PROFOUND VALUE CONFLICTS: AMERICA TODAY

Art Goldberg – Spring 2018

http://tinyurl.com/yaqofdup

Session #7A - Handout

The Republican Party – Big Business Gets Religion & Steve Bannon

Origins of the Modern Republican Party

Most of us are probably aware that the Republican Party, itself, began with Abraham Lincoln’s leadership of a Congressional faction opposed to the Kansas–Nebraska Act – an Act which would have made it possible for slavery to be expanded beyond the Southern states in which it already existed. The contemporary Republican Party has little to do with that, except as an instance of irony, inasmuch as it has built its current position to a large extent on white Southern resentment of the Civil Rights Acts of the 1960’s, which sought, 100 years after the Civil War, to end at least some of the dire effects of slavery.

The contemporary Republican Party is an outgrowth of what I shall call the Modern Republican Party, which, for our purposes, I shall identify as a reaction to FDR’s New Deal. That is not to say that some of the elements in the Modern Republican Party did not exist in the Republican Party prior to that; many did. However, the expansion of the role of the Federal government entailed in the New Deal, was something proposed by neither party prior to FDR, and as FDR and his cohorts developed the New Deal, the Republican party of that time positioned itself in profound opposition to every aspect of it.

At that point, the major thrust of the GOP (the Grand Old Party, as the Republican Party sometimes called itself) was for limited government, free markets, and Congressional dominance (as opposed to Executive dominance) in policy formation. In the context of the Great Depression and its aftermath, this position proved to be an electoral disaster for the Republican Party.

In 72 years between the onset of the Civil War and the election of FDR, the Republicans had controlled the Senate for 64 of those years, and the House for 60 of those years – the principal gap being the years that Woodrow Wilson was in the White House. Then, in the election of 1932, in the face of the Great Depression, the Republicans lost 12 seats in the Senate and 100 seats in the House, thereby losing control of both chambers. The mid-term of 1934 saw them lose 11 more seats in the Senate and 14 more seats in the House, and the election

of 1936 saw the Republicans lose yet another 8 seats in the Senate and 14 more in the House.

Generally speaking, American political parties have been interested primarily in winning. To be sure, there have always been principles, but winning and serving, to the extent possible, the interests of the main components of the party’s coalition has been the main driving factor. For those in the Republican Party interested in winning, that series of losses sent a message that perhaps some revision in their party’s stance was called for. Therein began a major split in the Republican Party.

On the traditional conservative side, we had Senator Robert A. Taft, of Ohio, elected in 1928 – eldest son of former President William Howard Taft. Senator Taft was profoundly averse to the expansion of the federal government, as was required by the New Deal; saw organized labor, and the Wagner Act which protected it, as major intrusions on the freedom of entrepreneurs; and was a committed isolationist. On the other side, one had Wendell Willkie.

Wendell Willkie was an improbable Republican, and some Republicans have argued that he was not a Republican at all. Born and raised in Indiana by liberal parents (both lawyers), he started out as a liberal Democrat. He, himself, became a lawyer, a very effective one, and a fine manager as well. Those skills led him to be hired by a major utility holding company – Commonwealth & Southern Corporation (C&S), and fairly rapidly, to be promoted to president thereof.

He rose to national attention in his fight on behalf of, C&S, against FDR’s Tennessee Valley Authority – a hydroelectric dam/flood control proposal. (C&S had ownership in many of the utilities with which the TVA’s hydro-electric dam would compete.) FDR prevailed, but Willkie had delivered eloquent arguments on the virtues of private enterprise, and he continued to do so in public speeches after the FDR’s victory on the TVA. At that point, he became a Republican, and his advocacy on behalf of private enterprise gave him acceptance by the Party’s organization – albeit a very tentative acceptance. That tentativeness was well founded – at least from a traditionalist Republican point of view.

Willkie was an eloquent advocate for private enterprise. However, he was also a supporter of welfare, an internationalist, and an ardent civil rights fighter. (He had effectively fought the local KKK quite early in his career.) While his internationalism appealed to a powerful bloc of Northeastern folks – including many on Wall Street who had investments abroad – that, and the rest of his

liberal agenda, certainly was looked upon askance by Robert Taft and his cohorts in the mid-West and the South.

