Mississippi Turning???

Some fascinating news out of Mississippi. This week saw the election of James Young as the first African American mayor of Philadelphia, Mississippi (NYTimes coverage here). For anyone familiar with the history of race in America and the Civil Rights Movement, Philadelphia is known as the place where civil rights workers Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and Michael Schwerner were murdered in June of 1964. Along with the Montgomery bus boycott, freedom rides, the Birmingham campaign, and the March on Selma, these deaths during Freedom Summer were a major chapter in the march toward the passage of the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act of 1964 and 1965. Likewise, they've cast a long shadow that has been difficult for the city to shed. This election may help its residents turn a corner.

Later, Philadelphia was home to another event--viewed differently by competing camps--that speaks to our complicated history. Namely, Ronald Reagan kicked off his 1980 presidential campaign there at the Neshoba County Fair. By arguing strongly for "states rights," many have argued that Reagan, in coded language, was presenting himself as a more polished, refined, and less menacing version of George Wallace. This was, for critics, the personification and perfection of the "Southern Strategy." Others have offered a more benign interpretation of the Gipper's words to suggest that he was simply articulating his small government platform.

While Mississippi has the largest number of elected African American officials in the country, the bulk of these politicians come from the Delta region in the western part of the state. Back during the primaries I wrote a post about this region and how it differs from the rest of the state. Neshoba County is not in the Delta but sits in central Mississippi and has demographics that, even without its troubled history, would make the election of a black mayor more difficult. The county as a whole is 65% white and only 20% African American. Philadelphia has a larger black population with the breakdown being roughly 55% white and 40% African American. In last year's presidential race, McCain overwhelmed Obama in Neshoba County, winning 72% to 27%, 16 points better than he did statewide. Within Philadelphia itself, McCain bested Obama 59.5% to 40.5% (Results available here).

Its always dangerous to extrapolate from local races. As the coverage of Mayor Young's victory suggest, he campaigned as a reformer against a long-time incumbent and thus was certainly able to tap into voters'--black and white--dissatisfaction with the performance of city government. Nonetheless, one wonders whether the Obama campaign, despite losing badly in the state, benefitted someone like James Young. We know, for example, that black turnout in 2008 reached virtual parity with that of whites and that states with large black populations such as Alabama, Mississippi, and South Carolina saw voter turnout increase. If voters, once energized and mobilized, continue to vote over the long term then we might see something like an "Obama effect" in these other races. Its certainly too early to conclude that this is what's happening. Likewise, a four month old Obama administration isn't going to heal decades of racial tension and create national unity. Regardless of whether these campaigns are connected and regardless of whether James Young's election as mayor signifies something much larger than one candidate beating another in a small town race, one can't deny the symbolism.

**Top photo courtesy of the Neshoba Democrat

What the Wilderness Looks Like

For the past several posts, John and I have been spending a bit of time writing about the current state of the Conservative Movement. With the results of the past two elections showing a clear trend in the Democrats’ direction, aided not only by the failures of the Bush administration, but also by demographic and cultural shifts—see Teixeira and Judis—a lot of ink is now being spent debating how the Republicans, and conservatives more broadly, should respond. Do they move leftward and try to recapture some of the vast middle ceded to Obama (thus potentially alienating the conservative base) or do they retrench at the right flank and hope that events bring the electorate back in their direction? While many on the right argue that we are a “center-right” country by temperament, a misreading of the country’s pulse and preferences could spell disaster over the medium and long term. Hence, whether or not the right has a true leader—hence the current kerfuffle about Rush Limbaugh’s place in the conservative pantheon—they seem to be in wilderness mode.
While two election cycles don’t necessarily mean the country is on an irreversible move leftward, I thought I’d look a bit at the last time the country was moving strongly in one direction. Here, however, the move was to the right. If what is happening now is of the same magnitude and duration, Republicans are in for a long period of soul-searching and electoral defeat. My decision to look at where conservatives find themselves was spurred by today’s announcement that Al From, the founder and longtime head of the Democratic Leadership Council, is stepping down as head of the organization. The DLC was created in the midst of the Democrats’ last long period of exile. The goal of the organization, simply stated, was to make the Democrats relevant again. As liberalism reached its nadir in the 1970’s & 1980’s following the collapse of the Great Society, the “big government” solution to policy problems was thrown into disrepute. Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan were able to capitalize on the excesses of the 1960’s and America’s fear and loathing of rising crime, growing welfare dependency, and affirmative action and bring about a re-ordering of the American polity. The result?? Republicans won 5 of the 6 presidential elections between 1968 and 1988.

