Politics: Georgetown Off My Mind
Norquist, Grover G.
"Politics: Georgetown Off My Mind" by Grover G. Norquist Georgetown Off My Mind Gordon Liddy, Robert Bork, Sen. Fred Thompson, and other conservatives from business, academia, politics, and the media danced in the...
...The embassy receptions and Georgetown dinner par-ties, with their A- and B-list guests, tantalized and disciplined would-be members of the Establishment...
...The first year of the Gingrich revolution was winding down, and this hearty band had assembled for the first annual gathering of "The Weekend," a two-day extravaganza of seminars exploring topics such as "Life After the Welfare State," "Why America Hates Lawyers," and "Conservative Mistakes: What We Can Learn From Them...
...Thirty-six of the forty-seven GOP freshmen Republicans passed up the "prestigious" Harvard gathering...
...Denton confided to Weyrich that he had been surrounded by people who "wish me well" and "want me to succeed...
...The battle lines continue to be more sharply drawn...
...As the mushy middle disappears, the liberal left is increasingly nasty, bitter, and abusive...
...POLITICS by Grover G. Norquist Georgetown Off My Mind GGordon Liddy, Robert Bork, Sen...
...Who wants that at a dinner party...
...Denton lost touch with his conservative base, stuck to his new friends, and never threatened the interests and hegemony of the Washington establishment...
...This year's freshman class is also more church-going than previous classes...
...Throughout his presidency, Ronald Reagan always referred to the federal government as "them...
...The coup de grace came after the 1994 elections, when Feulner and Heritage attracted all seventy-three Republican freshmen to the Annapolis orientation at which Rush Limbaugh spoke...
...For years, the Washington social circuit has served as an Ellis Island for immigrants arriving from the backwater provinces with outmoded ideas about limited government...
...Finally, with the defeat or defection of most "conservative" Democrats, and the reinforcement of Republicans whose models are Reagan and Gingrich rather than Nixon and Eisenhower, there is a growing philosophical divide between the parties...
...The American Spectator March 199 6 53...
...They are not adrift in their new city...
...A smattering of non-liberal, non-Establishment individuals would always be invited to join the 1,200 or so establishmentarians at Renaissance...
...Alabama conservatives who helped elect him didn't get their calls returned...
...At one party he had been assured by none other than Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham that he could become one of the outstanding senators in Washington — if he played his cards right...
...partisan alliances were not dulled...
...One day, after all, they'll be going back for good...
...The Establishment press has taken notice of the elegant dinner parties hosted by the erudite and indefatigable44 Consider the fate of Senator Jeremiah Denton of Alabama...
...but if he didn't change, Baker said, he "wouldn't be taken seriously," would be thought of as "inflexible," and would get "labeled...
...Not coincidentally, the lo3rd Congress of 1993-1994 proved the most united freshman conservative class in memory, one prepared to resist the blandishments offered by the "bipartisan" Establishment...
...Those invited had no competing institutional plans...
...Senate Republican leader —and quintessential establishmentarian —Howard Baker took Denton aside and told him that all the conservative stuff was fine for getting elected...
...No salesman will visit you...
...And today's conservatives have worked hard to create social space for new arrivals...
...In 1992 Free Congress GROVER G. NORQUIST is president of Americans for Tax Reform...
...The Kennedy School canceled its orientation after it became clear that not only would none of the Republicans attend, but neither would most of the thirteen Democratic newcomers...
...Denton explained to Weyrich that he had been very well received in Washington...
...But soon after his move to Washington, Denton began to reduce his support for some of the pro-family initiatives...
...22 / MO...
...Republican freshmen would no longer be tranquilized upon arrival...
...Mark Matia was recently honored in the Wall Street Journal as the top producer for one of the nation's highest ranked life insurance companies...
...I,- Act now to protect your family's future with a high-quality, low-cost term life insurance policy from a AA+ rated blue chip insurance company...
...Designed to displace the old order, The Weekend was only the most recent example of what might be called conservative counterscheduling...
...52 March 1996 The American Spectator This has been a story oft repeated, as would-be revolutionaries get elected full of determination to change Washington and end up instead serving Washington at the expense of their home communities...