Nevertheless, Willkie, with the backing of major press barons – Henry Luce of the Time magazine empire, Roy Howard of the Scripps-Howard newspaper chain (a chain with newspapers across the mid-West and the South, extending even to California), and Ogden Mills Reid, owner and publisher of the New York Herald Tribune – tossed his hat in the ring at the Republican nominating convention of 1940. Up against Robert Taft and Arthur Vandenberg, both isolationists at the time,* Willkie was nominated on the fifth ballot. A decisive factor may well have been that France had fallen to Hitler just two days before the Republican Convention convened in Philadelphia on June 24, 1940, substantially legitimating the internationalist faction in the Republican Party.

*[Vandenberg shifted his position after Pearl Harbor, and became a leading force in the creation of the United Nations.]

Roosevelt won the 1940 election quite decisively (54.7% to 44.8% and took 38 of the then 48 States). However, based on Willkie’s very vocal support for FDR’s lend-lease program, and Willkie’s clear sympathy for many of the New Deal’s welfare programs, Roosevelt appointed him his personal emissary to Great Britain, as assurance of our support for Great Britain its hour of need. (This was before we actually entered the war.)

That firmly established the split in the Republican party at the time. Led by Senator Taft, we had mid-Western and agricultural Republicans who were isolationist, wary of Eastern bankers (whom these folks correctly suspected of being internationalists – given the foreign investments of those bankers and their clients) and opposed to the expansion of the role of the Federal government at the expense of the prerogatives of state and local governments. On the other side, led by Willkie (with Dewey and Rockefeller to follow), we had the Northeastern Republicans, who were internationalists and sympathetic to many aspects of the New Deal. You might quite reasonably ask why the latter group were not simply Democrats. I think that I can offer you one answer by quoting what Senator Jacob Javits offered in his autobiography as an explanation of his party choice:

“Even had I not been repelled by the corruption of Tammany politicians in New York City, I doubt that I could have allied myself with the party whose national power depended to a great extent on a regional political and social system that kept black citizens in a state of subservience and often fear.

“As I saw it then, Northern Democrats who castigated southern racism while reaping political benefits (such as congressional committee chairmanships) from the Democratic majorities provided by the Solid South, were not entitled to the mantle of liberalism they claimed as their right.”

[Source: Jacob K. Javits with Rafael Steinberg. Javits: The Autobiography of a Public Man (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. 1981) p.320]

Of course, Jacob Javits made his choice before the South went Republican. Yet, the corruption of urban Democratic ‘machines’ put off many liberals, who, in reaction, chose to be Republicans.

A more recent (post-the South going Republican) explanation of why a liberal Republican is not a Democrat is offered by Christine Todd Whitman, former Governor of New Jersey:

“I have always understood Republican conservatism to be about restricting the size and scope of government, which traditionally meant keeping taxes down, balancing budgets, and controlling the growth of government.”

Governor Whitman then goes on to issue a complaint characteristic of the soon to be nearly extinct liberal Republican:

“From the spectacle of Congress almost literally standing at the bedside of Teri Schiavo while her life drew to a close, to efforts to restrict the personal sexual behavior and reproductive health decisions of American men and women, these so-called conservatives are making the Democrats’ social engineering efforts of the sixties and seventies look like timid tinkering.”

[Christine Todd Whitman. It’s My Party Too: The Battle for the Heart of the GOP and the Future of America (New York: Penguin Books, 2005) pp. xviii-xix]

*Teri Schiavo suffered a profound heart attack which left her in an irreversible vegetative state. Her husband, who was also her legal guardian, argued that his wife did not wish to be kept alive in that state by artificial means, and authorized disconnecting life support. Her parents and a host of right-to-life Republican activists fought his decision through the state and federal courts for seven years before her husband was finally able to have her feeding tube removed.

Well, with Governor Whitman, we are getting a bit ahead of ourselves, but I do want you to understand that there is more to liberal Republicans than an aversion to the racism of the Democratic Party’s formerly Solid South. Now, let us return to the origins of the earlier split.