To get a sense of just how bad the Democrats’ period of exile was, consider the five elections between 1972 and 1988. With the exception of Jimmy Carter’s Watergate-aided win in 1976, the Republicans not only won all of these contests but won them handily. Here is the Electoral College vote in each of the contests. Overall, Republicans won 2200 electoral votes to the Democrats’ 487—82% of the total. Note how in 3 of these elections (’72, ’80, and ’84) Republicans won more electoral votes in a single contest than the Democrats won in total over all 5!!! While the Democrats managed to maintain majorities in the House and Senate (with the exception of ’81-’87) the party’s national standing was in tatters. It had no dominant spokesperson and no compelling narrative to explain how it would fix the country’s ills beyond simply rehashing liberal dogma. The question then confronting the Democrats, like the dilemma of the Republicans now, was what to do.
When the DLC was founded in 1985 the Democrats were perhaps at their lowest point nationally. In order to regain the party’s footing, the organization called for an end to the traditional “liberal” approach to policy. Rather, building on a cadre of centrist governors and members of Congress—Bill Clinton, Sam Nunn, Joe Lieberman, John Breaux, and Dave McCurdy among others—it proposed solutions that were more market based, pragmatic, and fiscally responsible. With Clinton’s election in 1992 the movement reached its ascendancy and policies such as NAFTA, welfare reform, a balanced budget, and the earned income tax credit helped reposition the Democrats as a party once again competent and identified with economic growth and prosperity.
While Bill Clinton brought the Democrats victories at the ballot box in 1992 and 1996, his centrism brought criticism from his left. Many members of Congress, still ensconced in the old liberalism (now rebranded “progressivism”) were critical of his stands on trade, welfare reform, and health care. While these intra-party squabbles were not totally responsible for the Republicans’ capture of Congress in 1994, one can argue that Clinton was more successful in dealing with the likes of Newt Gingrich and Bob Dole than he was in corralling the Democratic base. Whichever side one took in this fight for the heart of the Democratic Party, one can’t deny the fact that the debate revitalized the party and made it think hard about policy. Despite George Bush’s capture of the White House, the elections of 2000 and 2004 were fought much more closely than those of the 1970’s and ‘80’s. The Republican’s Electoral Vote margin over those two contests was a mere 40 EVs and Bush never captured 51% of the popular vote. Democrats regained their congressional losses of the mid 90’s and laid the groundwork for what we saw transpire last year.
So what can the right learn from the Democrats’ period in the wilderness?? One lesson that can be drawn is that a party needs to grapple honestly with its past excesses. Those on the left who were being honest with themselves realized that there was a reason that voters moved so definitively to the right. While events such as last weekend’s CPAC gathering isn’t going to cater to this type of reflection among today’s conservatives, other more sober venues must. What makes this introspection complicated for many on the right, though, is that they are convinced that what was repudiated in 2006 and 2008 was not conservatism, but Bush-ism. For them, Bush failed not because he was too conservative (or because conservatism more broadly was being rejected) but rather because he was too liberal. With exploding deficits and long term expansions and commitments to Medicare and other programs, “compassionate conservatism” was simply liberalism by another name. Among many congressional Republicans, the decision to now vote against spending increases—despite consistently voting for them during Bush’s reign—signals an attempt to recapture the mantle of fiscal responsibility.

Another lesson for conservatives to ponder is the need for policy debate, intra-party discussion, and diverse solutions. While not everyone on the left shared the DLC’s approach to issues, it not only helped to stop the party’s decline (perhaps it couldn’t sink any lower) but allowed it to regain a foothold in certain parts of the country where the damage of the 1970’s and 80’s was most severe—i.e. the south. Not only was the DLC a centrist organization, it was also heavily southern flavored. Whereas New Deal liberalism was strongest in the urban north, southern Democrats have always been a different breed. By giving Democrats another model, and winning elections because of it, the DLC was able to help the party begin to grow again. One can’t help but look at today’s Blue Dogs and their contribution to the Democrats’ new and expanding majority in Congress as the progeny of what Clinton and others began. If the right wants to regain not only relevancy but power, it seems obvious that they must realize that parties—should they hope to be successful nationally and over the long term—are at root coalitions. The creation and maintenance of these coalitions requires a degree of pragmatism and leadership that seems lacking on the right. It also requires a belief that many of those not currently in the coalition should be allowed under the tent. This also seems to be a point of contention among many conservatives. If the right fails to come to these realizations, they may be closer to the beginning of their time in the wilderness than to the end.

