According to Richard Viguerie, the Tea Party is winning something much more important than elections. It is winning the heart of the Republican Party.
Dubbed the “funding father”[1] of modern conservative strategy in the United States by some sources, Viguerie claims that the number one goal of the Tea Party is not winning elections, rather it is steering the country into a more conservative direction.
In an interview last week with the neoconservative/libertarian website WorldNetDaily, Viguerie stated “While we haven’t had a lot of high profile election victories this year, the [No.] 1 goal of the limited government constitutional tea party type conservatives is not to win elections.”
And this is not the first time Viguerie has pushed the idea of losing elections as a strategy. Back in 2006, he was quoted in the New York Times as saying: “There is a growing feeling among conservatives that the only way to cure the problem is for Republicans to lose the Congressional elections this fall.”
Writing for the Washington Post that same year, he again embraced the idea of losing as a strategy:
Conservatives are beginning to realize that nothing will change until there’s a change in the GOP leadership. If congressional Republicans win this fall, they will see themselves as vindicated, and nothing will get better.
If conservatives accept the idea that we must support Republicans no matter what they do, we give up our bargaining position and any chance at getting things done. We’re like a union that agrees never to strike, no matter how badly its members are treated. Sometimes it is better to stand on principle and suffer a temporary defeat. If Ford had won in 1976, it’s unlikely Reagan ever would have been president. If the elder Bush had won in 1992, it’s unlikely the Republicans would have taken control of Congress in 1994.
Returning to the present, Viguerei claims this strategy is succeeding in the WorldNetDaily interview. His reasoning? – that in the “century-long civil war” within the GOP between the “Establishment v. Conservative,” conservatives are clearly winning.
“The party is more conservative now than they were five years ago. Five years ago they were more conservative than they were 10 years ago.
It’s slow, but it is happening. The Republican Party is becoming more conservative.”
Viguerei claims the lack of success by the Tea Party this year is due to the power of incumbency, but looking forwards is hopeful about the future:
“We’ve got a very strong bench, and it’s getting stronger each election cycle … grass roots conservatives are providing the opposition to Democrats. And voters like that.”
Meanwhile, back on planet earth….
FOOTNOTE:
“Richard A. Viguerie transformed American politics in the 1960s and 1970s. Through his pioneering use of direct mail, Viguerie broke the left’s monopoly on the country’s microphones; gave the conservatives a voice through the new and alternative media of direct mail; and broke the power of large donors by empowering millions of small donors to back the candidates and causes of their choice. His pioneering techniques helped elect Ronald Reagan as the first conservative president of the modern era. Often called the “Funding Father” of the conservative movement, Viguerie’s advertising firm has mailed more than 3 billion letters and raised over $7 billion over the past 50 years.” SOURCE
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