Wendell Willkie died fairly young – at age 52, and the leadership of the liberal wing of the Republican Party fell to Thomas E. Dewey, former District Attorney of New York City, and then Governor of the State of New York. Dewey clearly

represented the Eastern Republican establishment. He was the Republican Party’s candidate in the 1948 Presidential Election. Had he defeated Harry Truman in that race, he might have put the Eastern Republican establishment on firmer ground, but Dewey seriously underestimated Truman as a campaigner, and Dewey lost, but remained as leader of the Eastern Republican Establishment.

In that role, he was a major force in Eisenhower’s defeat of Taft at the Republican nominating convention of 1952. In the Presidential elections of 1952 and 1956, this profound hero of the Second World War easily defeated his Democratic opponent – Adlai Stevenson – both times. Eisenhower was an internationalist, but, at heart, basically a domestic conservative. On the other hand, he had no interest in repealing the New Deal. He also tried to remain above the intraparty fray between the traditional conservatives, led by Senator Robert Taft, and the Eastern Republican establishment led by Thomas Dewey. Eisenhower’s main concerns were to hold the USSR at bay, to end the Korean War, and to strengthen U.S. alliances around the world, while maintaining prosperity in the U.S. Ike was basically quite successful in accomplishing his goals, but he did nothing to resolve the Republican Party’s intraparty conflict.

Absent any assault on the New Deal by Eisenhower, and with the election of Jack Kennedy in 1960, liberals clearly believed that the future was theirs. With Lyndon Johnson’s crushing defeat of Barry Goldwater in the 1964 election, liberals were now feeling really good; the world was clearly going their way.

There had occurred, however, several events, the significance of which had escaped these happy liberals. The first had occurred at the 1964 Republican Convention. There, the ‘Rockefeller Republicans’, i.e., the Eastern Republican establishment – now led by Governor Nelson Rockefeller – lost to the Goldwater conservatives. The power loci of the Republican Party had moved West – to Southern California, Texas, and Arizona. The Eastern Republican establishment has not recovered to this day. The second event that was not fully appreciated by our happy liberals was the fact that a star had been born during Goldwater’s campaign. That star was named Ronald Reagan, then Governor of California. On October 27, 1964, at a campaign rally for Barry Goldwater, Reagan gave a remarkable speech, titled “A Time for Choosing.” I shall not provide many excerpts here, but I strongly suggest that you ‘google’ it, listen to it, and ask yourself if it does not move you somewhat to the Right.

As we have discussed earlier, LBJ crushed Barry Goldwater, and we went on to the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, the war in Vietnam, massive protests,

Nixon, more massive protests, Kent State, Watergate, Gerald Ford, and Jimmy Carter. That series of events, culminating in ‘stagflation’ and the Iranian hostage crisis, brought us the first truly successful conservative Presidency since the Great Depression, namely that of Ronald Reagan – who has since become the patron saint of the conservative movement.

Before discussing the foundation that Ronald Reagan laid down for the conservative movement, a few words about Barry Goldwater – just a few, and in small print and single-spaced.

[Contrary to the Democratic propaganda of the campaign, Barry Goldwater was a quite sane and extremely decent person. In 1953, a year before the Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation of public schools was illegal, Goldwater (a longtime member of the NAACP) and his friend Lincoln Ragsdale (a former Tuskegee Airman) were driving forces in the integration of public schools in Phoenix, their hometown. Indeed, he had voted for most civil rights legislation. Yet, he forcefully opposed Federal legislation requiring school integration as unconstitutional Federal overreach. Goldwater’s department stores were racially integrated, had a basic policy of profit sharing, and a pension system. An avid airman, he flew countless missions in his own plane to deliver food and supplies to snow-bound Indian tribes, and to transport soldiers stranded at airports, home to the Arizona. In the middle of his Presidential campaign, he took several days off to sit with a dying friend to the end of that friend’s life. Not a bad fellow.

Yet, he campaigned throughout the South on the basis of states’ rights, knowing full well what that meant in the South. For a full picture, you might want to read Rick Perlstein’s Before the Storm.]

