Richard Viguerie - The Reagancomic Tradition
Richard Viguerie often speaks of conservatism’s “grand tradition of Robert A. Taft, Barry Goldwater, and Ronald Reagan”. (see Viguerie press releases dated: 01/03/2008 and 01/15/2008) He wrote that Reagan was one of the high points of the 1964 Goldwater Presidential campaign for conservatives.
When things were at their bleakest near the end of the campaign, Ronald Reagan’s 30-minute narrative, “A Time for Choosing”, was broadcast nationwide on television…
Thereafter Reagan was regarded as the most effective spokesman for the conservative cause.
Richard A. Viguerie, David Franke, “America’s Right Turn”, Bonus Books, Inc., 2004, pg 84
In the very same book Viguerie lists the 1976 presidential campaign loss of Ford/Dole as a low-point in conservatism’s history.
For those of us old enough to have lived through it, the months following the defeat of Barry Goldwater were the Dark Ages of conservatives-far worse than, say, after Watergate in 1974 or after the Ford-Dole ticket lost in 1976.
ibid, pg 87
The 1976 Republican National Convention, which nominated the Ford/Dole ticket, was a barn-burner, with Ronald Reagan as an upstart who was almost able to unseat the incumbent president for the nomination. Viguerie was not even a part of this. He was instead involved with the American Independent Party, and its candidate for President, George Wallace. He was a paid fund-raiser for Wallace, and there was a bit of controversy regarding the relationship’s origination:
Wallace has hired Richard A. Viguerie, a Virginia professional fund raiser who has effectively served such controversial clients as the National Rifle Association, the Rev. Billy James Hargis and South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond. He has steadily refined old Wallace mailing lists, adding such groups as the nation’s policemen and subscribers to the Saturday Evening Post and the National Review. He has developed a list of 2.5 million “favorable supporters,” at least 300,000 of whom he feels confident can be relied on for money. According to Wallace aides, some $20,000 reaches the Wallace headquarters in Montgomery each day. Viguerie’s solicitation company helped Wallace get his mailings started by advancing credit-which some of his opponents consider a political donation exceeding the $1,000 giving limit.
“Mail-Order Presidents“, Time Magazine, June 16, 1975
Viguerie’s nod to the conservatism of Ford is suspect also:
This week in Chicago, the tiny right-wing American Independent Party will hold its own convention to nominate its choices for President and Vice President. The candidates include former Georgia Governor Lester Maddox and Conservative Digest Publisher Richard Viguerie. “It is now time for conservatives to file for divorce,” says Viguerie. “Who needs the kind of victory where both parties support socialism-the Democrats by design and the Republicans by default?” The A.I.P. effort will not amount to very much. But it symbolizes the disgust of some Republicans with even the Ford-Dole ticket, which is almost as far to the right as two-party tolerances will bear these days.
“Coming Out Swinging“, Time Magazine, August 30, 1976
Viguerie’s placement of Reagan high upon a pedestal in Conservatism’s Grand Tradition, looks less than 100% honest, and revisionary, to say the least. In November 1980, 2 months before Reagan was even inaugurated, Viguerie had already complained about and questioned the conservative core of Ronald Reagan, when Reagan’s intended cabinet appointees were first announced:
To the dismay of Reagan’s New Right followers, the lists of candidates for top jobs are dominated by moderate-conservative veterans of the Nixon and Ford administrations. Richard Viguerie, a leading right-winger, complained angrily that “there is not a hard-core conservative in the lot. Was it the Ford-Kissinger-Rockefeller wing of the party that has been promoting Reagan for 16 years?”
George J. Church, “New Team in Town“, Time Magazine, November 24, 1980
Sixteen Years? 1975/1976 must have just slipped his mind. In December, 1980, Viguerie was again spouting off about Reagan’s cabinet appointments, and along with it, was an implied insult about Jerry Ford:
The Republican New Right is not happy with Reagan’s Cabinet carpentry. Except for Stockman, the ultraconservatives have been completely shut out so far. Collectively, Reagan’s choices announce louder than anything he has said that he intends to run a pragmatic Administration, one not bound by ideology, and the right wing is vocally dismayed. Said Richard Viguerie, a leading hardliner, accurately enough: “It’s the kind of Cabinet Jerry Ford or George Bush would have assembled. I’m sick to my stomach. Reagan gave all the winks and signals that he was going to be a true conservative, and he turns his back on us.”
