Richard A. Viguerie, Excerpt from The New Right: We're Ready to Lead (1980).
[Viguerie was a leading conservative activist of the New Right.]
WHY THE NEW RIGHT IS WINNING
It has been obvious for a long time that conservatism is rising and liberalism is declining. Despite all the talk in the media about "trends," "cliffhangers," and "last minute shifts," the plain truth is that more and more Americans are sick of liberalism and aren't afraid to say so.
The election of 1980 was the first modern conservative landslide. But it wasn't the first anti-liberal landslide.
In 1968 two anti-liberal candidates, Richard Nixon and George Wallace, won a combined 57 percent of the popular vote against the well-liked but liberal incumbent Vice President, Hubert Humphrey.
In 1972 Nixon, never very popular, won more than 60% of the total vote against the flamingly liberal George McGovern, who carried only one state (not even his home state of South Dakota).
Jimmy Carter didn't win election as a liberal. In the 1976 primaries he presented himself as the most conservative candidate in the field, and it was not until after he was safely in office that it became clear he intended to be a liberal President.
Even in 1980, when Democrats were sick of Carter, he won primaries when his opponent was the even further left Edward Kennedy. Meanwhile, Ronald Reagan piled up victories against conservative, moderate and liberal candidates in his own party.
After the televised debate a week before the election, an ABC phone-in poll gave Reagan a 2 to 1 edge over Carter. Many others in media denounced the poll as "unscientific."
Maybe it was. But the election on November 4 wasn't conducted in a laboratory either. The ABC poll was just one more sign of the times for anyone who was interested.
All the signs pointed one way. They've been pointing that way for years, and years, and years. They still do.
America is basically a conservative country. The potential for conservative revolt has always been there, under the most favorable conditions. But those conditions have to be made.
That's where the New Right comes in.
For many years, conservatives were frustrated. We had no way to translate our vision into reality.
Most importantly, we lacked a vehicle to carry our message to the voters without going through the filter of the liberal-leaning news media.
During the 1950s,1960s, and most of the 1970s liberal politicians were able to make speeches that sounded as if they were written by Barry Goldwater. The liberals could come home on weekends and make speeches calling for a strong America, attacking waste in Washington, and complaining about big government. Then, on Monday, they could go back to Washington and vote to block new weapons systems, to give away the Panama Canal, to increase taxes, to create new government agencies, and to weaken the CIA and FBI.
Occasionally, liberal politicians would visit Communist leaders like Fidel Castro and return to the U.S. with wonderful words of praise for the Cuban dictator, praise that most voters in South Dakota or Idaho never heard.
Why did the voters in South Dakota, Idaho, Iowa, Indiana, and Wisconsin not know about their congressmen's and senators' double lives - conservative- sounding at home, actively liberal in Washington or abroad?
Because most of the national (and some of the local) media didn't report the double life the politicians were leading.
Thanks to the New Right, the "people's right to know" -- which the establishment media pay loud lip-service to, when it serves their own purposes -- finally became a reality.
"You can't turn back the clock."
How often we hear this line from liberals. What they really mean is that we shouldn't try to correct their mistakes.
Well, the New Right has news for them. We aren't in the business of turning back clocks.
It's the Left that has tried to stop the clock and even bring back evils civilization has left behind.
Liberalism has pitted itself against the best instincts of the American people. Journalist Tom Bethell says the abortion issue alone has destroyed the liberals' "moral monopoly."
Put simply, most Americans no longer look up to liberals. They look down on them. . . .
THE FOUR KEYS TO OUR SUCCESS
Our success is built on four elements -- single issue groups, multi-issue conservative groups, coalition politics and direct mail.
Conservative single issue groups have been accused of not only fragmenting American politics but threatening the very existence of our two-party system. Congressman David Obey of Wisconsin, a liberal Democrat, has even charged that government has nearly been brought to a standstill by single issue organizations.
Nonsense!
In the first place, all the New Right has done is copy the success of the old left.
Liberal single issue groups were around long before we were, and the liberals still have as many or more than we do.
Civil rights was a single issue that Hubert Humphrey used to rise to national office. The Vietnam War was a single issue that George McGovern used to rise to national prominence. The environment, consumerism, anti-nuclear power -- these are all single issues around which liberals have organized and exercised power and influence. . . .