Can You Rebuild a Party Based On Nostalgia??? Or, What Do the Republicans Do About George W. Bush???

A few weeks back John wrote about the Republican party’s current search for a new Chairman. While I haven’t followed the sweepstakes blow for blow, some aspects have caught my attention and led me to think more broadly about the direction of the party.

In a much publicized debate (watch here) on January 5th hosted by Grover Norquist and Americans for Tax Reform, all six of the candidates to head the RNC were asked to name our greatest president. Not missing a beat, each dutifully answered “Reagan” in an almost Pavlovian fashion. This fealty to Reagan seems to be the first commandment of modern Republicanism. While the Gipper was certainly the modern GOP’s most successful politician, there seems to me to be some real danger in trying to refashion the Republican Party around a theme of Reagan revival and nostalgia.

As much of the data on last year’s election has made clear, a strong predictor of the vote was age. Among the cohort of voters under the age of 30, Obama won two thirds of the vote. As much of the literature on political socialization has shown, party loyalties tend to be fashioned early in one’s life and endure rather well over time. Thus, the Democrats are salivating over these numbers, seeing a solid voting block extending well into the future. While its naïve to think that this age cohort will continue to have such solid Democratic loyalty as they enter their 40’s, 50’s, and beyond, its not far fetched to speculate on the numerical advantage they’ll have, especially when combined with other variables pointing in the Dems favor—increases is the minority population and the correlation between level of education and Democratic support.

So why the danger in dwelling on Reagan?? When this was originally reported I couldn’t help but think of the students that I teach. My current group of students—those just entering political life through voting, internships, and other types of mobilization—was born in 1988. They have absolutely no direct recollection or memory of Ronald Reagan. In fact, they were twelve when Bill Clinton left office!!! For them, the only President they’ve had any meaningful experience with is George W. Bush. And from the exit polling we’ve seen, that experience doesn’t appear to have been too positive. In thinking about this phenomenon, I got to wondering about how presidential legacies are both important in shaping people’s view of parties and policies yet also hindrances in allowing parties and politics to move forward.

When presidents get elected and parties come to power, they do so through the formation of coalitions—a collection of individuals and groups who, at best share a common set of policy preferences and interests, and at the very least, are drawn to one side more than the other, usually out of disappointment with the ruling party’s performance. These coalitions are oftentimes fragile as coalition members differ about policy specifics or priorities. In these cases, the interest of maintaining power takes precedence over ideological purity. Whether or not these coalitions remain intact and endure over time has been crucial to our thinking about eras of party dominance or “realignments.” When a coalition disintegrates, parties enter into periods of self-examination. They must figure out why their support disappeared and how to cobble together the support necessary to return to power.

Some historical examples can be used to illustrate this. In the aftermath of the Civil War, the Republican Party used the memory of Lincoln and "waving the bloody shirt” to ensure a series of victories throughout the Gilded Age. At some point, though, that was no longer enough to win. Lincoln, though an American giant, was no longer at the forefront of Americans’ consciousness and the Civil War generation had died off. A new strategy was needed. Later, the Democratic Party rose to dominance with the formation of the “New Deal Coalition.” With support from the South, big cities, unions, farmers, and increasingly African Americans, FDR was able to win 4 successive elections and the Democrats were able to control Congress consistently for over a generation. By the end of LBJ’s term, though, the coalition had frayed. This brings us to Reagan. Reagan’s success was not just in giving some clarity to the Republican Party’s policies, but in co-opting those prodigal members of the old Roosevelt coalition—working class whites, southerners, etc. and bringing them over to the Republican side.

While Clinton was able to bring some of them back, George W. Bush’s two victories, though extremely narrow, had many in the GOP ranks positing an enduring Republican majority. We now know how that turned out--and that’s where the GOP’s problem lies, in my view. I don’t know how you can rebuild the GOP by trying to act as if Bush never existed. How do you rewind to Reagan and start over? Again I think of my students’ generation. When they think of the Republican Party, they don’t think of Reagan, they think of Bush. Even on the Democratic side this year we saw how the American electorate has a short term memory. Much of Hillary Clinton’s campaign seemed premised on the notion of a Clinton Renaissance—“vote for me and we’ll go back to the 90’s when everything was great.” Again, we’ve seen how that turned out. A candidate who was wholly forward looking captured voters’ attention, offered a new type of politics, and rode to victory.

