The Leadership Institute is a perfect example of that strategy, according to Peter Murray, a progressive management trainer who studied the institute's model before launching his own nonprofit political training organization, the Center for Progressive Leadership, last year. "Being a 501(c)(3) not only means they can get tax deductions for their donors and build endowments, but they're forced to look long term," Murray says. "They're not allowed to endorse candidates and get sucked into electoral politics. Year in and year out, all they do is build leaders."

Enter comment here..."Sure, [Blackwell] has trained Karl Rove and Ralph Reed and Grover Norquist and 223 other legislators and members of Congress," Murray notes, "but more importantly, he's trained 40,000 other local organizers." The institute's graduates, in other words, are part of a movement. "We spent $2 billion trying to win this last election," Murray says of progressives. "

Over the last 25 years, more than 40,000 young conservatives have been trained at the institute's Arlington, Va., headquarters in everything from TV makeup for aspiring right-wing talking heads to prep courses for the State Department's Foreign Service exam. Classes are taught by volunteers recruited from the ranks of the conservative movement's most talented organizers, operatives and communicators.