Tea Partiers study Obama's win

Conservatives are learning grassroots tactics for fall.

Conservative activists need to take a page from President Obama's campaign, a co-sponsor of the Tea Party Convention says.

"We owe it our philosophy to study how to win," said Morton Blackwell, who founded The Leadership Institute in 1979 to train conservatives on being effective in politics and media.

His group is holding workshops in Nashville today to train the 600 attendees of the Tea Party Convention. The sessions focus on persuasive messaging, online activism, and coalition building: ideas taken from the 2008 Democratic playbook.

He said conservatives need to focus more on the Internet and less on traditional advertising to win in fall's midterm elections. But while Democrats were more effective in mobilizing the grassroots last time, conservatives are coming around.

Blackwell said there is "enormous momentum" building through tea parties nationwide. The Leadership Institute has seen record enrollment in the last two years.

"Most movements are organized from the top down," he said. "It's quite exceptional for it to be a spontaneous thing at the grassroots."

-- Ambreen Ali, Congress.org

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