This is something that needs to be hammered home. Having a cheerful tone while espousing the things in which you believe, especially if those things are correct, is powerful.
THREE the hard way.
Posted on 06/19/2004 11:58:18 AM PDT by RWR8189
What the Class of '94 learned from the Gipper.
RONALD REAGAN'S legacy as a party builder has gotten short shrift. The Republicans were able to win a majority in the House in 1994 for the first time in 40 years, and then keep that majority in 1996 for the first time since 1928, because we were close students of Reagan. When House Republicans stood on the Capitol steps in 1994 and announced our Contract With America, we were standing on President Reagan's shoulders. This is not merely a nice phrase. It was true in the issues highlighted, in voter appeal, and in the actual staging of the event.
The issues in the Contract With America were almost entirely derived from Ronald Reagan's speeches dating back into the 1960s. Welfare reform--look at Governor Reagan in 1970 at the National Governors' Conference as the start of a 26-year effort that culminated when President Clinton (having vetoed welfare reform twice) finally signed the welfare reform bill in 1996. Balanced budgets--a thousand Reagan speeches said they were desirable. Tax cuts--they had been the centerpiece of Reagan's economic policies. Stronger defense--again, a key goal of the 1980 Reagan campaign.
The possibility of a Republican majority was a direct result of Reagan's success. In 1974 only 18 percent of the country identified themselves as Republicans. Some people actually talked about the danger of the party's disappearing. Six short years later, Ronald Reagan not only won the election by a surprising margin but also carried the Republicans into control of the Senate and helped them pick up 33 seats in the House. Thanks to the rise of Reagan Democrats and their conversion into Republicans, by 1994 we had enough candidates and enough potential voters to be competitive for the first time since the Great Depression.
And the Capitol steps event itself was modeled on a similar Reagan event. In 1980, Guy VanderJagt, Bill Brock, and I approached Governor Reagan and his campaign about hosting an event in which every federal candidate in the Republican party would be given an opportunity to stand with him on key issues. The result was that in late September every House and Senate candidate stood with Reagan in a national event and made news back home explaining how they agreed with the Reagan platform and disagreed with the liberal platform. The result was a stunning upset as six new Republican senators were elected by a combined margin of less than 75,000 votes. The 1994 Contract ceremony on the Capitol steps was drawn directly from that 1980 experience.
But for years before that victory, the group of young activists in the House known as the Conservative Opportunity Society had studied the successes of President Reagan. Here are the major lessons he taught us:
(1) Cheerfulness can get almost anything done. One of President Reagan's great strengths was his commitment to big ideas and his willingness to remain cheerful no matter what the difficulties were. It made him likable and approachable and easy to support. Despite being the son of an alcoholic father, entering the job market in the Great Depression, and watching his career in movies fade out, Reagan remained a steadfast optimist. That disposition was a tremendous, politically potent change from the angry pessimism of traditional conservatism.
(2) Beliefs matter. Watching Reagan stand for the same principles from October 1964 through the end of his presidency 24 years later was an amazing lesson in the power of consistency. He did not swing back and forth with each flurry of news stories or polling data. Instead, Reagan was willing to define a big vision of a bright future and keep repeating it until the country came to share his vision. Reagan did not change nearly so much as the country changed. Our approach to issues such as welfare reform, tax cuts, balancing the budget, military and intelligence strength, and how to govern as a majority were learned from Reagan.
(3) If you convince the American people, they will convince the Congress. The most successful president since FDR (whom he had studied and supported) at moving the American people and getting them to move the Congress, Reagan understood that Washington would reject his policies, but he also was confident most Americans would support them. In 1994, we received the largest one-party increase in votes in an off-year election in American history (9 million extra votes), while at the same time, the Democrats slid by one million votes. The shift of 10 million votes from 1990 to 1994 was not won in Washington. It was won in the precincts of America. Washington then changed in response to that victory.