The driving ethos of the current conservative movement was set forth by Reagan in the early paragraphs of his “A Time for Choosing” speech. Therein he said:

“For almost two centuries we have proved man’s capacity for self-government, but today we are told we must choose between a left and a right or, as others suggest, a third alternative, a kind of safe middle ground. I suggest to you there is no left or right, only an up or down. Up to the maximum of individual freedom consistent with law and order, or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism; and regardless of their humanitarian purpose those who would sacrifice freedom for security have, whether they know it or not, chosen the downward path. Plutarch warned, ‘The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations, and benefits.’

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

“So, we have come to a time for choosing. Either we accept the responsibility for our own destiny, or we abandon the American Revolution and confess that

an intellectual in a far-distant capitol can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.”

“The maximum of individual freedom consistent with law and order.”

Those are the watchwords of the conservative movement. They translate, basically into, “Get the government off my back. Just leave me alone.”

In that speech, he goes on to castigate the government for numerous grievous sins. I offer you a single quote on each of several. {Reagan provides many.]

Unconscionable Expansion of the Federal Government

“Since the beginning of the century [20th century] our gross national product has increased by thirty-three times. In that same period the cost of federal government has increased 234 times, and while the work force is only one and one-half times greater, federal employees number nine times as many.”

Fiscal Irresponsibility and Foolishness

“In one key Eastern city, a man owning a blighted area sold his property to Urban Renewal for several million dollars. At the same time, he submitted his own plan for rebuilding of this area and the government sold him back his own property for twenty-two percent of what they paid.”

Foreign Aid

“We set out to help nineteen war-ravaged countries at the end of World War II. We are now helping 107. We have spent 146 billion dollars. Some of that money bought a two-million-dollar yacht for Haile Selassie. We bought dress suits for Greek undertakers. We bought one thousand TV sets with twenty-three-inch screens for a country where there is no electricity, and some of our foreign aid funds provided extra wives for Kenya government officials.”

Government Oppression

“A child’s prayer in a school cafeteria endangers religious freedom, but the people of the Amish religion in the State of Ohio, who cannot participate in Social Security because of their religious beliefs, have had their livestock seized and sold at auction to enforce payment of Social Security dues.” [Actually, this situation had been resolved in favor of the Amish in 1965.]

Tax Reform

“We need true tax reform that will at least make a start toward restoring for our children the American dream that wealth is denied to no one, that each individual has the right to fly as high as his strength and ability will take him. . . .

But we cannot have such reform while our tax policy is engineered by people who view taxes as a means of achieving changes in our social structure. Senator [Joseph S.] Clark [D-PA] says the tax issue is a class issue, and that government must use the tax to redistribute wealth and earnings downward.”

Summary

Maximum of individual freedom consistent with law and order. Each individual is responsible for his/her own future. Shrink federal government. Federal government is fiscally irresponsible. Much foreign aid is wasteful. The Federal government oppresses religion. All should pay the same percentage in taxes. Taxation should not be used to redistribute income.

I could give you counter arguments on each of these. [NOTE: A counterargument is not

necessarily a refutation.] However, my purpose here is not to decide what is empirically correct, but rather to lay out for you the principles he laid down as conservative dogma, and then to describe what he did to legitimate himself as the patron saint of the movement. So, what did he do?

Most notably, he ended the Cold War. He did so by ending the policy of détente, and took on the Soviet

Union through a massive military build-up, and military support for anti-communist groups throughout the world. He believed, correctly, that if the Soviet Union tried to match us in that, it would bankrupt them. He was also quite fortunate in the ascent of Mikhail Gorbachev to the leadership of the Soviet Union.

His economic policy, known as Reaganomics, is credited by conservatives with ending so-called “stagflation” (a combination of stagnant economic growth and inflation).

This entailed: reduced government spending, lower tax rates, deregulation, and tightening the money supply.

He broke the air traffic controllers’ union, PATCO, by firing all of the members when they went on strike.

They were Federal employees and therefore Reagan had the right to fire them, but it was an unprecedented action.

He declared it to be “Morning in America,” and conducted himself in a consistently optimistic and upbeat manner.

You may recall that when he was being lifted onto the operating table after being shot, he smiled and wisecracked to the doctors, “I hope you’re all Republicans.”

