A veteran of the conservative movement was recently honored at the annual Values Voter Summit in Washington, DC, where he talked about the future of conservatism.
Morton Blackwell, president of the Leadership Institute, received the Vision and Leadership Award given by the Family Research Council.
Blackwell founded the non-partisan educational foundation in 1979. Since it's founding, the Leadership Institute has trained more than 100,000 conservatives to succeed in politics, government and the media.
"The conservative movement, I think, continues to grow," Blackwell stated at the Values Voter Summit. "New groups are being founded. Old groups are getting larger. We're identifying and activating larger numbers of people, and that is a key to winning in the public policy process."
Blackwell said he has had a lot of support from various groups in his effort to train conservatives. Over the years he has perfected campaign methods, which he says are effective enough to be repeated.
"There's no sense in everybody having to learn all the lessons the hard way and make all the mistakes," he declared. "You can study and learn what works and what doesn't work. And that will avoid a lot of the heartache and avoid a lot of defeats."
In recent weeks, the Leadership Institute has hosted training seminars on Get Out The Vote campaigns, a workshop on public speaking and a school for campaign management.