This brings us to Bush. As he prepares to leave office next week, a number of press outlets have been compiling retrospectives on the Bush years. As one might expect, the pictures have not been positive. Whether it be fiscal, foreign, or domestic policy, the Bush legacy is not one that many will point to, especially in the near term, as worth being repeated. How, then, does the Republican Party regroup? How do they address the Bush legacy? Do they, after a respectful period, go through a period of disavowing everything done over the past eight years—essentially arguing that Bush was not a true conservative? With explosive spending, hubristic foreign policy ambitions, and a regular disregard for limited government and “states rights,” there is certainly ample evidence for this claim. The question of Bush’s “real” conservatism was a subject explored in depth in Andrew Sullivan’s “The Conservative Soul.” The downside of this strategy, of course, is that you alienate much of the party’s base, those Americans who still give Bush relatively high approval ratings. The other downside is that, over the past two elections, there seems to be a greater willingness for Americans to accept “more government.” A more ideologically pure Republican Party may in fact be an even less popular one.

For a second strategy, on the other hand, do you try and move forward, acting as if the Bush years were a bit of an aberration in conservatism’s march (never articulating this belief, though) in hopes that the American electorate will forget, over time, their negative feelings about the past eight years and return to the Republican fold? While there is an ebb and flow to our politics--bringing parties in and out of power--that might justify riding out the storm, I’m still not convinced that pining for a return to Reaganism is the right course. A party built on an image or nostalgia for the way things used to be will have difficulty moving forward, especially when the electorate they are trying to court has moved on.

Saul Anuzis to GOP Economic Populists: "This is not your average Republican twitter page!"

ElectionDissection strolled down to the offices of Americans for Tax Reform for the latest in the series of Newsmaker Breakfasts hosted by the American Spectator.  The “newsmaker” on hand was Saul Anuzis, the Michigan Republican Party chairman who earned the Paultards’ enduring animus by calling for Ron Paul’s exclusion from Republican presidential primary season debates after his symbiotically beneficial contretemps over 9/11 blowback with fmr. NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani in South Carolina.

Despite the fact that its Congressional delegation has been shrinking in recent rounds of redistricting and expects to at the next census, Michigan’s noteworthy political legacy is even more salient as potential bailouts for the Big Three dominate the headlines.  It’s clear that Anuzis’ decades of experience in the trenches of Wolverine State politics do color his vision for a revivified GOP as he vies for RNC Chair.

Anuzis highlighted his vision for harnessing new media to facilitate disseminating the GOP’s message.  (Best line: “This is not your average Republican twitter page!” Oxymoron of the week: “Republican twitter page!”)  And he repeatedly harkened back to the fabled “Reagan Democrat,” citing appealing to this once-decisive voting bloc as the key to a Republican resurgence.  Suburban Detroit’s Macomb County boomed in the 1950s and 60s with auto workers as White Flight emptied the white working class neighborhoods of Detroit’s Wayne County.  Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg identified Macomb as the spiritual home of this famously crucial electoral demographic.  (It’s interesting to note that Greenberg, post-2008, agrees that this political dinosaur is, in fact, extinct.)   

“Reagan Democrats,” of course were those Northern, often-ethnic and heavily Catholic, white working class voters who were lured away from their ancestral Democratic moorings by GOP appeals to their conservative opinions on moral issues, busing and crime and Cold War hawkishness.  But many of these voters were proud union men (and women) who couldn’t swallow even Ronald Reagan’s free trade agenda.  This was especially acute in Macomb Co., Michigan in the 1980’s as competition from Japanese imports rattled Detroit’s long-term game plan.

While social conservatism can be found in Michigan politicians of both parties – Reps. Dale Kildee, Bart Stupak and John Dingell count themselves as either pro-life, pro-gun or both – so, too, does the state’s formidable strain of economic populism infect voters on both sides of the aisle. 

Alabama’s segregationist governor George Wallace first identified this political animal instinctively, scoring above his national average in Macomb in his 1968 indie bid, and capturing a majority in the 1972 Democratic presidential primary statewide.  Twenty years later, Pat Buchanan barnstormed the state denouncing imports and racked up his best score this side of the Granite State in his challenge to George H.W. Bush’s renomination.  Four years later, he fared even better, denouncing NAFTA at every stop. 

