Long-Time Leaders of Conservative Movement Unite in Support of Ted Cruz

[Dmitri Veans]

Long-Time Leaders of Conservative Movement Unite in Support of Ted Cruz

 

The old lions of the conservative moment—leaders with direct ties to the 1960 signing of the Sharon Statement by 90 members of Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) at William F. Buckley’s residence—are uniting around the presidential campaign of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) with passionate endorsements of his candidacy.

82-year-old Richard Viguerie, the pioneer in direct-mail fundraising, makes the conservative political case for Sen. Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign with the vigor and energy of a man five decades younger.

“Ted Cruz is the best conservative candidate since Ronald Reagan,” Viguerie tells Breitbart News in an exclusive interview.

“He’s what we’ve waited for ever since Reagan. He checks all our boxes.”

“He’s everything we’ve wanted in a candidate. He unites the party in a way that no other candidate can,” Viguerie adds.

In 1962 Viguerie, then 29-years-old, was named the executive director of YAF. For more than half a century, Vigurie has dedicated his life to the advancement of the modern conservative movement.

76-year-old Morton Blackwell, founder of the Leadership Institute, YAF member in the 1960s and long time Republican National Committeeman from Virginia, endorsed Cruz last week, saying he “has consistently demonstrated his deep commitment to conservative principles.”

“Yes, I support Ted Cruz,” Brent Bozell III, founder of the Media Research Center, tells Breitbart News in an exclusive interview.

Bozell was only five years old when the Sharon Statement was signed, but he has direct ties to the origins of the modern conservative movement. William F. Buckley, Jr. was his uncle and his father, Brent Bozell, Jr. was the ghost writer of Barry Goldwater’s 1960 classic Conscience of a Conservative.

“It’s clear cut that you are either with the establishment or you are with Ted Cruz. That is the new reality,” Bozell says.

“It is the Republican party that has disdain for conservatives,” he adds.

“Ted Cruz has made virtually all of them [in the Republican establishment] feel uncomfortable. The sin he commits is honoring his promise,” Bozell says. “What they, the GOP establishment, want is unanimity in dishonesty,” he notes.

“That’s why I urged Ted Cruz to run for President. I’ve urged him since about five minutes after he was elected to the Senate [in 2012],” Bozell explains.

It would be difficult to overstate the significance of the Sharon Statement—the principles of which tie all these leaders together—to the growth of the modern conservative movement, as the Heritage Foundation website notes:

In the fall of 1960, some 90 young conservatives met at the Sharon, Connecticut, home of National Review editor William F. Buckley, Jr., where they founded Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) to serve as an organization for young conservative activists. As their statement of principle, the group adopted the Sharon Statement, which was drafted by 26-year-old news­paper editor M. Stanton Evans. Written “at this time of moral and political crisis,” the statement is a succinct summary of the central ideas of modern American conservatism.

Among those principles are the following: Free will and moral authority come from God; political and economic liberty are essential for a free people and free institutions; government must be strictly and constitutionally limited; the market economy is the economic system most compatible with freedom; and Communism must be defeated, not merely contained.

This statement of principles denies the basic premises of Progressivism and liberalism. It also recalls earlier New England declarations about fundamental liberties—for example, the Essex Resolves and Massachusetts Constitution of 1780. While the language differs, the concerns for liberty remain the same over the centuries.

YAF became one of the most influential groups in the history of modern conservatism. In the early 1960s, it would provide the National Draft Goldwater Committee with critical manpower to draft and promote conservative Senator Barry Goldwater in the 1964 presidential election. YAF would also challenge the liberal agenda of groups like the National Student Association and Students for a Democratic Society, support American servicemen in Vietnam, and call for a firm stance against Communism around the world.

In order to turn principles into policy, political tactics are required, and Viguerie offers a clear tactical guide to a potential Cruz victory.

“There are six main voting blocs that comprise the Republican Party,” Viguerie tells Breitbart News.

