rockford inst
<blockquote style="margin: 0 0 0 40px; border: none; padding: 0px;"><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">===</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2000/01/rockefellers-200001" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2000/01/rockefellers-200001</a></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">...</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><section class="content-section" data-reactid="246" times="times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(35, 31, 32); font-size: 18px; line-height: 30px; margin-top: 30px;"><p data-reactid="251" style="margin: 35px 0px; box-sizing: border-box;">eorge, on the other hand, seemed to find being a Rockefeller named O’Neill more of a drag than a blessing. “He certainly let you know, if you were a stranger, within 30 seconds,” says a former political ally. “There was a lot of conversation about ‘Uncle David.’ He brought up the connection incessantly.”</p></section><section class="content-section" data-reactid="252" times="times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(35, 31, 32); font-size: 18px; line-height: 30px; margin-top: 30px;"><p data-reactid="253" style="margin: 35px 0px; box-sizing: border-box;">If Amy wanted her husband and herself to be judged on their own merits, Republican Party politics was probably not the place where that would happen. George was becoming so devoted to the conservative right wing—much to the delight of his mother-in-law—that he soon abandoned Pietrasanta for a cause greater than marble hearts: Pat Buchanan.</p><p data-reactid="254" style="margin: 35px 0px; box-sizing: border-box;"><b>George signed on big-time to the Buchanan for President campaign of 1992</b>—which was really more a crusade on behalf of the populists (read “angry white males”) of America than a serious bid for election. That changed, however, when Buchanan made an unexpectedly strong showing in the New Hampshire primary.</p><p data-reactid="255" style="margin: 35px 0px; box-sizing: border-box;">George was very much a part of the victory brigade—even moving with Amy for three months to Concord, New Hampshire, to organize Buchanan’s database. George was very skilled with computers. “We were in chaos before they got here,” says Caroline Douglas, a Concord divorce lawyer and the ex-wife of former New Hampshire congressman Chuck Douglas, who ran the New Hampshire effort for Buchanan. “They were like the miracle couple. They were so organized and knew so much about campaign work, and were just <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">so charming</em> together. Of course, at first we thought they were spies.</p><p data-reactid="256" style="margin: 35px 0px; box-sizing: border-box;">“They knew too much about the Reagan White House,” Douglas explains. For weeks she and her husband, unaware of Amy’s mother’s ties to Reagan, were convinced they were spying for the Bush campaign. But soon they learned the truth, as the scuttlebutt spread through the office: the O’Neills weren’t spies, they were Rockefellers!</p><p data-reactid="257" style="margin: 35px 0px; box-sizing: border-box;">Political friends of George’s say his time with the Buchanan camp ended badly. He apparently left in a huff, complaining to friends that after he had totally reorganized the database other Buchanan operatives “fucked it up.” He also had ongoing scraps with Bay Buchanan, Pat’s bulldog sister and campaign manager. “I think they took advantage of him,” says Douglas. “They felt that he should just donate everything.”</p><p data-reactid="258" style="margin: 35px 0px; box-sizing: border-box;">Still, he remained devoted to Buchanan, taking Amy and Faith to the convention in Houston, where Buchanan made his infamous Christian-family-values speech, a screed that was widely viewed as, if not downright racist, at least hate-filled.</p></section><section class="content-section" data-reactid="259" times="times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(35, 31, 32); font-size: 18px; line-height: 30px; margin-top: 30px;"><p data-reactid="260" style="margin: 35px 0px; box-sizing: border-box;"><b>In Houston, George found an even more appreciative audience for his talents, in Phyllis Schlafly, </b>who remembers how grateful she was when he called to respond to a fund-raising letter she had sent for help in organizing her Republican National Coalition for Life’s efforts. “He said, ‘You don’t need all this money—let me do it for you,’” says Schlafly. George set up her computer database, which kept daily track of the delegates who were supportive of the pro-life cause. “And at night he’d take me and all the hardworking pro-life volunteers out to dinner,” she says.</p><p data-reactid="261" style="margin: 35px 0px; box-sizing: border-box;"><b>George also served as chairman of the Rockford Institute, the paleoconservative think tank in Illinois</b> that is a voice for the old right (immigration is bad, states’ rights are good). The institute publishes the conservative magazine <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Chronicles</em> and for many years put out a monthly report called “The Family in America.” <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Chronicles’</em> editor Tom Fleming considered himself a close friend of George’s—he even visited the O’Neills in Pietrasanta—“until the night he sat in my living room until two a.m., bullying me and threatening me and trying to get me to quit. He said I was being too critical of Republican conservatives.” The night ended with Fleming’s throwing George out. “George is capable of being very unpleasant when he doesn’t get his way.”</p><p data-reactid="261" style="margin: 35px 0px; box-sizing: border-box;">....</p></section></div></blockquote>