MORE REVELATIONS ABOUT A SECRETIVE GROUP

I've read that the Council for National Policy is the conservative analogue to the Roman Catholic College of Cardinals and that seems to be an accurate assessment:

Christian Right Labors to Find ’08 Candidate
by DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
Published: February 25, 2007
NEW YORK TIMES

(excerpts)

The event was a meeting of the Council for National Policy, a secretive club whose few hundred members include Dr. James C. Dobson of Focus on the Family, the Rev. Jerry Falwell of Liberty University and Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform. Although little known outside the conservative movement, the council has become a pivotal stop for Republican presidential primary hopefuls, including George W. Bush on the eve of his 1999 primary campaign.


“There is great anxiety,” said Paul Weyrich, chairman of the Free Congress Foundation and an elder statesman of the conservative movement. “There is no outstanding conservative, and they are all looking for that." Mr. Weyrich, a longtime member of the council, declined to discuss the group or its meetings.

The conservative concern may also be an ominous sign for the Republican Party about the morale of a core element of its political base.

The Council for National Policy was founded 25 years ago by the Rev. Tim LaHaye as a forum for conservative Christians to strategize about turning the country to the right. Its secrecy was intended to insulate the group from what its members considered the liberal bias of the news media. In recent years the group has brought together a cross-section of the right from Edwin J. Feulner to Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle Association.