From the Pittsburg-Tribune Review:

The way Tom DeLay sees it, conservatives have a lot of catching up to do.

“The left has been able to build a very impressive coalition,” said the former House majority leader and Republican from Texas in an interview at the Holiday Inn in Green Tree on Wednesday night. “It’s much easier for Democrats to come together than for Republicans. Democrats are collectivists by nature.”

DeLay was in town for the first meeting of the Pittsburgh chapter of the Washington-based Coalition for a Conservative Majority.

DeLay founded the nonprofit organization in November. Former Cincinnati Mayor Ken Blackwell, who was a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development undersecretary, serves as the chairman.[...]

“We’re also preparing for (John) McCain,” DeLay said of the Arizona senator and presumptive Republican presidential nominee. “I’m a conservative first and a Republican second. McCain’s obviously the better choice. But we want a conservative voice in place in case he goes off the reservation, so to speak.”

DeLay cited McCain’s opposition to increased Alaska oil drilling and his belief in the threat of global warming as examples.

Pennsylvania is one of only two states that have two active chapters; the other chapter is in Scranton. Perkins said coalition leaders opened the first nine chapters in areas that have an existing liberal grassroots presence, including Columbus, Ohio; West Palm Beach, Fla.; Houston; Denver; Colorado Springs, Colo.; Las Vegas; and Phoenix.

With all honesty, I went to their organizational meeting in Columbus and am not quite sure what CCM does outside of charging people $52 to join. But I have hope that once more of these state chapters are formed, CCM becomes an effective conservative grassroots organization which exists in those beautiful gray areas of America’s ridiculous speech-stifling campaign finance laws.

It is critical that conservatives have such an outlet, especially now that liberal John McCain has secured the GOP nomination. (By the way, I think McCain’s campaign is trying to annoy me into submission. I get so much spam from Mr. Maverick’s campaign, especially Patrick Hynes- a nice guy I met at CPAC who was fired from National Review for not disclosing his ties to the McCain campaign-, that I’m about ready to promise to vote for McCain if they and the RNC promise to stop me so many damn emails.)