Move America Forward

Move America Forward is a California-based conservative political action group. Through media-saturation campaigns that include television and radio commercials, lobbying politicians at the local, state and federal levels, and by encouraging grass-roots activism, Move America Forward has sought to advance a conservative agenda that includes the removal of the United Nations headquarters from the United States, the recalling of state governors it deems too "liberal," restricting what it terms "liberal" or "activist" media, the closing of the US/Mexico border and the deportation of illegal aliens back to their country of origin, opposition of liberal political candidates and political action groups, and advocacy for conservative political candidates and appointees. Move America Forward vocally supports and advocates for the policies of the Bush Administration.

Move America Forword was established in May 2004 by former Republican assemblyman Howard Kaloogian and Melanie Morgan, a talk show host at KSFO 560 AM, both of whom now serve as Move America Forward's co-chairmen. Move America Forward's website was paid for and run by Russo Marsh & Rogers,[1] a Sacramento-based political public relations firm with strong ties to the Republican party. Sal Russo, a principle in Russo Marsh & Rogers, served as advisor for the "Recall Grey Davis" campaign and serves currently as "Chief Strategist" with Move America Forward. Russo also worked on the political campaigns of Ronald Reagan, Alfonse D’Amato, George Pataki, Jack Kemp, and Orrin Hatch.

Prominent Move America Forward campaigns have included lobbying and various media advertisements calling for the recall of former California governor Gray Davis, restricting the distribution of the film Fahrenheit 911, the closing of the US/Mexico border (the MAF's “Secure Our Borders” campaign) and the ending of amnesty programs to illegal immigrants (through nomoreamnesty.com), and its recent support of John Bolton, an outspoken critic of the United Nations, to serve as the US representative to the United Nations.

Controversy

Though Move American Forward describes itself as "...a non-partisan, not-for-profit organization committed to supporting America’s efforts to defeat terrorism and supporting the brave men and women of our Armed Forces." [2], its actions have been almost wholly partisan, concentrating on the furtherance of the Bush administration's and policies and appointees, and hence restricted to mostly the political arena. An effort to distribute free coffee to US troops serving in the Middle East is the only notable instance of a MAF campaign that lacks blatant political/GOP overtones.

In 2004, whatreallyhappened.com published an online exposé revealing the ties of Move America Forward to the GOP PR firm Russo Marsh & Rogers. Using a domain name look-up service, whatreallyhappened.com showed that Russo Marsh & Rogers established the MAF website. Siobhan Guiney, Executive Director of Move America Forward, admitted that Russo Marsh & Rogers did register the site for them and that the two groups shared a building and a phone receptionist [3]. Not long after the exposé Move America Forward purged all references to Russo Marsh & Rogers from its domain registration, going to so far as to list a Sacramento bar as its registrant phone number at one point. [4]

On the seeming non sequitur between Move America Forward's mission of supporting the troops in America's war on terror and its history of advocating for the conservative policies and agenda set forth by the Bush Administration, Siobhan Guiney, Executive Director of MAF, stated: "He's our Commander in Chief. It's his policies in place [and we] have to support those policies." [5]

External links

• Move American Forward's website
• Russo Marsh & Rogers' website
• Article on MAF's role in opposing Fahrenheit 9/11 SFChronical, 16 June 2004
• MAF's method and relationship to Russo Marsh & Rogers in opposing Fahrenheit 9/11 Pacific Views 16 June 2004
• Move America Forward:Who Pays Its Bills whatreallyhappened.com
• Moving Backward with Move America Forward Tanya I. Garcia. Right Web. 20 April 2005