Conservatives meet for talk and burgers

Published 6:00 am Sunday, June 3, 2001

“Herbert Meyer (left), a former CIA official with the Reagan administration, speaks to a room full of Republican and Libertarian voters such as Rufus and Reece Rose (right) during a meeting of the Island County Fully-Informed Voters.Matt Johnson / staff photoAbout 10 years ago, Rufus Rose, Don Jewett, and a few other politically-minded men spent a November morning after election day driving around South Whidbey in their pickup trucks collecting Republican party campaign signs from roadsides.It was a cold day and a light rain was falling. By noon, the group had driven almost every road between Clinton and Freeland, spending more than four hours grabbing signs and stewing over several election races that didn’t go their way at the polls. Between the weather and the political angst, Rose and his friends decided they had plenty of reasons to drown their sorrows in bacon cheeseburgers, a few beers, and some conservative-minded conversation at Teddy’s on Whidbey.After a few hours of talking over lunch, everyone in the group felt both better and more frustrated. They agreed to meet again the following week to find out if their talk could at least begin to change the political landscape.Jewett describes those early days in simpler terms.At noon, we’d go to Teddy’s and preach to each other, he said. This was the start of the Old Goats Club, a conservative and Libertarian discussion group that now meets every Friday under the somewhat less colorful but more accurate official name, the Fully-Informed Voters of Island County. Since merging with a Libertarian discussion group that also met at Teddy’s, the former Old Goats group attracts up to 73 people to its twice-monthly meetings. Composed of almost equal numbers of men and women, the group includes most of the original Old Goats, Island County Commissioners Mike Shelton and Mac McDowell, outspoken conservatives Jon Berg and Phyllis Turner, and even one self-proclaimed anarchist, Mel Acheson.The increased attendance and addition of women have made the group much different than it was in the early years.It was just guys for a long while having beer and burgers, Rose said.These days, the group meets at the Useless Bay Country Club. Seated around a huge rectangle of tables, every member of the group – which typically numbers about 50 – can see the face of every other member. This seating arrangement was something the Old Goats started at Teddy’s to make sure that everyone in the group talked face-to-face. The discussion usually centers around the guest speakers invited to every meeting. Last Friday, a full house of Fully-Informed Voters showed up to listen to Herb Meyer, a former special assistant to the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. An early Ronald Reagan appointee, Meyer is credited by some to be the first senior U.S. government official to predict the collapse of the Soviet Union.Now a Friday Harbor resident, Meyer spoke to the South Whidbey group about what he termed the childishness in national politics. He said the actions of the Democratic party over the past eight years have trashed the nation’s military, its families, organized religion, and its energy industry. He compared the struggle between Democrats and Republicans as hand-to-hand combat, and advocated teaching a conservative political agenda to the nation’s young people. It is only those young people who can fight the childishness he referred to, a childishness he said occurs when liberal-minded politicians try to fix systems and policies he does not believe to be broken. As an example, Meyer pointed to the worldwide ban on the pesticide DDT, which he said was engineered by environmentalists who had taken Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring to heart. The move was a mistake, he said, because one of the chemical’s main targets, mosquitoes, are now causing the largest outbreak of malaria the world has seen in more than 30 years.What did they think was going to happen? he said.Few of those listening to Meyer seemed taken aback by his example, and several nodded their heads in apparent agreement. Meyer said he liked the reaction.This is nice, he said. I feel like I’m in friendly territory.So did Dick Eakin, a part-time South Whidbey resident who has attended Fully-Informed Voters meetings for several years. Before Meyer started his talk, Eakin said his mind was open to what the group’s guests have to say.I like to hear about what they talk about here, he said.Though many group members also enjoyed listening to Meyer, his audience sent some incisive questions his way during a short discussion period. Citing the extreme secrecy within the CIA, Freeland’s Jon Berg asked how much money taxpayers dole out each year for the intelligence agency. Meyer said that figure was so closely guarded during the Cold War that one year in the 1980s the only official budget item specifically designated for the CIA totaled $153.40. However, since the Soviet Union’s collapse, the federal government has been more open with its intelligence services budget. This year, Meyer said, the government will spend about $30 billion on all its intelligence services.Straight talk like this, said Langley’s Phillis Turner, brings her and other Fully-Informed Voters back to the group every week. People are not afraid to speak out here, she said. They hate to miss.Previous speakers at the group luncheons have included all three Island County Commissioners, Sheriff Mike Hawley, former Congressman Jack Metcalf and officials from the Farm Bureau and the Washington News Council.Rose said the Fully-Informed Voters luncheons are by invitation only, since there are more people who want to attend than the group’s meeting room can accommodate. Rose said those invitations are usually issued based on the content of letters to the editor published in the South Whidbey Record. Limiting the group’s size through an invitation list preserves an atmosphere that is conducive to conversation.I don’t want it to get too big, he said.He joked that he wants to see the group go back to the burgers and beer menu it used to champion. Current menu selections such as seafood salad and chicken burgers qualify as woman food in his opinion. Nonetheless, Rose’s wife, Reece Rose, retains control of the luncheon menus.The Fully-Informed Voters do not charge dues, nor does the group keep an official membership list. However, anyone who joins Rose in his advocacy for bacon cheeseburgers on the luncheon menu can still qualify for official Old Goat status. “