(4) Ideas can be complex but the language has to be simple. Reagan advocated the economics of von Mises, Hayek, and Friedman, but he did it in simple language. He was always talking to the American people--not to the elites--and that meant the language had to be grasped by them. He understood Margaret Thatcher's proposition that first you had to win the argument, and then you could win the vote. He was prepared to argue over very complex ideas, but he understood that the argument itself had to be simple. Reagan did not dumb down his speeches or turn them into generalities. Indeed, if you read his best speeches, you will be surprised by how many specifics they include. Our greatest political success in the House may have been in 1996 when we won the argument over reforming Medicare and ran nine points ahead of the Republican presidential nominee among seniors. That margin was the key to our becoming the first reelected Republican House majority since 1928. It was a Reaganite victory that came from our being very simple and very clear about our message.
(5) Movements defeat candidate-centered campaigns. Reagan started the Republican gubernatorial primary in 1966 behind a popular mayor of San Francisco and won decisively. He took on a sitting president (Gerald Ford) in 1976 and almost won the nomination--something no one has done in American history. In all his campaigns, Reagan relied on a broad movement of activist supporters who surrounded and energized the campaign far beyond the reach of the official campaign structure. It was a very different model from the modern centrally controlled consultant-dominated system, and while it was far less efficient, it was far more effective.
(6) Perseverance is indispensable in a leader who would change a country. Think of all the years Reagan spent traveling the country talking to large and small audiences. Imagine the years of doing a weekly radio show while Jimmy Carter presided over a decaying economy and diminishing morale. Imagine the four decades' commitment to the defeat of communism dating back to 1947 when he first encountered Communists in the Screen Actors Guild and began studying what made them favor a totalitarian system. This was a man of enormous patience.
(7) Politics is like vaudeville. No matter how often the entertainer performs, each crowd is seeing him for the first and perhaps only time. This morally obligates the performer to give his best. It was this understanding of a very old tradition that enabled Reagan to be so stunning day after day and event after event. He could take the same cards out of his coat pocket, reshuffle them, and give a speech he had given 30 times but turn it into a sparkling moment for this audience at this moment in this hall. It was that sense of doing your very best in the here and now combined with the depth of thought and preparation behind the cards that made him so powerful a public speaker.
I feel privileged to have supported and worked with President Reagan. I know that without him we would not have had the Contract With America, and we would not have won and kept a Republican majority in the Congress. Conservatives who hope to keep that majority should think long and hard about the lessons President Reagan taught us.
Former speaker of the House Newt Gingrich is the author of the Civil War novel Grant Comes East.
This is something that needs to be hammered home. Having a cheerful tone while espousing the things in which you believe, especially if those things are correct, is powerful.
THREE the hard way.
"America is too great for small dreams" -- RR
A direct result of Nixon/RINO leadership. Other than lower taxes and national defense, they stand for nothing but, "We're not as bad as the Democrats." Witness the spending under Bush.
Six short years later, Ronald Reagan not only won the election by a surprising margin but also carried the Republicans into control of the Senate and helped them pick up 33 seats in the House.
I guess conservatism sells when an honest effort to explain it is made.
Thanks to the rise of Reagan Democrats and their conversion into Republicans, by 1994 we had enough candidates and enough potential voters to be competitive for the first time since the Great Depression.
No thanks to the "moderates" who think elections are bought with advertising money.
In all his campaigns, Reagan relied on a broad movement of activist supporters who surrounded and energized the campaign far beyond the reach of the official campaign structure. It was a very different model from the modern centrally controlled consultant-dominated system, and while it was far less efficient, it was far more effective.
This is where Bill Simon Really blew the California gubernatorial election in 2002. After winning the primary on the strength of a grass roots campaign, the CAGOP took over and killed the grass roots effort over the long summer when they should have been organizing. Simon went invisible for five months and the energy in his campaign died.
The New Majority "moderates" think that money buys elections. Reagan knew that empowering the grass roots with ideas not only wins elections, it effects substantive change.
Conservatives who hope to keep that majority should think long and hard about the lessons President Reagan taught us.
"Moderates" should think long and hard about the lessons Nixon taught them too.