Were there negatives? Of course. Most notable, was the so-called “Iran-Contra Affair.” This consisted in selling arms to the Islamic Republic of Iran in an effort to obtain the release of six Americans being held hostage, and then funneling to the Contras (guerrilla groups fighting the Communist government of Nicaragua) some of the monies obtained in that exchange. All of this was illegal. The affair was alleged to have damaged the Reagan Presidency, and it probably did among some Americans, but conservative Americans really didn’t give a damn.

Then, there was the so-called scandal regarding Reagan appointees to the EPA, who were found to be undermining the mission of the EPA. They had to resign – something that would not happen today. For many conservatives, their only regret was that these fellows had to resign.

So, Reagan is an icon today not only for conservatives, but for Republicans in general. Moreover, for the many Americans who are not attuned to the nuances of our national politics, Reagan is remembered fondly. I believe that in their minds, he brought us peace, pride, and Morning in America. [For a bit of evidence on their fondness, please see the Appendix .] Thus, for Republicans campaigning for office or for policy, it does them no harm, and possibly some good, to cite Ronald Reagan.

Reagan bequeathed to the Republican Party his Reaganomics, which was based largely on something called supply side economics, which was invented by a self-taught economist named Jude Wanniski. Mr. Wanniski became an editor of the Wall Street Journal and a friend of Jack Kemp. Jack Kemp, in turn, became a friend of Ronald Reagan, and introduced him to Jude Wanniski’s theory of supply side economics. Briefly, that theory says that:

Cutting taxes and reducing government regulation will spur work, savings, and investment.

Cutting taxes for the more affluent is more beneficial than cutting taxes for others, as the more affluent are more likely to invest, thereby increasing the supply of capital.

Those things will spur economic growth, and they will spur it sufficiently to eventually offset government revenue lost to tax cuts.

It is a nice theory, but the data to date strongly suggests that it is incorrect. “Eventually” never seems to arrive. It certainly did not arrive in time for George H.W. Bush’s Presidency.

Given Reagan’s popularity and the emerging ‘taxophobia’ which Reagan had fostered, H.W. ran on a pledge of “no new taxes.” However, H.W. was an old-fashioned Republican, and as such, viewed the very idea of a Federal deficit with substantial distaste. Upon assuming office, he discovered that during Reagan’s Presidency, through the implementation of Reaganomics/supply side economics, the Federal government’s deficit had tripled. As a responsible Republican, he believed that he had no choice but to raise taxes, and he did. That alienated the right wing of the Republican Party, and opened the door for Bill Clinton.

We have discussed the opening that Bill Clinton gave the Republicans during the first half of his first term, but to review briefly, that consisted in:

Getting the Brady Act enacted – background checks for handgun purchases

Passing the Assault Weapons Ban

Raising taxes on the middle and upper classes – to cut deficit by 50%

Ratifying NAFTA

You may recall that the Republicans took both houses in the mid-term elections of 1994, and that that was a pivotal political moment.

I remind you that between 1933 and 1994, the Democrats controlled the House in 29 of 31 sessions of Congress, and they controlled the Senate in 26 of those 31 sessions. Between 1994 and now (2018) the Republicans have controlled the House in 10 of the last 12 sessions, and they have controlled the Senate in 7 of those 12 sessions. That is pretty pivotal.

You may recall that I conjectured that what the Republicans did to take both houses in the 1994 mid-term elections, was to get their act together, use the results of their several research institutes, and work their butts off. Well, I have some vindication of that conjecture by none other than Grover G. Norquist, of whom Newt Gingrich wrote:

“No [Republican] activist in America is better positioned to write the description of where Republicans have been and where Republicans are going than Grover Norquist.”

[Grover G. Norquist. Rock the House: History of the New American Revolution (Ft. Lauderdale, FL: VYTIS Press, Inc. 1995) p. v]

Bear with me as I draw rather extensively on Mr. Norquist’s work.

Writing in 1995, Norquist argued that:

”The Republican capture of the House is likely to last for forty years rather than four years.”

The reason being, in Norquist’s view, that:

“Bill Clinton, the Democratic Party, and the entire Establishment have learned nothing from their defeat November 8th [1994].

