Grass Roots Issues Education is the Key to Winning Elections, Advice from Ronald Reagan

VIA EMAIL, 6/1/2009 by Suzanne Gallagher (Hat tip: Jeff Limón) - Phyllis Schlafly in her December ’08 newsletter (sometimes it takes awhile to read these excellent articles) came to a compelling conclusion, one that I have touted for some time. She noted that it is education of the Grass Roots that wins elections, not connections with people in high places. Schlafly: We Must Educate Leaders To Be Conservatives

Phyllis points out the history lessons to be learned...

“After the 1964 defeat, conservatives were persuaded to support the moderate candidate who had cozied up to the Rockefeller establishment, Richard Nixon, instead of Ronald Reagan who was also available. In preferring Nixon and electing him in 1968, conservatives mistakenly overemphasized experience.

After Republicans lost massively in the post-Watergate Congressional elections of 1974, Ronald Reagan spent six years working the grassroots, speaking at dinners, answering audience questions…making radio broadcasts, and learning from average Americans. By 1980, Reagan had sharpened his conservative philosophy in sync with what Americans want from their leaders…”

See? The candidate positioned himself long before the campaign season began!

Phyllis notes that,

“Increasingly, voters believe we have one-party government: the party of the D.C. insiders who socialize together, appear in the media, and give handouts and bailouts to their powerful friends and favored constituencies. Conservatives can defeat that party by campaigning from the ground up, not the top down.

While Obama's supporters fight over who gets which government titles and bask in favorable media attention, conservatives should not only educate the grassroots, but also educate all potential candidates. It would be a mistake to leave the selection of the issues in the next election to the media. When prominent members of the media chaired the 2008 presidential debates, many of the most vital issues were simply excluded, such as immigration, illegal aliens, abortion, same-sex marriage, jobs, and trade policies. We can't afford to wait for a handful of state primaries in 2012 to get vital issues out on the table for debate.

Republicans should follow Ronald Reagan's example and focus on the grassroots with a campaign that will be a learning process for both the voters and potential candidates. It is important to educate the voters about the issues, and it's even more important to educate all those who are vying to become our leaders. That can best be done by having them criss-cross the country, speak to small groups, and open themselves up to questioning about real issues. Only then can they demonstrate that they are authentic rather than pseudo-conservatives.”

Advice from Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan sharpened his own conservative philosophy and his vision of where America as he traveled the country speaking to groups prior to his nomination for President. His speech to the 1975 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) spelled out his formula:

“We have been through a disastrous election. It is easy for us to be discouraged, as pundits hail that election as a repudiation of our philosophy and even as a mandate of some kind or other. But the significance of the election was not registered by those who voted, but by those who stayed home. . . .

It is possible we have been persuasive to a greater degree than we had ever realized. Few, if any Democratic Party candidates in the last election ran as liberals. . . . Bureaucracy was assailed and fiscal responsibility hailed. . . . Make no mistake, the leadership of the Democratic Party is still out of step with the majority of Americans. . . .

I don't know about you, but I am impatient with those Republicans who after the last election rushed into print saying, "We must broaden the base of our Party" — when what they meant was to fuzz up and blur even more the differences between ourselves and our opponents.

It was a feeling that there was not a sufficient difference now between the parties that kept a majority of the voters away from the polls. When have we ever advocated a closed-door policy? Who has ever been barred from participating?

Our people look for a cause to believe in. Is it a third party we need, or is it a new and revitalized second party, raising a banner of no pale pastels, but bold colors which make it unmistakably clear where we stand on all of the issues troubling the people?

Let us show that we stand for fiscal integrity and sound money and above all for an end to deficit spending, with ultimate retirement of the national debt. Let us also include a permanent limit on the percentage of people's earnings government can take without their consent (I included that in my “issues” paper! see attached). . . . Let us explore ways to ward off socialism. . . .

A political party cannot be all things to all people. It must represent certain fundamental beliefs which must not be compromised to political expediency, or simply to swell its numbers. I do not believe I have proposed anything that is contrary to what has been considered Republican principle. It is at the same time the very basis of conservatism.

It is time to reassert that principle and raise it to full view. And if there are those who cannot subscribe to these principles, then let them go their way.”

Seems like yesterday that Reagan spoke those words…..they are true today!