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Submit Your Questions for FreedomWorks President and CEO Matt Kibbe
In the fight to bring Tea Party principles to Washington, few organizations have been as influential as FreedomWorks, a group that has organized over six million Americans in defense of limited government and free markets. The man driving that mission is the organization’s president and CEO, Matt Kibbe, whom Steve Forbes has characterized as having “been to FreedomWorks what Steve Jobs was to Apple.” You can read more about Kibbe here.
As part of our ongoing series of Ricochet forums, Mr. Kibbe has agreed to take questions from you, the Ricochet members. Simply submit your questions in the comments of this post and then we’ll post his answers to some of the best inquiries here next week. Remember to keep your prompts concise and on topic. Want to get it on the conversation? Become a member of Ricochet today!
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At what point could we say the Tea Party has failed or succeeded? I’d say that if we can’t get a president and at least one house of congress without some affinity for its principles, we should scrap the label and completely reboot.
I’m a FreedomWorks member and am quite disappointed this primary season. I specifically chose FreedomWorks above other Tea Party organizations.
Why the failure of Tea Party organizations to fail to rally/choose one candidate to take on the GOP Establishment candidate? Have some sort of Tea Party primary. The Establishment opposition continues to get split. It’s frustrating.
Can you suggest one thing that we, as Conservatives, can do to encourage others to join our cause? I have to agree with WI Con in that this is extremely frustrating . I don’t want to become completely cynical but jeez this has been an awful six years.
In the marketplace of ideas it seems the tea party themes are always on defense. What is your strategy to reposition small government and free markets as the mainstream and intervention and regulation as the aberration?
There seems to be a strong interest from entrenched interests, i.e. media, punditry and consultants, to establish a narrative to the effect that the influence of the Tea Party and other grass roots efforts for conservative values has run its course. My guess is that you would refute this as wishful thinking or hopeful prophecy, but what is FreedomWorks doing to keep it from becoming real?
Also, where should we look for surprises in the 2014 election cycle?
Which three close Senate races excite Matt the most?
I think that editing Wikipedia to add favorable and well sourced stories is the most effective thing that a middle class individual can do. What does Matt think the Americans who care about this election should do if they only volunteer for one kind of activity?
What specific strategies will FreedomWorks use to pressure elected officials to vote for smaller government?
If you were to begin a long term commitment to campaigning where the Progressives have the strongest hold, especially in the Inner Cities, to at least attempt to persuade them that Conservatives are not the Uncaring Monsters they imagine us to be, what would you say to them?
Yes. I’m particularly frustrated that many of the strongest and most unified Tea Party challenges have been in purplish states (Kansas and Kentucky), while Lindsey Graham in SC was able to defeat his challengers in detail.
To be fair to Mr. Kibbe, the awful stupidity of the malcontents in Kansas, which looks set to replace the most conservative senator up for re-election with a Democrat, isn’t the fault of Freedomworks. Kansas is, indeed, a pretty strong argument for supporting Freedomworks over, eg. the Madison Project, Tea Party Express, or the Senate Conservatives Fund.
What would you like American government (realistically and at all levels) to look like in 10 years?
What do you think it will actually look like?
The success of the Democrats is in keeping separate groups within the party umbrella. If any form of Republicanism is to have success, then the various nominally Republican and conservative groups will have to serve each other to get people elected who will carry the flag and won’t actively work against these varied interests. None of them can be contrary to one another. How would Freedom Works handle this kind of issue?