Morton C. Blackwell (born November 16, 1939, La Jara, Colorado) is an American conservative activist. He is president and founder of the Leadership Institute (established 1979), a 501(c)3 non-profit educational foundation that teaches political technology.
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In youth politics, Blackwell was a College Republican state chairman and a Young Republican state chairman in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He served on the Young Republican National Committee for more than a dozen years. He rose to the position of Young Republican National Federation national vice chairman at large. Off and on for five and half years, 1965–1970, he worked as executive director of the College Republican National Committee under four consecutive College Republican national chairmen. He served on the Louisiana Republican state central committee for eight years.
Blackwell worked for seven years under direct mail conservative guru Richard Viguerie.
Blackwell was first elected to the Arlington County Republican Committee in 1972. He is a member of the Republican Party of Virginia's state central committee and was first elected in 1988 as Virginia’s Republican National Committeeman, a post he still holds. In 2004 he was elected to the Executive Committee of the RNC.
Blackwell was Barry Goldwater’s youngest elected delegate to the 1964 Republican National Convention in San Francisco. In the spring of 1966, he worked for the election of Roderick Miller of Lafayette as only the third Republican member of the Louisiana legislature since Reconstruction.
He was a national convention alternate delegate for Ronald Reagan in 1968 and 1976, and a Ronald Reagan delegate at the 1980 Republican National Convention. In 1980, he organized and oversaw the national youth effort for Reagan. He served as Special Assistant to the President on President Reagan’s White House Staff, 1981-1984.
Blackwell is considered something of a specialist in matters relating to the rules of the Republican Party. He served on rules committees of the state Republican parties in Louisiana and Virginia. He serves now on the RNC’s Standing Committee on Rules and has attended every meeting of the Republican National Conventions’ Rules Committees since 1972.[1]
On January 24, 2008, following the departure of Fred Thompson from the field of candidates seeking the nomination, Blackwell threw his support behind former Massachusetts Governor, Mitt Romney.
Blackwell has been a member since 1984 of the Council for National Policy, a group of politically active conservatives. Founders included Richard Viguerie, the Virginia direct-mail specialist, Paul Weyrich, Howard Phillips of the Constitution Party, and Phyllis Schlafly, a St. Louis activist who led the opposition to the proposed Equal Rights Amendment. Another founder was Tim LaHaye, author of the Left Behind novels. The council does not make its proceedings public. When he first ran for president, George W. Bush addressed the Council for National Policy. His remarks from 2000 have never been unveiled.
Blackwell was at the center of controversy during the 2004 Republican National Convention, when he passed out purple heart bandages which were perceived by some as denigrating the award. The Kerry campaign attacked the activity as the Republican Party mocking United States Soldiers.[2] Karl Rove called Blackwell's bandages "inappropriate".[3]