Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery
If success is judged by the reaction of your competitors, The Maine Heritage Policy Center is even more effective than I thought.
In a MainePolitics.net blog posted yesterday, Maine People’s Alliance’s former health care organizer rants about the impact MHPC has had over the last year in making sure both sides of a public policy debate are reported by the media:
“This time last year, my biggest pet peeve was that every story about a progressive victory inevitably included a quote from Tarren Bragdon of the Maine Heritage Policy Center. In those days, I often ranted about how “fair and balanced” reporting was giving Bragdon a free press hit every time we scored a win.”
Ali Vander Zanden urges her progressive comrades to imitate MHPC circa 2010, by never lacking “confidence” and avoiding “the defensive rabbit hole.” Using these tips, her blog post serves as a call to action for the professional Left to emulate MHPC to lay the foundation for progressive legislative victories in two years.
I guess the thought that Maine people rejected the Big Government, Anti-Growth policies of the liberal agenda at the polls in November never crossed her mind. MHPC has seen success because the principles we support are now recognized by Maine people as reforms that will achieve more jobs and prosperity in Maine.
But it’s not just Ms. Vander Zanden that would like Maine’s progressive movement to act more like MHPC…
I recently received an e-mail with an attachment/funding pitch in support of the Solon Center for Research and Publishing (SCRaP)—recently founded, apparently, to “encourage the growth of Maine’s communities through educational and literary means.”
In actuality, the Solon Center has been founded to compete with MHPC, which is made quite clear in the one-pager referenced above. Apparently, the brain trust behind this new group believes Maine lacks a progressive organization capable of receiving news coverage:
“ Maine has no progressive equivalent to the Maine Heritage Policy Center. The last election made evident the need for factual analysis in Maine’s media. We will work to promote a fact-based Maine media in print, broadcast, radio, online, and with social networking.”
The flier even includes a graphic demonstrating the success MHPC has had in raising awareness about the public policy reforms we support (take note that SCRaP maintains the Left’s party-line of questioning our research, simply because they disagree):
I wonder if the liberal Maine Center for Economic Policy has anything to say about SCRaP’s indictment of the Left’s public relations efforts.
Which raises an interesting point. Are the Maine Center for Economic Policy, Engage Maine, Maine Can Do Better, Maine People’s Alliance, and countless other taxpayer-funded special interests still not enough to counter MHPC and its staff of eight? Perhaps not.
The Left may attempt to copy our tactics, but until it abandons its tax-and-spend Big Government agenda, Maine people will continue to gravitate toward the agenda of individual liberty and fiscal responsibility MHPC has promoted for more than eight years.