Only an underwhelming performance in Detroit dragged Ross Perot’s percentage statewide back to his national average in 1992.  In over half of Michigan’s counties, his call to heed that “giant sucking sound” supposedly sending manufacturing jobs to Mexico pulled in over a quarter to 30% of the vote.

And in this year’s Republican presidential primary, Mike Huckabee scored well in Dutch-settled southwestern Michigan where his social conservatism no doubt resonated with the Calvinist Dutch Reformed Church-goers.  But, his economic populism seems to have struck a cord here, too.  The area’s Dutch-American U.S. Rep. Peter Hoekstra was the only Michigander Republican to oppose NAFTA back in ’93.  Huckabee’s populist notes also played among Yoopers, too, in the Upper Peninsula’s mining and timber towns. 

But Michigan’s stunted population growth has frozen the smaller, broken rust belt cities like Saginaw, Flint, Muskegon and Bay City, where Wallace, Buchanan and Perot exploited white working class anxiety, as well as both the U.P. and the Dutch southwest where Huckabee found a base far above the Mason-Dixon Line. 

Macomb is growing, but still totals far behind Oakland’s population.  (Besides, Obama captured the county comfortably, flipping the narrow win G.W. eked out in 2004.)  Contrast Macomb to its fellow Detroit suburb, Oakland County.  Once home to Midwestern, Michigan, Gerald Ford-style regular Republicans, as this affluent and educated enclave population expands, it threatens to surpass Detroit’s Wayne County, which still continues to hemmorage residents, as the state’s largest jurisdiction.  Oakland’s Democratic trend is relentless as Obama scored the best Dem numbers since LBJ, beating FDR, even!  McCain’s percentage dipped to near Goldwater and Alf Landon lows.  Once safe GOP Rep. Joe Knollenberg also succumbed to Oakland's Democratic wave in '08, after what shouldn't have been a surprisingly close race in '06, given the county's trends were then becoming evident.  (Note, too, the strong showing by North Dakota Rep. William Lemke’s third party bid here in 1936, whose message melding social conservatism and economic populism was amplified by on air harangues from Father Coughlin, the anti-Semitic radio priest whose Shrine of the Little Flower sits in now-trendy Royal Oak, a leading indicator of Oakland’s partisan progression.  Royal Oak gave Gore a 51-45 win over Bush in 2000.  By 2008, Obama’s margin here had grown to a lopsided 61-37.)

Building on a question from Economist.com blogger Dave Weigel suggesting the GOP's appeals to socially conservative voters and anti-immigrant demagoguing had aliented electorates in similar suburban counties nationwide, ElectionDissection questioned Anuzis about whether his strategy for staving off further losses in Oakland included toning down the economic populism that hasn't been a vote-winner there – especially in light of a Big Three bailout that may play well in his state, but not among the Southern-anchored grassroots of the party he wants lead - his answer focused more on this blog’s analysis of Michigan’s political geography than his thoughts on recasting the Republican message.  But Anuzis did offer some interesting off-the-cuff insight into shifting intra-state demographics – UAW retirees, for instance, migrating up north to retire and the increasingly racially diverse make-up of Oakland Co.’s electorate – which offer fodder for future posts.  

Bob Barr Blusters: Pres Nomination Campaigns don't "affect change"??!!

ElectionDissection ventured over to the National Press Club for a couple of press conferences today.   The first featured Ron Paul with his by-now-signature unfocused, “aw shucks” style with which he urged his acolytes – and the American electorate at large – to reject McCain and Obama and consider any of four third party candidates.  Green nominee and former Dem. Georgia Rep. Cynthia McKinney, independent perennial Ralph Nader and far-right Constitution Party standard bearer “Pastor Chuck” Baldwin were all on hand to bask in Dr. Paul’s glow.  Libertarian Party nominee, former GOP Georgia U.S. Rep. Bob Barr pointedly declined the invite.

Half an hour later, Barr responded with a press conference of his own.  Barr and his top aide, former Ross Perot campaign honcho Russ Verney, explained Barr’s absence that morning, with Barr insisting that his bid offers “bold, focused, specific leadership,” not Ron Paul’s “amorphous kind that says ‘any of the above’ or ‘none of the above.’”  Barr asserted that the goal of his campaign is to amass as many votes as possible, hoping to affect policy change in his direction; a worthy and very reasonable goal for a third party candidate determined to run an actual political campaign, seeking actual votes, not just to hit the college lecture circuit and bloviate ad nausea. 

