The Republican Unity Coalition was created as an outgrowth of the George W. Bush campaign in the 2000 US presidential election. It described itself a "grasstops" organization of the United States Republican Party, with a Board of Advisers formerly including the late President Gerald Ford, former U.S. Senator Alan K. Simpson of Wyoming, philanthropist and banker David Rockefeller, and former U.S. Senator Jack Danforth of Missouri. It was a gay/straight alliance, believing that the Republican Party must become a big tent and reach out to non-traditional Republicans, in this case gay and lesbian Americans who shared the basic Republican emphasis on personal liberty, self-responsibility and a strong national defense.