Paul Reynolds is in his second term serving as Alabama’s National Committeeman for the Republican National Committee. He’s also the founder and president of Reynolds Technical Associates, a broadcast engineering consulting firm.
Reynolds, a grandfather who was born and raised in an Alabama town with a population of under 500 (Midway), looks like he would be anything but a forward-thinking technology and communication innovator. But in 2013, he gained notoriety as one of the conservative movement’s most unlikely champions of using new media platforms to advance conservative causes.
Roughly a year ago Reynolds launched the Alabama Free Market Alliance (AFMA), a web-based conservative advocacy group, to educate and inform Alabamians on issues affecting them on the state and national levels.
“The Alabama Free Market Alliance is dedicated to educating Alabamians on conservative, free-market principles and mobilizing them as advocates for putting those principles to work solving Alabama’s problems,” The group says in its mission statement. Its three “pillars” are fighting over-reaching government regulation, promoting pro-growth tax reform, and advocating for a true all-of-the-above energy policy.
The group now boasts roughly 13,000 Facebook “likes,” including members of the Alabama House and Senate as well as influential grassroots leaders.
“I have to deal with absurd government regulations and taxes every day running my business,” Reynolds told Yellowhammer. “I’ve been fortunate enough to have some success in spite of it, but it makes me sick to think that the generations of Americans coming behind us aren’t going to have the same opportunities because the government won’t get out of the way and let the free market work. That’s why I started this group — to make as much racket as I can about the most intrusive, overbearing federal government this country has ever seen.”
Issues that Reynolds’ group has taken on include everything from the repeal of Common Core Standards and stopping the Internet sales tax, to fighting the “war on coal” and exposing cases of egregious overregulation.
Article titles like “Pointy headed liberals say we don’t have a spending problem” and “Jailbreak your iPhone, get years in prison,” and listicles like “10 stories of job loss as consequences of Obamacare” make it clear that Reynolds is serious about reaching a new generation of conservatives.
“The younger generation is waking up to the disastrous consequences of liberalism faster than any time since the Reagan Revolution,” Reynolds said. “They understand the harsh realities of living in the Obama economy. They can’t find a job. At best they’re underemployed, working jobs that might pay the bills but offer little hope for advancement. That’s fertile ground for conservatives to plant seeds by saying, ‘Hey, it doesn’t have to be like this. Socialism fails, the free market works. History proves that.’”
AFMA’s biggest success story to date may be a viral video they released a couple of months ago titled “Don’t fall for the AARP Shake.” Using the “Harlem Shake” concept that swept the internet earlier this year, Reynolds’ team laid out how the AARP has inserted itself into the utility review process at the Alabama Public Service Commission. The video, which is embedded below, now has over 60,000 views.
“We took an extremely dry issue that didn’t make sense to many people — an issue that most people didn’t even know affected them — and explained it in an easy-to-understand, fun way. And we did it all in less than a minute,” Reynolds explained. “The AARP is toting the Obama Administration’s water. They did it on Obamacare. Now they’re doing it on environmental issues, on Obama’s ‘war on coal.’ But they try to cloak everything by saying they’re advocating for seniors. It’s hogwash.”
And Reynolds says this is only the beginning for his new group.
“We’ve had a great first year, but there are a lot of opportunities to increase our reach,” he said. “As long as I wake up in the morning aggravated the federal government won’t leave me alone, I’ll keep the group going. So yea, we probably won’t be going anywhere any time soon.”
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