Barr’s and Verney’s “we’re the grownups here” mein bordered on farce.  Barr got so wrapped up in the “we’re not goofing around here” meme that, invoking Verney’s old boss Perot repeatedly, he asserted the patently preposterous claim that primary campaign vote totals, and failed nomination campaigns, are irrelevant; rather, building significant general election vote totals is the only way for alternative presidential candidates to affect policy change.  This is indubitably true for segregationist George Wallace’s 1968 American Independent bid that first identified “Reagan Democrats” among Northern Urban Ethnics and rural Southern Democrats and liberal Republican John Anderson’s 1980 indie bid that gave us sneak peaks at segments of the coalition that vaulted Obama to the Democratic nomination this year.  But for the highest vote getting third party bid in modern electoral history – Ross Perot’s snaring of nearly one in five votes in 1992 – the jury is still out as for its long term impact.

Barr’s claim was made to counter claims that Paul’s 1.2 million primary season votes did more than Barr’s effort will to further a libertarian agenda.  There is a question to be considered that Paul’s 2008 primary totals – as scattered as his message – may tell us less about a long-term libertarian vote trend than does Ed Clark’s 1980 Libertarian Party high water mark. 

Nevertheless, the litany countering Barr’s ludicrous contention is a long and venerable one.  

Let’s start with Wallace: the 670,000 votes and 3.75 million votes he garnered, respectively, in his upstart 1964 and 1972 Democratic nomination bids were dwarfed by the 9.9 million votes he attracted in his 1968 indie bid, but reinforced to Nixon strategist Kevin Phillips that millions of those voters – especially in states like Wisconsin in ’64 or in Maryland and Michigan in ’72 – who might never have voted for him in a general, or before his assassination attempt, were up for grabs.  Peeling these proto-Reagan Democrats away built the Conservative Coalition that governed under Reagan during his first term. 

Eugene McCarthy’s quixotic bid for the 1968 Democratic bid may have been as unfocused as Paul’s this year, but his 2.9 million votes forced the incumbent president, LBJ, to withdraw from consideration for re-nomination and marked the first electoral inklings of popular discontent over the Vietnam War that culminated in Nixon – the staunch anti-communist – pulling US forces out of Indochina a few years later. 

The Rev. Jesse Jackson’s nearly 10 million votes between his 1984 and 1988 bids put his slice of urban America’s agenda on the table, arguably prompting passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1991 in a still conservative-oriented Congress and signed by a Republican president.    

Walter Mondale famously ridiculed Gary Hart’s “new ideas” bid for the 1984 Democratic nomination with the then-popular fast food chain ad refrain, “Where’s the beef?”  But the third of the Democratic primary vote and 1200 delegates that Hart’s platform attracted - a melding of cosmopolitan social liberalism with an appreciation of foreign trade and a recognition that market forces can’t be dismissed - took most observers by surprise and challenged the union orthodoxy that Mondale accepted.  Hart’s “New Democrat” agenda presaged the moderate Democratic Leadership Council from which Bill Clinton launched his successful bid for the 1992 Democratic nomination and upon whose agenda he generally governed during his tenure.  Nearly a quarter century later, Hillary Clinton reverted to Mondale’s playbook, but came up short against Barack Obama who racked up huge majorities among the very voters Hart first identified. 

Two more examples stand out because of the candidates’ associations with associates of Barr’s campaign in 2008:

Barr advisor and conservative direct mail guru Richard Viguerie keynoted the Libertarian convention this year.  Viguerie supported Ronald Reagan’s nearly victorious challenge to President Gerald Ford’s re-nomination in 1976, and tried to lure Reagan to a splinter conservative third party when Ford finally secured the GOP nod.  Of course, Reagan built upon the momentum of that strong ’76 bid to win the White House four years later, launching his “Reagan Revolution.”

“A Call to Economic Arms” was the theme of Paul Tsongas’ 1992 campaign that attracted unexpected support among Democratic primary voters.  Ross Perot – Verney was his spokesman – built upon Tsongas’ momentum in the fall, memorably campaigning with a series of charts to illustrate the federal fiscal dangers both these “deficit hawks” feared.  Bill Clinton’s first term stabs at getting the federal budget under control can be attributed to both Tsongas’ nomination and Perot’s general election campaigns.