“One of the things I really like about Drum Major is that it doesn’t really
have as much of a political agenda as it does an agenda to come up with ideas
that work,” Weiss says. “So it doesn’t make any difference if you’re a
Republican or a Democrat—if you see an idea that works, you can embrace it. We
don’t want people not to embrace it because it’s stigmatized in their mind with
an affiliation with a particular party.” It seems unlikely that conservatives
will embrace ideas originating from groups like Drum Major, but it remains to be
seen how influential they will become.
In California, the Rappaports have set up their own LLC, Skyline Public
Works, as a funding vehicle. They support the Center for American Progress, as
well as the New Progressive Coalition, a research clearinghouse that uses the
Web to connect progressive investors (who pay a small fee to register) with
organizations that post funding proposals and budgets. Since 2004, they have
given roughly $12 million to progressive activists.
Deborah Rappaport likes to refer to these groups as “do tanks,” preferring to
nurture the liberal grassroots rather than funding theoretical research. Last
year, for example, they gave $350,000 to the Progressive Legislative Action
Network, whose aim is to enact liberal legislation in all 50 states by providing
research directly to progressive legislators, many of whom do not employ
in-house staff to conduct such analyses. The Rappaports also support the
Roosevelt Institution, which calls itself the first student think tank. Launched
in 2005, Roosevelt has united some 5,000 policy-minded students on several
hundred campuses.
Andrei Cherny, a former senior aide to both John Kerry and Al Gore, is also
watering the grassroots. He seeks funding for a quarterly publication,
Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, with an operating budget of less than $1 million.
He hopes to add fuel to the Democratic platform the way conservative journals
supported by the likes of Olin have helped boost the case for supply-side
economics, faith-based organizations and the privatization of Social Security.
“We have policies from here to kingdom come; what we don’t have are the big
ideas, and that’s the difference,” Cherny says.
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