Blanked Out

In the September issue of Minnesota Monthly there is a feature on the Center for the American Experiment (CAE). The CAE broke ground as Minnesota’s first conservative think tank and is widely credited as creating the intellectual infrastructure that would back Minnesota’s new generation of conservative leaders: Pawlenty, Coleman, Kline, etc. The CAE is over $300,000 in debt. Not even an appearance by Gen. Tommy Franks in May could rally the troops: (emphasis added)

…[it] drew less than half the attendees, and brought in less money, than previous CAE dinners featuring such speakers ads Margaret Thatcher and Mikhail Gorbachev.

At least it gave Gen. Franks the opportunity to again put Saddam Hussein and bin Laden in the same sentence. It’s unfortunate that more people don’t realize that the transitive property of equality only holds true in mathematics. “If Saddam was doing the same thing as bin Laden, and bin Laden planned 9/11, then Saddam also planned 9/11!” Eh, not quite.

CAE’s problems are not just financial: (emphasis added)

This past spring, the CAE board of directors stunned Minnesota political observers when it abruptly fired most of he center’s staff, including president and CEO Annette Meeks. Her ouster prompted the resignation of a key longtime supporter and board member, former Minnesota congressman vin Weber; in the wake of his departure, several high-profile conservatives who had been poised to sign on as directors begged off to avoid the chaos.

As CAE struggles to maintain its base of donors in the midst of mounting long-term debt, its very mission, which had lurched rightward during Meeks’s tenure, is now in question. Many observers wonder if the Experiment can even continue.

Part of CAE’s current troubles might be connected to Meeks herself. While CAE always put forth assertive arguments for its vision and policies, the debate was always civil under their founder Mitch Pearlstein. Not so with Meeks:

…the fact that to survive, liberals have to tell us, ‘Do as I say, not as I do.’ And this hypocrisy will ultimately doom liberals to what the great president Ronald Reagan called the ‘great ash heap of history’.”

Again, the refrain of “liberals = communists”. First off, while Reagan used that line to great effect, the phrase “ash heap of history” was actually coined by Leo Trotsky during the 1917 walkout from the Second Congress of Soviets. To be precise, you would have to say “doom liberals to what the great president Ronald Reagan referenced”. I know it doesn’t have as much zing, but such are the restrictions of living in a reality based-community.

Perhaps it is time for former CAE staffer Katherine Kersten to rejoin her conservative brigade? Your ideas on what policy positions or fundraising plans might save this venerable Minnesota institution are welcome in the comments.

NOTE: I will ad hyperlinks to the original article as soon as it’s online.  Hyperlink is up.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 16th, 2006 at 12:31 pm and is filed under Finance, Communications. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.