This material is drawn largely from Phyllis Schlafly’s Web site at http://www.phyllisschlafly.com/.
Elizabeth Kolbert, “Firebrand: Phyllis Schlafly and the Conservative Revolution,” The New Yorker (November 7, 2005) at http://www.newyorker.com/printables/critics/051107crbo_books.
The source of this material is in part the National Women’s Party Web site on the ERA at http://www.equalrightsamendment.org/, and in part Ruth Murray Brown’s book For a “Christian America”—A History of the Religious Right (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2002), 15–62.
Phyllis Schlafly, “Is the Era of Big Government Coming Back?” The Phyllis Schlafly Report, vol. 35, no. 7 (February 2002) at http://www.eagleforum.org/psr/202/feb02/psrfeb02.shtml.
John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, The Right Nation: Conservative Power in America (New York: Penguin Press, 2004), 81.
I can remember Richard Nixon grousing, in 1971, that Republicans had but one small think tank, the American Enterprise Institute, which today is also an affluent great-granddaddy. In recent years there has been a proliferation of right-wing think tanks. For example, the Heritage Foundation Web site refers to some 564 experts or organizations espousing conservative views, including the Nixon Center for Peace and Freedom in Washington, D.C. (See the Heritage Foundation, “Policy Experts,” at http://policyexperts.org/organizations/organizations_results.cfm.) Do think tanks matter? Do all their books, position papers, seminars, and briefings influence policy? No definitive answer is possible, for there is no way to measure accurately. Donald E. Abelson, Do Think Tanks Matter? Assessing the Impact of Public Policy Institutes (Montreal: McGill–Queen’s University Press, 2002). But clearly they have influence. Former conservative activist and writer David Brock (who had his own eye-opening experiences with conservatism and created the Media Matters for America Web site that puts the lie to conservative misinformation and propaganda) wrote in The Republican Noise Machine, “In 1998 Heritage spent close to $8 million, or 18 percent of its budget, on media and government relations.” David Brock, The Republican Noise Machine: Right-Wing Media and How It Corrupts Democracy (New York: Crown Publishers, 2004), 58. Spending such sums enables them to keep their name before policy makers, and today conservative think tanks appear to have a far greater influence than moderate ones, even long-established organizations like Brookings. I undertook a rather simple, albeit unscientific, test of the relative strength of the major think tanks on Capitol Hill by noting how often they were referred to on the floor of the House and Senate since 1995. Using the Government Accountability Office’s search engine for the Congressional Record, I found the following:
| Year | The Heritage Foundation | The Cato Institute | American Enterprise Institute | The Brookings Institution |
| 1995 | 135 | 87 | 59 | 15 |
| 1996 | 63 | 59 | 35 | 11 |
| 1997 | 80 | 48 | 40 | 22 |
| 1998 | 54 | 22 | 29 | 11 |
| 1999 | 49 | 24 | 21 | 4 |
| 2000 | 55 | 24 | 19 | 5 |
| 2001 | 53 |