[Both of the previous quotes are from Norquist, as above, p.31]

That does not appear to be exactly the case, as Clinton managed to get quite a bit done with a Republican Congress, and got himself re-elected in 2000. However, given that in on November 8, 1994, the Republicans not only gained control of both houses of Congress, but gained ten governorships, while losing none, some strategic re-thinking may have been in order. Yet, it is the case that the Democratic Party seems not to have had a strategy for dealing with the loss of the solid South and the flat-lining of compensation to the working class. This, while visibly laboring on behalf of African-Americans, gays, gun control folks, and pro-choice advocates – all of which were offensive to significant portions of the South and the white working class.

The Republicans, on the other hand, definitely had a strategy, and that was to build a coalition of the disaffected by focusing on what had disaffected them. In Norquist’s telling, the coalition consisted of:

Those especially resentful of their tax burden. Small business people and homeowners.

Those resentful of burdensome regulations. Small business people.

Parents disaffected with the publicschool system who send their children to private school.

Yet have to pay school taxes. Home-schoolers as well. Those resenting affirmative action efforts.*

White workers. White parents and students in regard to college admissions.

Those offended by their tax dollars being used to fund art works of which they disapprove.

E.g., “Piss Christ” [a jar of urine with a crucifix in it]

Gun owners fearing loss of Second Amendment rights.**

Younger Americans resentful of having to pay for the Social Security checks of older Americans.

Those resentful of government secularization of all that it touches. Evangelical Christians, conservative Catholics, and Orthodox Jews

And more. [See p. 34 of Norquist, as above]

I have tried to put all of the above in relatively neutral terms. That is not how Norquist and Republican campaigners put these things. So, on the two cases where I have placed asterisks, I offer you the exact quotes below.

* “Workers whose sense of justice is offended and whose careers are damaged by a government policy of racialism that includes ‘affirmative action’, quotas, and set-asides for government programs where contracts are awarded not on merit, but on the basis of race, sex, or some other government-determined preference.”

**Gun owners who resent politicians who will not execute criminals or imprison repeat felons, but instead decide that it is easier to regulate law-abiding citizens and violate their Second Amendment rights.”

[Both of above from Norquist, as above, p. 34]

In order to show you what the Republicans’ “getting their act together” actually meant, I must back up to a wonderful case study by Norquist of the election of Paul Cloverdale as Senator from the state of Georgia in 1992. At the time, Georgia was a rock solid Democratic state. Since Reconstruction, it had never elected a Republican Governor, and had only once elected a Republican Senator, and that was in the extraordinary circumstance of the Democratic candidate – Herman Talmadge - being caught up in an ethics scandal. (That was in the days when such scandals had dire consequences.) The Republicans desperately needed the Senate seat in order to protect their filibusters against liberal legislation. This is what they did in order to win.

The National Right to Work Committee – an anti-unionization group with some two million members nationwide – sent a mailing to their Georgia members pointing out that Coverdale was a strong supporter of Right to Work laws, while his opponent, the Democrat Wyche Fowler was a friend of unions.

The NRA did three mailings in support of Coverdale to its 90,000 members in Georgia, and sent 250,000 flyers to gun dealers and gun clubs in

Georgia, so that they could spread the word that Coverdale was a gun supporter, while Fowler was a “gun grabber.’

Charlton Heston – a supporter of Right-to-Work laws and soon to be president of the NRA – flew in to campaign for Coverdale.

The National Federation of Independent Businesses sent a mailing to its 17,000 Georgia members, pointing out that Coverdale was, himself, an independent businessman, while Fowler had no experience of business.

A mélange of other groups – Libertarians, Perot state organizers, term limits supporters, anti-tax organizations – was enlisted to the cause.

There was, however, a major problem; Coverdale had a pro-choice voting record.

How was the opposition of the pro-life groups to be avoided, and their support obtained? These were tremendously influential groups; they entailed people like Pat Robertson and the Evangelicals, Phyllis Schlafly, and Pat Buchanan.

There was a caucus of the leadership of the pro-life groups in which Coverdale’s supporters pointed out that there were two relevant bills working their way through Congress: one was the Human Life Amendment, which would ban almost all abortions – the core of the pro-life movement; the other was the Freedom of Choice Act, which would ban any restrictions on abortions – an utter abomination in the eyes of that movement.

It was further pointed out that while Coverdale would not vote for the Human Life Amendment, he would vote against the Freedom of Choice Act. On the other hand, they could be sure that Fowler would vote for their abomination – the Freedom of Choice Act.

