David Keene

David A. Keene ( born May 20, 1945 in Wisconsin) is an American political activist and lobbyist. He held office since 2011 as president of the National Rifle Association.

Life and activity

Keene is the son of two union activists from Wisconsin. After school he studied law at the University of Wisconsin Law School. In the 1960s, Keene began to engage in political activities. In 1960, he distributed leaflets for John F. Kennedy, 1964, he promoted the presidential candidacy of Barry Goldwater. During the time of the Nixon administration, he worked as a political assistant to the then U.S. Vice President Spiro Agnew. He then worked as an employee for various Republican politicians such as James L. Buckley, Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush.

From 1984 to 2011 Keene officiated as Chairman (Chairman ) of the American Conservative Union ( ACU), which is considered one of the authoritative bodies to organize the conservative forces in the United States and the commonly a significant influence in the right bearing of the political spectrum in the U.S. is attributed. The ACU especially as the bearer of the annual Conservative Political Action Conference ( CPAC ), the de facto a kind is known joint congress of the Republican Party and various other organizations conservative orientation is, takes place on the internal network working Conservative and on the many leaders the " conservative movement " ( Republican leaders, acclaimed conservative television and radio hosts, prominent representatives of advocacy organizations, free churches, etc.) make speeches. Under Keene's CPAC was aegis of an event, attended by only a few hundred people in the early 1980s, developed into a major event in the calendar of American conservatives with more than 10,000 visitors a year.

In May 2011, Keene was elected president of the National Rifle Association. His successor in the ACU took meanwhile, the former chairman of the Republican Party in Florida, Al Cardenas. Prior to the elections of 2012 he declared repeatedly that he catch sight of the main goal of the NRA during these elections is to prevent a re-election of U.S. President Barack Obama.

Keene was assessed in its role as a stagehand often be a very important and effective man. His shirt-sleeved single-mindedness as a political operative earned him the nickname Baby Doc David Keene, an allusion to the Haitian dictator Jean -Claude Duvalier. The NRA board member Grover Norquist has Keene compared to the movie character Forrest Gump: How the movie hero (albeit involuntarily ) would be thrown from a central event of current affairs to the next, so I Keene constantly been at the heart of the conservative happening for decades. Another comment stated, Keene was one of the few men who had the ear of Republican presidents and at the same time possess the ability to influence the conservative base ( "one of the few men with Both the ear of Republican presidents and to ability to influence the grass roots ").

Keene is married to his second wife and has three children from his first marriage and two adopted daughters. Media attention attracted by the fact after that his son David Michael was sentenced to ten years in prison for attempted murder ( first-degree attempted murder ) after it in 2002 in the wake of a dispute on the road out of his car to another vehicle on the George Washington Memorial Parkway in Virginia had fired with a firearm, the driver of the other vehicle were only slightly unharmed.