rev. Tim LaHaye, an evangelical minister, with the help of Paul Weyrich, an iconic conservative political organizer, sources said.
http://www.rollcall.com/issues/57_12/Edwin-Meese-Helps-Social-Conservatives-Stay-Relevant-207602-1.html
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