...Foundation president Paul Weyrich and Heritage Foundation president Edwin Feulner put together a four-day event for incoming congressional freshmen and their families...
...Before they could become proper Washington players, they would first have to be deloused...
...Why wait to do it...
...Denton was so much a part of the Religious Right that he would cite the Bible in support of the death penalty for adultery...
...50 $500,000 $59 / MO...
...Gray hosts regular dinner parties for free-market thinkers and activists at her Virginia home...
...Consider the fate of Senator Jeremiah Denton of Alabama, elected with the strong support of social conservatives in the Reagan landslide of 1980...
...Whenever pressures build to vote the interests of Washington, Largent says he actually visualizes himself in Tulsa, and asks what he would do if he were there...
...The orientation treated Congress as an ideological battlefield, not as an adult version of summer camp or Renaissance Weekend...
...The class of 5994 arrived in Washington with the same view...
...It has helped, too, that fewer of thenew congressmen are former Hill staffers...
...Gay Gaines, the chairman of GOPAC, hosts regular dinner parties with key congressmen, the press, and activists...
...They have real lives, neighbors, relatives, and friends in their districts...
...First, there was that all-important freshman orientation week...
...One congressman said that these events make him feel like the nerd who returns to his 25th-year high school reunion as a millionaire: all the cheerleaders now want to be his friends...
...The brainchild of Washington attorneys Laura Ingraham and Jay Lefkowitz, the event was planned with more in mind than providing rollicking fun for fellow-traveling conservatives...
...Washington society goes the way of the Great Society...
...4.' My daddy died and mommy says we can't afford to live here anymore...
...Holly Coors has opened her Watergate suite for monthly parties for those members of the House and Senate who have switched to the GOP...
...This year they had to choose...
...Newt Gingrich, who was then minority whip, wrote to all the Republican freshmen and urged them to join Weyrich and Feulner in Annapolis...
...Each had to choose...
...Arianna Huffington...
...It met in the relative serenity of nearby Annapolis, Maryland...
...Oklahoma freshman (and NFL hall-of-famer) Steve Largent says, "The healthiest thing I do is leave Washington, D.C...
...As conservative writer, activist, and quipster M. Stanton Evans puts it, "Too many come to Washington believing the city to be a cesspool and decide it is really a hot tub...
...And D.C...
...An exasperated Weyrich replied, "How could you have withstood torture from the Communists in Vietnam for seven years and surrendered to the likes of these people within months...
...For his pains, he was defeated by the Democrats in 1986...
...Its social scene is designed not to seduce conservatives, but to remind them why they are here: to represent not Washington but their home states and districts...
...Fred Thompson, and 35o • other conservatives from business, academia, politics, and the media danced in the New Year at Miami's Doral Golf Resort and Spa...
...Applications taken over the phone...
...1996 Call today for your free personalized quotation: 800-866-2955 Mark Matia (pronounced: may-sha) Murdock-Taylor 3350 Peachtree Road, N.E...
...more importantly, it was scheduled to coincide with the Establishment's traditional freshmen orientation at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government...
...You're not getting any younger, and every year you delay the more expensive coverage becomes...
...This warm welcome is a striking change from the past hostility shown to conservatives who held their ground...
...Though Democrats were invited, none attended...
...Suite 1050 Atlanta, GA 30326 AGE COVERAGE COST 30 40 $100,000 $250,000 $12 / MO...
...Then Paul Weyrich paid him a visit...
...The idea was to counter sixty years of liberal control over the Washington establishment's social life...
...when the last gavel drops...
...The latest Republican class has proved less susceptible to the siren sounds of Georgetown society...
...Protect the ones you love . . - Your family's future security is at risk if you haven't made adequate life insurance preparations...
...Every freshman Republican and Democrat was invited to both...
...Congressional families who attend church regularly immediately find in Washington a social network...
...The event was deliberately scheduled to conflict with Renaissance Weekend, which for more than ten years has met around the New Year at Hilton Head, South Carolina—and since 1992 has become an organizing center for the Friends of Bill...
Vol. 29 • March 1996 • No. 3
