Phyllis Schlafly Elephant: Anti-Feminist Mentor at the Core of Palin Strategy

"Phyllis Stewart Schlafly (born August 15, 1924, in St. Louis, Missouri) is an American conservative political activist known for her opposition to feminism and the Equal Rights Amendment. Her bestselling book, A Choice, Not An Echo, was published in 1964 from her home in Alton, Illinois, across the Mississippi River from her native St. Louis. From this self-publication, she formed her Pere Marquette Publishers company. A Choice, Not an Echo decries the power of the "Eastern Establishment" in the Republican Party once exercised by New York Governors Thomas E. Dewey and Nelson A. Rockefeller. Schlafly supported U.S. Senator Barry M. Goldwater in his unsuccessful race against Lyndon B. Johnson. (Sound familiar, folks???)


Schlafly has co-authored several books on national defense and was highly critical of arms-control agreements with the former Soviet Union.[2] In 1961 she wrote that arms control "will not stop Red aggression any more than disarming our local police will stop murder, theft, and rape."[3]

Schlafly continues to exert some influence within the Republican Party and maintains an active presence on the lecture circuit. In 1972, she founded the Eagle Forum, and was the founder and president of a sister organization known as the Eagle Forum Education & Legal Defense Fund, which also operates in the Eagle Forum's St. Louis office. She played a key role in writing some socially conservative language in the Republican National Convention's platform, most recently in 2004. As of 2007, she is still the president of both organizations. Since 1967, she has published her own political newsletter, the Phyllis Schlafly Report."

Work Cited: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phyllis_Schlafly