Reagan was a majority of ONE!
The cowards in the congress that call themselves republicans can all take a one way trip to IRAN.
Take the dnc traitors with you and don;t let the door hit you on the way out.
I took the opportunity of the week-long remembrance to visit a number of websites and download the transcripts of Reagan's speeches and audios where they existed. I then saved them onto CD-Rs. I'm even giving the audio to my sister in a 3-CD set as a Christmas gift.
When you listen to the audios and read the speeches, you see the same thing spoken in all of them - America is the greatest country in the world, freedom is the most important export we have, faith in God is important for a society to function properly, peace is won by vanquishing foes not appeasing them, government is too big and taxes are too high. Simple points spoken over and over again.
The only thing that really changes are the topical jokes (or jokes making fun of his age if he didn't have enough topical material). But it's simply amazing (and I give large credit to Peggy Noonan for this) how often Reagan said essentially the same thing re-written just a little bit differently each time to fit the audience whether he was addressing the Congress, a campaign stop or a crowd in Berlin.
Reagan stood for faith, freedom, country and tax cuts. And the message sold for his 30 years of political life.
With all due respect to Mr. Gingrich, I think this article is being written ten years too late. In retrospect, the 1994 election really only showed us that the GOP was far more effective as an opposition party than they have been as a governing party.
I know the gipper was great.
But nobody ever talks about his inability to retain the GOP majority in the Senate in 1986.
How come this is overlooked?
1) It's never too late.
2) The "old" Evil Empire may be vanquished but there's always another Evil Empire waiting to take its place.
Candidates for the “new” Evil Empire:
(Who will claim the new, improved struggle for world domination?)
France
Bilderbergers
Children of the Bilderbergers
The Kennedys
The Clintons
The ruling elite (you know who you are!)
Bottom half of the I.Q bell curve (France)
People who voted for Clinton twice --(should you be exempt from this list if you are too disorganized to think? Guess not. The criteria for wannabee world dominators is not competence, but whether you crave telling other people what to do)
Hollyweird
The corrupt, power-crazed media
Leftover Communists (nah, they’re just too pathetic)
The Nobel Peace Prize Committee
Nominate a candidate ---______________________________________
(Self-nomination is okay.)
You can tell more untruths accidentally than a professional liar could on purpose. Simon was all over the place calling Davis names and accusing Davis of things he did not do. Simple Simon was given tons of coverage by the media from the day he announced. They knew he was a joke as a candidate and the more people saw him the fewer votes he would get.
Simple Simom thought 30 percent of the voters could cast 51 percento of the vote. Simon was the most vitriolic and obnoxious candidate in my memory. He was so unlikable an unwinable candidate beat him. Simon could not beat Gray Davis.. that says it all.
There are not enough conservatives in California to elect anyone. There are not enough conservatives in the USA to elect a president.
Bill Clinton had to be a NEW Democrat to win becuase there are not enough liberals to elect a Democrat. Republicnas have to be Compasionate Conservatives to win becuase there are not enough conservatives to win.
And as far as Dick Nixon, what part of Nixon wining the biggest popular vote victory in our history escapes you. Nixon won 61 to 38 percent in 1972. Reagan only got 58 percent in 1984. FDR never approched 61 percent. Neither did Ike or JFK. Lincoln didn't and niether did Jackson, or Wilson just to name a few.
The best presidential vote getter in history was Richard M. Nixon.
Only 34 percent of the voters are Conservative.
Because with exception of Clinton in 1998 and Bush in 2002 every President's party has lost seats in the midterms since the 1930s.
Polishing your reputation by slander again, eh? Unfotunately for your thesis, the complaints of "when is this campaign going to get going?" with promises from ElkGroveDan that it would all start to happen after Labor Day were all over this website.
Simon was the most vitriolic and obnoxious candidate in my memory.
