Rules for Conservative Radicals: Lessons from Saul Alinsky, the Tea Party Movement, and the Apostle Paul in the Age of Collaborative Technologies

Michael Patrick Leahy, the co-founder of Top Conservatives on Twitter, and one of the early leaders of the Tea Party Movement, offers sixteen rules for conservative radicals based on lessons from Saul Alinsky, the Tea Party Movement, and the Apostle Paul. Leahy shows how today's average citizen, armed with inexpensive tools of collaborative technology, can influence the public dialogue in ways never thought possible only a few years ago. Leahy argues that today's conservative radical should follow the tactics of Saul Alinsky, but apply the morals and ethics of Martin Luther King.Leahy provides unique insights into the true story of how the Tea Party Movement and the Town Hall Protests of August 2009 came to be, and sounds the alarm of conservative optimism for the future of our country. He argues that we can save our republic, but that it will require a dramatic increase in the degree of political engagement of like-minded conservatives around the country. Based on his personal experience, Leahy offers unique insights into project servant-leadership and the dynamics of self organizing projects. He argues that succesful self organizing projects are characterized by rapid response consensus development, transparent communications, and rapid implementation of tactics by a core group of engaged project colleagues, all of whom are guided by principles of project servant-leadership first demonstrated by the Apostle Paul. Today's patriotic American citizen must be prepared to willingly step into the pool of piranhas--those amoral left wing zealots who seek only to destroy their opponents. Leahy offers sound advice about effective ways to fight back and defeat these piranhas. We should do no less for our posterity, he concludes, than Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, and Washington did for us.