Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, January 2, 1995 TAG: 9501030029
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: TYLER WHITLEY RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH
DATELINE: SPRINGFIELD (AP) LENGTH: Long
Now, he and his band of 10,000 conservative activists are part of the GOP tidal wave that engulfed the nation in November.
The 10,000 activists are people who have come through the doors of Blackwell's Leadership Institute, a conservative campaign school he founded 15 years ago.
But Blackwell, 55, counts other victories in these, the GOP glory days. The Republicans' Contract with America was drawn up at Blackwell's cabin in Madison County.
Steve Stockman, the Texas Republican who upset powerful Democratic Rep. Jack Brooks on Nov. 8, learned his tactics at Blackwell's school, dubbed ``Grass Roots 101'' by some graduates.
Some of the most influential people in Washington, including House Majority Leader-elect Dick Armey of Texas, are on Blackwell's advisory board. Armey borrowed Blackwell's cabin for a weekend retreat to hammer out the Contract with America.
Blackwell's conservative doctrines are even beginning to invade bastions of liberalism. The student body president at the University of California at Berkeley - once the citadel of radical activism - is a conservative who picked up his campaign savvy at the Leadership Institute.
``It's a very rewarding time,'' Blackwell, a former Reagan insider, said. ``I love it when a good plan is coming together.''
The cumulative effect of young conservative activists working in the system for 15-plus years, along with the problems of the Clinton administration, led to the Republican landslide, Blackwell said.
All the recent successes have made Blackwell's school a hot property around Capitol Hill.
Rsums of more than 3,000 people seeking jobs in the new Republican-controlled Congress have been sent to Blackwell's job-and-talent bank in this Fairfax County community.
Revenue for the Leadership Institute is expected to hit $4million this year, up from $2.1million a year ago and $580,000 six years ago, Blackwell said.
Attendance this year reached 1,609, more than double the total of six years ago.
The institute, which has leased space from the National Right to Work Committee for years, has bought a building in Arlington for $3.5million and plans to move there once renovations are completed.
Although the institute - a nonprofit organization - is nonpartisan and open to Democrats and Republicans alike, it is unabashedly conservative.
Blackwell, who got his start in politics as a college student working for Barry Goldwater's presidential campaign, is one of Virginia's Republican National Committee members. He is considered conservative even by Virginia Republican standards.
He was one of the earliest supporters of Oliver North in the 1994 Senate campaign and of Mike Farris in the 1993 race for lieutenant governor.
The Bible that North carried on one of his secret missions to Iran was given to him by Blackwell.
The institute's offices are adorned with pictures of conservative icons - Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and 18th-century British political theorist Edmund Burke. The door to Blackwell's office has an anti-Clinton poster of ``Whitewater's Most Wanted.''
Literature promoting the school bears testimonials from former President Reagan and North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms. Advertisements seeking applicants are put in such conservative publications as ``The National Review,'' ``Human Events'' and ``American Spectator.''
With the exception of a five-day candidate-development school, the institute steers clear of promoting a conservative agenda, Blackwell said. He acknowledged, however, that most of the lecturers are conservative.
The institute is an umbrella organization for several schools. In addition to the youth leadership school, there are schools for broadcast journalism, student publications (to ``challenge the liberal campus news monopoly,'' a promotional pamphlet says), a Capitol Hill training school, a foreign-service opportunity school, a candidate-career development school, a public-speaking school, a speakers' bureau and the job bank.
The bank placed more than 500 job applicants this year - before the postelection push.
For $50, a participant in the youth school attends an intensive training session that includes two 16-hour days - called ``boot camps'' by some who have participated. There, the attendees learn how to write a news release and prepare a political brochure, how to organize students and how to hold mock elections.
They also learn how to dress, how to deal with the media and how to handle negative information - as well as how to spread it. At the end of the second day, students run a mock campaign.
Blackwell peppers the students with aphorisms:
``You can't save the world if you can't pay the rent.''
``Remember - the other side has troubles, too.''
``Don't get mad, except on purpose.''
Blackwell describes politics as ``part art and part science. Our goal is to help produce more people who are philosophically sound and technologically proficient.''
About 1,600 students attended 50 of Blackwell's sessions held throughout the United States in 1994. More than 600 attended the youth school.
Kevin Gentry, the Leadership Institute's executive vice president, said only about 2 percent of revenue comes from fees. Most of the money comes from direct-mail solicitations and contributions from foundations.
Blackwell said some attendees want to learn how to win campus offices. Others want to get involved in helping run political campaigns. Others want to run for political office.
Two years ago, The Wall Street Journal encountered a 20-year-old Leadership Institute graduate who planned to run for president in 2012.
Tim Phillips, the administrative aide to Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Roanoke, enrolled in the school in 1984. Blackwell immediately put the 19-year-old to work on a congressional campaign, and Phillips has been involved in politics ever since.
Phillips recalls being put through a crisis situation and given a certain amount of time to craft a response.
``They look for leadership and people who can apply the technology,'' Phillips said.
``It's nuts-and-bolts stuff,'' said another graduate, state Del. Sam Nixon, R-Chesterfield. ``I called it `Youth Politics 101.'''
Nixon, a year out of college, was sent to the school by the Reagan presidential campaign in 1980. His goal was to become a field youth coordinator.
Nixon said he still has the manual from his two-day training session. He said he applied his Leadership Institute knowledge to running the Chesterfield County GOP committee and then to getting elected to the House of Delegates in a special election in 1993.
Graduates include Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky; Gov. Terry Branstad of Iowa; Virginia Attorney General Jim Gilmore; and Ralph Reed, executive director of the Christian Coalition.
Some Blackwell critics, including Republicans, point to losing causes that Blackwell has backed and say he is so ideologically inflexible that he is the last person who should be teaching practical politics.
Blackwell noted that his start in politics was with the crushing loss of Goldwater in 1964. But he didn't give up.
``What is your aim in life?'' Blackwell asked. ``To achieve good things for the country or aim always to be on the winning side?''
by CNB