Vitriolic? Simon? LOL! He was enough of a milktoast that he got rolled by his own Party. He didn't hold Russo accountable for accepting CAGOP money in return for forging his signature on the Log Cabin letter. He didn't even blame his staff when Rollins et al. set up that bogus campaign check photo. He didn't complain about the crappy work he was getting out of Wilson Jones. He even understated the size of the deficit. He made few references to Davis' obvious corruption.
There are not enough conservatives in California to elect anyone. There are not enough conservatives in the USA to elect a president.
Just keep trotting that lie Tator, because you've got nothing else to say. California voters gave wide margins to Props 187, 209, and 22. When the issues are well defined, they go conservative more often than not. Even after Simon's most incompetent campaign in memory, despite having been outspent two to one, AND despite nothing less than backstabbing by the CAGOP and RINOs like you, he still came to within just over 300,000 votes with well over a million registered Republicans having failed to turn out.
Bill Clinton had to be a NEW Democrat to win becuase there are not enough liberals to elect a Democrat. Republicnas have to be Compasionate Conservatives to win becuase there are not enough conservatives to win.
False again. Bill Clinton won because of Ross Perot who ran on a campaign of fiscal responsibility. Can't you get any facts straight?
The best presidential vote getter in history was Richard M. Nixon.
Oh, you mean the guy who lost to Kennedy and then lost again running for governor of his home state? And then, in the next election, the gubernatorial victor was, who? You know, the The only election in which he ran well was against George McGovern! Nixon left the Republican Party in a shambles, and it wasn't just Watergate.
People like you and Bill Simon think that 34 percent of the voters can cast 51 percent of the votes.
First of all, there was a 49% turnout for the gubernatorial election in 2002. Had 34% of the voters turned out for Simon, he would have won, handily. Second, the record of ballot propostions shows the error in your thinking:
People like you think that swing voters can't be convinced to vote for conservative positions on issues.
How ignorant do you have to be to believe that?
LBJ won a higher percentage of the popular vote in 1964 than RMN in 1972. As such, LBJ holds the record, not Nixon.
In fact, Nixon is 3rd all time in popular vote margins:
1. LBJ - 1964: 61.05%
2. FDR - 1936: 60.8%
2. RMN - 1972: 60.7%
No, that would be RR, who rec'd 54,455,075 votes in '84.
In '72 Nixon rec'd 47,169,911, and RMN did beat McGovern with a larger margin of popular votes than RR bested Mondale with, but RR topped RMN's total in EC votes.
The top three in EC votes would be:
RR - 525 ('84)
RMN - 520 ('72)
RR - 489 ('80)
Oh yeah, right. That was all Reagan's fault.
Didn't have something to do with the self-satisfaction of many supposed Reagan supporters who after the 1984 landslide and the Tax Reform Act of 1986 (that got us two simplified 15% and 28% tax brackets) just got (1) Overconfident and (2) LAZY and simply decided to stay home on election day?
Do you remember how close so many of those races for the Senate were that were lost? Most were by less than 1%!!
The crime was the abandonment by a fat, dumb, happy, and unappreciative base that allowed the Dems to retake the Senate and thus make havoc for the remaining two years of Reagan's term.
Makes one wonder how Reagan felt to have been abandoned by those who claimed to be his electoral friends and allies. Had the evangelical Christian base showed up at the polls like it is their duty to do, the Senate would not have fallen into enemy hands.
The battles still raged, Reagan continued to fight for all of us, in spite of the betrayal by his base, but so many had already started enjoying their personal cuts of the economic recovery, left the fray, and retreated to a pre-1980 style non-involvement in politics.
Even though the base quit, we ought to be thankful that Reagan's resolve didn't weaken. In 1987, he stared down Gorbachev at Reykjavik, and Reagan won when GHWBush reaped the prize of Presdential victory and we witnessed the fall of Soviet Communism only 2 years later.
So many -- particularly in the conservative Christian community -- failed to remember that, "Eternal vigilence is the price of Liberty," and we got Dem control that ultimately economically skewered the GHWBush presidency.
Get some perspective. If you happened to be among those who didn't vote in 1986, the finger points at you, not Reagan.
Stupid elitists.
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