<<< Paul Weyrich, the Christian activist that started the modern conservative movement
If you want change and it doesn't happen. If you don't vote, you can only blame yourself.
The modern conservative political movement of today began in the late 1970's and one of the movement's founders was Mr. Paul Weyrich, a US conservative Christian activist and an experienced reporter / commentator.
Weyrich was born in Racine, Wisconsin in 1942. While a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Weyrich was active in the Racine County Young Republicans from 1961 to 1963 and he worked in Barry Goldwater's 1964 presidential campaign. He spent his early career in journalism as a political reporter for the Milwaukee Sentinel newspaper and, in radio, as a reporter for WAXO-FM in Kenosha and as news director of KQXI in Denver. In 1977, Weyrich also co-founded Christian Voice with Robert Grant and two years later founded with Jerry Falwell the Moral Majority. In fact, Paul Weyrich was the right wing Christian that coined the phrase "Moral Majority".(See the end of this article for more details on the conservative political and religious background of Mr. Weyrich.)
And then he said, "Let the games begin......."
In Dallas, Texas, in 1980, Mr. Weyrich was one of three key-note speakers that also included speakers Jerry Falwell and Ronald Reagan. At that gathering of right wing political strategists, Mr. Weyrich made a speech of which, part of it is now one of the most viewed YOUTUBE speeches shown today of a right wing Republican. This video virtually paraphrases exactly why it is so important for every registered Democratic and independent voter to make sure that they do NOT take the easy way out by not voting in the next national election.
Here is the most important part of Mr. Weyrich's speech that day in 1980 that still resonates its truths for voters today. This is also why the current increase in the nation-wide registration of new Democratic voters could be the single most important issue for the upcoming election:
Mr. Paul Weyrich, in his 1980 speech in Dallas, Texas:
"How many of our Christians today have the 'Goo-Goo' good-government syndrome? They want everybody to vote.
I don't want everybody to vote.
Elections are not won by a majority of the people.
They never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now.
As a matter of fact, our [conservative, Christian Republican] leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down."
After Lyndon Johnson had signed the Civil Rights Act into law, this had caused many previously solid Democratic southern states in the "Bible Belt" to begin turning to the religious right of the Republican Party. In addition, after the Democratic debacle of the War in Vietnam, the conservatives saw their opportunity for breaking the long-time Democratic hold on the House and the Senate and even their hold on the Executive Branch. With the money the Republicans were now able to raise from a disillusioned public; the new support from the south and a focus on support from the religious right wing; this newly energized Republican Party set out to change the face of American politics. With the election of Ronald Reagan, the down-hill slide began for the Democrats.
That 1980 speech from Paul Weyrich in Dallas became the basic strategy that was used to determine which states the Republicans should focus on to obtain the electoral votes needed to win the Presidency. It also became the fundamental foundation strategy that would not only put Ronald Reagan and Bush I & II into the highest political office, but it would also be instrumental in supporting the change from a Democratic Congress to a Republican Congress where both houses were ruled by a Republican majority for 12 years. As Mr. Weyrich had said, "Elections are not won by a majority of the people." It was not the number of voters, it was the "number of right votes in the right states" that would dictate where the majority of the electoral votes would fall.
In addition to their new, focused "political strategy", the conservatives learned all the tricks of keeping the middle and lower class Democratic voters away from the polls. They have also not hesitated to commit less that legal actions on how votes were counted, if it were to their advantage. (Let us not forget the problems with the questionable vote counting in both Ohio and Florida in the 2000 and 2004 elections. Both of these states were in national results, decision making positions.) And once they did take the highest office, they made sure that younger, solid conservative judges were sent to the Supreme Court by the Republican Presidents. These are the same conservative Justices that in a questionable decision, would award to the Republican candidate, the presidential election in 2004.
In 2004, after just barely losing their Senate majority, the conservative Republicans have since also broken all the records for the number of filibusters used for stopping any Democratic legislation. This is regardless of whether it is or was what their constituents wanted or whether the legislation was the right thing to do for the people.
This is the reason for why it is so important that both the administration and both houses of Congress become void of the current Republican influence whenever possible. As one major independent, political analyst said recently, "Today's Republican Party should be referred to as an 'organized crime syndicate' instead of as a 'political party'. There is no area of government, from the Executive in the White House, to the Congress and the Supreme Court and beyond, that has been in their control over the past 20 years that is not tainted or over-run with individuals committing illegal acts against the American public in the causes of the their 'sacred' Republican Party. It' has become a complete disgrace."
Yes, I also agree that all three houses of Congress are overdue for a positive change.
Unfortunately, no matter how bad John McCain may "appear" for becoming the next US President, the Republican National Committee is still able to raise a lot of money and they have been one of the best organized political machines in the history of American politics. Now is the time for the recent, major increases in Democratic registration to show up at the polls and put their X's in the Democratic boxes for both the president and all of the open seats in the House and the Senate. This time the "Right Votes" need to come from an abundance of Democratic voters in all 50 states, especially from the states where the Republicans are focusing and where they think they have the advantage.
As I had said at the beginning of this article:"If you want change and it doesn't happen. If you don't vote, you can only blame yourself."
More Background Information on Paul Weyrich: In 1973, with the financial backing of Coors Brewing, Weyrich and Ed Feulner founded the Heritage Foundation as a think tank to counterbalance the then prevailing sentiment on taxation and regulation, which they considered to be anti-business. While the organization was at first only minimally influential, it has grown into one of the world's largest and most respected public policy research institutes and has been hugely influential in advancing conservative policies.
The following year, again with support from Coors, Weyrich founded the Committee for the Survival of a Free Congress (CSFC), an organization that trained and mobilized conservative activists, recruited conservative candidates, and raised funds for conservative causes. Under Weyrich, the CSFC proved highly innovative. It was among the first grassroots organizations to raise funds extensively through direct mail campaigns. It also was one of the first organizations to tap into evangelical Christian churches as places to recruit and cultivate activists and support for social conservative causes. Indeed, they proved such a wellspring that, ."
Over the next two decades, Weyrich founded, co-founded, or held prominent roles in a number of other notable conservative organizations. Among them, he was founder of the American Legislative Exchange Council, an organization of state legislators; a co-founder of the Council for National Policy, a strategy-formulating organization for social conservatives; co-publisher of the magazine Conservative Digest; and national chairman of Coalitions for America, an association of conservative activist organizations. The CSFC, reorganized into the Free Congress Foundation (FCF), also remained active.
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