In the face of that situation, the pro-life caucus chose to support Coverdale. What did they then do? They did the following:

Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition printed and delivered 1.2 million voter guides supporting Coverdale, and delivered them to Christian activists throughout the state.

That coalition then called 40,000 identified supporters on election day to get out the vote. (Coverdale won by only 17,000 votes.)

The Committee for a Pro-Life Congress spent $30,000 for radio advertising on behalf of Coverdale.

The pro-life radio program “Family News in Focus” was broadcast on 54 stations in Georgia, emphasizing the difference between Coverdale and Fowler.

Phyllis Schlafly undertook her own mailing on the importance of defeating the Freedom of Choice Act.

Coverdale won, but he won by only 17,000 votes. So, without this large, well- coordinated, and focused effort, he almost certainly would have lost. Moreover, the pro-lifers were crucial in this effort.

Norquist points out that what he calls “the Establishment Left” was wrong it its belief that:

“the Religious Right and its moralism would force a split in Republican ranks between “moderate” Republican women and pro-lifers, between secular Libertarians and traditional-values believers.”

However, it is important to understand – and no one understands it better than Norquist – that it was adroit political maneuvers that has managed to avoid the split. In regard to “moderate” Republican women, it entailed characterizing the Democrats as soft on crime, burdening small business with regulation, and debasing public education, etc. In regard to the Religious Right, the ‘lesser of two evils,’ as described above, has worked in the past. However, as we shall see as we proceed, the Religious Right has continued to expand its influence in the Republican Party.

To give you a sense of the efficacy of the Republican organization in policy formation, let me offer you one more case study provided by Norquist. In March of 1994, in a then Democrat controlled House of Representatives, Representative George Miller (D-CA0 offered an amendment to the Elementary and Secondary School Act then under consideration. His amendment sought to have parents who were home schooling their children to be certified as competent to do so. Representative Dick Armey (R-TX) checked with the president of the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) to see if this would entail state licensing of these parents as teachers – long a goal of the National Education Association (NEA) What follows is a timeline of the battle between the HSLDA and the NEA.

Monday, March 14, 1994.

Within an hour of learning the import of the Miller Amendment, Dick Armey moves to have the amendment stripped from the bill. His motion is defeated.

Upon learning of the defeat of Armey’s motion, HSLDA has 38,000 letters printed and sent to its members.

Tuesday, March 13

HSLDA has a letter hand delivered to each member of the House expressing the Home Schoolers’ concerns.

A wave of calls to Congressional offices begins.

Wednesday, March 16

Mike Farris, president of HSLDA appears on Pat Buchanan’s “The 700 Club” TV show to express Home Schoolers’ concerns.

A bit later that day, Farris has a two-hour interview on “Point of View” – a TV show with four-million viewers.

Thursday, March 17

Fax alerts are sent by HSLDA to 1000 Christian radio stations and to a majority of evangelical churches.

The wave of calls builds. Some Democratic Congressmen’s staff approach Armey’s people offering

some support if the phone calls will stop.

Friday, March 18, 2018

Dick Armey announces that he will offer the Home School Protection Amendment. He soon has 70 co-sponsors.

Weekend, March 19 and 20

Members home for the weekend, including Speaker of the House, Tom Foley (D-WA) are inundated with homed schoolers, and many, including Foley agree to support Armey’s bill.

Monday, March 21 through Thursday, March 24, 1:59 p.m.

Various parliamentary maneuvers to weaken Armey’s bill. All fail

Thursday, March 24, 2:00 p.m.

Debate begins on Armey’s bill. 3:38 p.m. Armey’s bill passes 374 to 53. This in a House with 258

Democrats.

Thus were the Republicans prepared for the mid-terms of 1994. We shall have a look at that next time.

APPENDIX

In March of 2002, Gallup conducted a survey to obtain retrospective approval ratings for eight of our Presidents. The results are presented below.

RETROSPECTIVE JOB APPROVAL RATINGS

President Percent Positive

Kennedy 83%

Reagan 73%

H.W. Bush 69%

Ford 60%

Carter 60%

Clinton 51%

Johnson 39%

Nixon 34%