United Liberty

The National FreePAC Tour continues this afternoon in Phoenix, Arizona. In just a few minutes, a few thousand Tea Partyers will fill up there room here at the Phoenix Convention Center to learn the basics of grassroots activism, including GOTV training and ways to hold both Democrats and Republicans accountable.

Later this afternoon, activists will hear from a variety of speakers — including Matt Kibbe, Deneen Borelli, Dana Loesch, Rev. C.L. Bryant, and Glenn Beck — during the “Call to Action Rally.”

You can watch FreePAC Arizona live here. You can also follow me on Twitter to see photos and keep up with everything else going on.

FreedomWorks, a DC-based grassroots organization, will host its third FreePAC event this Saturday at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, Arizona to be followed by similar gatherings in Florida and Illinois.

Hoping to motivate activists in advance of the next month’s presidential election and congressional races, FreedomWorks, which has regularly endorsed fiscally conservative challengers to incumbent Republicans, is hoping to repeat the enthusiasm that saw at its FreePAC held in Dallas, Texas. That first FreePAC was held just days before Ted Cruz, who was a featured speaker in at the event, went on to defeat the establishment-backed David Dewhurst.

While the afternoon will be dedicated will be dedicated to training grassroots activists, covering everything from yard sign blitzing to phone banking to how to use social media to how to write a “letter to the editor.”

In the late afternoon, activists will have the chance to attend the “Call to Action Rally,” which will, according to the press release on event, include:

While giving tips to activists on how to deal with the media during FreePAC Ohio, Jackie Bodnar, press secretary at FreedomWorks, noted that she once gave a radio interview that she initially thought went really well. But after going back and listening to it, she discovered that she had a proclivity for saying “you know” during her answers.

Jackie shouldn’t feel too bad though. She didn’t say “uh” a lot during answers to pressing domestic policy questions while 58 million viewers were tuned in to a nationally televised debate. That’s right, the folks over at BuzzFeed have put together this montage of President Obama’s “uh” moments from Wednesday night. Enjoy:

H/T: Hot Air

After hearing rave reviews from friends who attended FreePAC in July, I expressed optimism that there would be a place for libertarians after we had been all but pushed aside by conservatives. They frequently say they need us and we should go along, but having a prominent role or voice seems is a prospect in which they don’t seem to have much of an interest.

This past weekend, I had the opportunity to attend FreePAC Ohio, the latest of these FreedomWorks’ sponsored events. The day started with strategy and training sessions for activists, this was, as David Spielman put it, a chance for the some 7,000 attendees — a completely packed house — to become “freedom ninjas.”

Speakers touched on every aspect of activism and campaigning, from where to place signs to how to engage independent voters, an important bloc that will decide the outcome of the election in November. Jackie Bodnar and Kristina Ribali, both staffers at FreedomWorks, explained old and new media angles.

Nearly every speaker acknowledged that Republicans are just as much to blame as Democrats for the budget and entitlement crisis that face the United States. One comment was heard a few times throughout the day, both from speakers and on a couple of t-shirts I saw: “Sometimes you have to beat the Republicans before you can beat the Democrats.”

Some 5,000 grassroots activists are gathered today at the Duke Energy Center in Cincinnati, Ohio for FreePAC, a one-day event hosted by FreedomWorks geared towards strategy and training for the upcoming election.

This is, I believe, the second event of its kind. The first being held in July in Dallas, Texas, just a few days before Ted Cruz won the runoff for United States Senate. Cruz was endorsed by FreedomWorks PAC, and the event was to help light a fire under activists before voters headed to the polls.

With Ohio again serving as an all important swing state in this year’s election and Sen. Sherrod Brown, perhaps one of the most liberal members in the Congress, up for re-election. FreedomWorks is hoping that they can ignite energy in the Buckeye State for Josh Mandel, who is running against Brown.

The program for today will get underway around 1:45pm with grassroots training kicking off the day. A Call to Action Rally will begin at 4pm and will close out the day. Speakers will include Glenn Beck, Matt Kibbe, Deneen Borelli, C.L. Bryant, Katie Pavlich, and Josh Mandel.

If you weren’t able to attend, you can still catch the action live by clicking here.

There has been a lot of debate among conservatives whether libertarians should be welcome at CPAC, an annual gathering of right-leaning activists in Washington. The most recent CPAC saw libertarians left out in the cold thanks to a heavier emphasis on social conservatives.

While libertarians are often told by conservatives that we need to get on their “team” in order to beat back government overreach from Washington, they largely want us to take a back seat. Some libertarians have chosen to work inside the Republican Party through the Republican Liberty Caucus, a group that promotes our ideals. However, they haven’t been very effective.

But this past Thursday in Dallas, FreedomWorks hosted FreePAC, a one-day event that brought together activists, both conservatives and libertarians, to help plan a grassroots strategy ahead of the general election in November. Speakers at FreePAC included Sens. Rand Paul and Mike Lee as well as hopefuls like Ted Cruz and Richard Mourdock. Glenn Beck, Dick Armey, Dean Clancy, and Matt Kibbe also provided attendees with words of encouragement to help get them motivated to fight the growth in government that we’re seeing.

While I wasn’t able to go, what I’ve heard from my libertarian friends who went is that FreePAC is really the shot in the arm that the Liberty Movement needs. They did it with less controversy and no compromise.