DNC chair candidate Roemer--Mercatus and Center for National Policy!!

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/01/08.html#a1274

DNC Candidate Roemer, Please Explain

Tim Roemer is one of the candidates for DNC Chair. Here's something I came across, Roemer's bio at the Mercatus Center: Tim Roemer is a distinguished scholar at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and president of the Center for National Policy.

Is that THIS Mercatus Center and George Mason University? (Also, see this and this.)

Explanation, please!

At Seeing the Forest I write about the Right's network of organizations, and how they influence our politics by influencing public attitudes as well as setting up channels to influence politicians themselves. Some of these organizations are set up to "educate" opinion leaders and public officials on why they think right-wing ideology offers better solutions to public policy problems. (I'm trying to paraphrase typical right-wing wording...) Without going into detail, let me just say that their solutions are not always what you and I would consider to be in the best interest of the public-at-large. For example, their "market solutions" often translate to "one-dollar-one-vote" corporate-oriented policies -- as compared with boring, old-fashioned, democratic "one-person-one-vote" solutions that require such pesky oversight provisions as transparency, accountability, public consensus, equal opportunity, serving all citizens equally, etc. -- all those things the Right calls "inefficient" and "bureaucratic..."

The Mercatus Center, for example, at George Mason University describes itself as promoting the

"use of market-based tools and analysis to discover workable solutions to pressing economic and governmental problems"
And just look at who is funding them, as well as the amounts! (Click here, and see the reports linked at the end of this post, for some background on who these funders are and what they stand for. Carthage Foundation is a Richard Mellon Scaife (more here) foundation, for example.) Here are some things that this humble blogger would like to know. What will be going on at this "retreat?" What kind of "sound economic thinking" is a right-wing-funded organization going to be promoting at the retreat? What sort of "Social Security, tax and pension reform" is a right-wing-funded organization going to be promoting to Democratic Chiefs of Staff? Who is funding this retreat (and why?)? And, most important to me, what is a candidate for head of the Democratic Party doing working for this crowd? Anyone interested in the race to become head of the Democratic National Committee deserves answers to these questions, and a full explanation.

I would also be interested in knowing if any Democratic Chiefs of Staff have accepted the invitation!

For those interested in more infomation about the right-wing organizational infrastructure see the tables of contents of reports here and here. While these reports are written for trial lawyers and teacher unions, their intent is to describe the Right's infrastructure of advocacy/communication organizations, who is funding it, what their goals are, and looking at what we might do to counter this effort and recover our democracy.

The invitation sounds innocuous if you don't know who's paying for it all. Warnings should be sent to legislators urging them to warn their staffs.

This could explain why so many DEM staffers seem to be brainwashing their bosses.