American Conservative Union
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| Formation | 1964 |
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| Location |
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| Coordinates | 38°54′02″N 77°01′50″W / 38.9005°N 77.0306°WCoordinates: 38°54′02″N 77°01′50″W / 38.9005°N 77.0306°W |
| Website | American Conservative Union |
The American Conservative Union (ACU) is an American political organization and labor union which advocates for conservative policies, ranks politicians based on their level of conservative, and organizes the Conservative Political Action Conference. Founded in 1964, it is the oldest such conservative lobbying organization in the country. The ACU is concerned with what they define as foundations of conservatism, issues such as personal liberty or freedom, foreign policy, and traditional values.
The ACU publishes Battleline, an online e-magazine every few weeks on issues that are important to the conservative movement.
In order to hold politicians accountable, the ACU utilized a rating system which annually rated politicians on their conservatism just as the Americans for Democratic Action did for liberalism. They began doing so in 1964, in order to influence state government ideology, as well as state citizen ideology.
Other officials' reputations often serve as the standard by which politicians are rated. Names and scores are often tied and serve as a "litmus test" of how one should vote on a certain bill. As one spokesperson for the ACU once noted, "clear-cut distinctions between liberals and conservatives [occur] if you have Crane, Ashbrook, and Kemp go a certain way and Burton goes the other."
The ACU annually rates politicians according to how they vote on key issues, providing a numerical indicator of how much the lawmakers agreed with conservative ideals. They use this rating system as a point of accountability for politicians, comparing their political rhetoric to their voting records to assess their conservativeness. Politicians are given a percentile rating, anyone with a rating of over 80% is considered to be an "ACU Conservative." These scores are often used in political science research, in news stories and in election campaigns.
ACU's most well-known event is the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), an annual event organized by the ACU foundation. CPAC has an annual attendance of thousands. Speakers regularly include sitting and former presidents and other famous conservatives. In 2009 the most viewed speaker was Rush Limbaugh, who spoke last, and whose speech was covered live on multiple cable news networks and C-SPAN.
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