The president of the Washington-based Young Conservatives Coalition spoke to The Cloakroom about rebuilding the Conservative Movement in the wake of the 2012 elections.
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Christopher N. Malagisi[/caption]
The needs to reflex on what happened and work on its next fusion, said Christopher N. Malagisi, who joined the YCC five years ago following stints as the national director of the Conservative Political Action Conference, the Leadership Institute.
The YCC is best known for its Buckley Awards, named for National Review founder William F. Buckley Jr., and presented every fall to the five conservatives below 40 who made the most significant contributions in the previous year and for its annual ???Reaganpalooza.???
The Reaganpalooza is the blowout party it throws every year at CPAC . This year???s party will be March 16 at the restaurant LOOK, 1909 K Street, NW. More than 900 young conservatives attended last year???s bash.
Malagisi, a native of East Amherst, N.Y., said the YCC took a big step toward conservative revival with its Feb. 7 meeting with conservatives of all stripes.
???We don???t just want three-legged stool Republicans,??? he said.
???We want Santorum Republicans, New Gingrich Republicans, we want all everybody to get involved,??? he said.
The meeting was private but, the YCC is compiling the input and will produce an action plan that it will release and promote, he said.
Another step, the YCC is taking is the creation of ???The Young Conservative Leaders Fellowship??? program for promising men and women, who will commit to it, he said.
The goal of the fellowship is to equip a new generation of leaders with an understanding of the ???fusionist??? conservative philosophy, economic, social and national security, and to encourage application of those principles in the modern political landscape, he said.
The fellows will meet monthly for six months for classroom discussions centered on assigned readings and for interactions with conservatives working in Washington, he said. Grover G. Norquist, Americans for Tax Reform; Jonah Goldberg, National Review; Tony Perkins, Family Research Council; Edwin Meese III, Heritage Foundation and Leonard A. Leo, The Federalist Society have already agreed to meet with the fellows in their workplace.
???When they meet Grover, we are going to take them inside ATR and show them where the magic happens,??? he said.
The deadline for the fellowship is March 1 and the application is at theycc.org, he said. There is no stipend and no tuition.
Malagisi said the fellowship program curriculum is based on the course he teaches as an adjunct professor at American University, ???History of the Conservative Movement and Campaigns & Political Activism.???
The course popular with College Republicans and future conservative operatives, but not the most popular course on campus, he said.
While some people know that the upstate New Yorker has recorded two piano albums, they may not know how he proposed to his fiancée Anna, who he met when Malagisi was doing work with the International Republican Institute.
???It was 13,000 feet in a hot air balloon over Monticello that I popped the question,??? he said.
Apparently, he was not the first one to have this plan, because the balloon pilot seemed to know the script better than Malagisi, the YCC president said. ???When we were at the highest altitude we were going to go, he gave me a nod.???
Clearly, for a fusion conservative 13,000 feet above Monticello is the most romantic spot not on earth.