George J. Church, “Eight for the Cabinet“, TIme Magazine, December 22, 1980
He was adamantly opposed to Sandra Day O’Connor’s appointment to the Supreme Court. He went ballistic over the early Reagan China/Taiwan Foreign Policy and resignation of Reagan’s first political affairs assistant Lyn Nofziger.
Especially troubling to them is the resignation of the New Right’s White House contact, Lyn Nofziger, assistant to the President for political affairs. Relegated to secondary status at the White House and limited in influence, despite his long association with Reagan, Nofziger will become a Washington political consultant. Said Richard Viguerie, the direct-mail financier who is organizing an ad hoc conference of rightists to condemn Reagan: “It’s obvious that the Administration is beginning to move away from the kind of views we thought it had.”
William A. Henry III, “Anger over Arms to Taiwan“, TIme Magazine, January 25, 1982
Viguerie was opposed to Reagan’s chief of staff, Howard Baker:
Once a Democrat-he became a Republican in 1970-Baker has long been anathema to the far right. Often conservatives have tried to persuade Reagan to drop Baker. “Jim is a reasonable person who sits down with the opposition and works things out,” complains Richard Viguerie, the right’s direct-mail expert, who considers such reasonableness a weakness. In Viguerie’s view, Baker “doesn’t understand confrontation politics.”
The activists of the right have given up fighting Baker and instead are now criticizing Ronald Reagan directly. “The leftward drift has turned into a stampede,” says Viguerie about the President and his policies. Baker is unconcerned about the flak from the right. He comments: “I’m feeling pretty good right now.”
“Man for the Mid-Point“, Time Magazine, January 31, 1983
By 1983, Viguerie was threatening that the new right would sit out the Reagan reelection campaign, and after the Soviet Union shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 007, he intimated that Reagan was a coward:
Dismayed that the immediate penalties to the U.S.S.R. will be no greater, hard-liners in the U.S. were quick to accuse the Reagan Administration of faintheartedness. Richard Viguerie, a major fund raiser for right-wing causes, said the President was “Teddy Roosevelt in reverse. He speaks loudly but carries a small stick.” Viguerie went so far as to voice a not-very-believable threat that staunch conservatives just might sit out a Reagan re-election campaign.
George J. Church, “Turning on the Heat“, Time Magazine, September 19, 1983
Towards the end of the Reagan Presidency, Richard Viguerie had completely renounced Reagan:
Richard Viguerie, the right wing’s genial blowtorch, is absolutely correct when he howls that Ronald Reagan has “abandoned every last pretense” of standing up against the Washington establishment. Reagan has lost his presidency for the time being to that moiling collection of political people and purposes that form the capital’s core from generation to generation.
Hugh Sidey, “The Presidency“, Time Magazine, March 23, 1987
Richard Viguerie deceives with his statements that Reagan represented the grand tradition of conservatism, at least by his accounting.
Viguerie is not really a conservative; he is part of the new right, which is responsible for the cess pool that the Republican Party has become, responsible for its everlasting games of conflict, and its spewing of half-truths, mistruths and outright lies. The new right should shoulder its fair share of responsibility for this present-day abomination of a vastly overreaching executive, who believes himself to be without the strictures of the only document that confers legitimacy upon his every act, who has stolen the natural right to habeas corpus, and who stamped an American governmental imprimatur upon acts of human torture. Don’t hold your breath for contemporary conservatives to step up and accept personal responsibility for this nightmare though. They don’t really believe that accepting personal responsibility is a foundational precept of conservatism. It is instead just a tactic they use, enabling them to hurl depraved derogations at single moms.