“Five are right of center–economic conservatives, cultural conservatives, and the national security wing-the three legs of the stool that made up the old Reagan Coalition. Since Reagan, we’ve added the Tea Party and the Libertarian wings,” he says.

“The sixth bloc is the establishment and moderate Republicans.The only one that can unite the party in all 6 principle voting blocs is Cruz,” Viguerie adds.

Cruz is not only right on the issues, he is also the most able candidate Viguerie argues.

“Cruz is our best debater, our most articulate fighter,” he says.

Viguerie notes that Reagan Democrats can play a key role in a 2016 Republican Presidential victory.

“If Trump is not the nominee, lots of Democrats supporting Trump will not be interested in all but one of the other GOP candidates. Cruz is the only candidate running who can keep the Democratic voters with us,” Viguerie says.

“Voters consistently reject establishment Republicans. George W. Bush got half a million fewer votes than Al Gore in 2000,” he points out.

“Cruz appeals to Reagan Democrats. His position on the issues of importance to Reagan Democrats is basically the same as Trump, it’s just that Trump articulates it differently,” Viguerie notes.

“Cruz is there in terms of having the same positions on issues of importance to Reagan Democrats. He has a lot of the appeal Reagan had to Democrats on economic, national security, and cultural issues,” Viguerie notes.

Viguerie is upbeat about Cruz’s chances of winning in November, in part because he sees Cruz as a uniter.

“Not only can Ted Cruz win in November, he’s the one with the best chance of winning.”

“He may be the only one because Trump doesn’t unite the party. Cultural conservatives and libertarians have issues with Trump,” Viguerie notes.

“The number one thing you must have to win in this November election is for the party to be united. They’ve not been united since George H.W. Bush’s election in

1988. The one element Republicans have not had since then is someone who really takes the hide off of the Democrats. In 2016, Cruz is going to peel away those [Democratic lies],” Viguerie says.

“Cruz could win the general election in a landslide,” Viguerie concludes.

Media Research Center’s Bozell agrees with Viguerie that Cruz is the GOP’s best candidate. He also thinks Cruz will win his current battle with Donald Trump.

“There are two big differences between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz that explain why I think Cruz will prevail,” Bozell says.

“First, in every other clash between a competing candidate and Trump it was that candidate picking a fight with Trump. In this case it was Trump picking a fight with Cruz out of necessity,” Bozell notes.

“Second, in this case it is Trump who sounds angry. Cruz is responding with humor,” he adds.

“The more this plays itself out, the more it is being established that Cruz is the real conservative and Donald Trump is a charlatan,” Bozell concludes on the Trump-Cruz matchup.

“[The current political situation] is reminiscent of the 1960s, going into the 1970s,” the dawn of the modern conservative movement, Bozell says.

“The late Henry Hyde had this great saying – ‘conservatives were the great unwashed to the Republican establishment.’ Gerald Ford-Rockefeller Republicans have always viewed conservatives [with disdain]. This is how they viewed William F. Buckley, Barry Goldwater, and Ronald Reagan. This is how they view Ted Cruz today, ” Bozell adds.

“The establishment is putting up the whisper campaign [that a Cruz nominee] will be damaging to the GOP party brand.”

“There were those of us who felt you could not [work with the establishment],” he notes.

“There were some of us who thought until recently you might be able to work [with them],” Bozell points out.

“Can you name one accomplishment of the Republican Party [in the past two decades]?” he asks rhetorically.

“I can point to only two accomplishments—1. Welfare reform 2. Two Supreme Court justices. Besides that, not a single accomplishment,” Bozell answers.

The old lions of the conservative movement are tired of a Republican Party with so few accomplishments.

They appear to be unanimous in their belief that Ted Cruz is the presidential candidate who will change that.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/01/20/old-lions-of-conservative-movement-unite-in-support-of-ted-cruz/

[DE]

Rand Paul: Donald Trump Is a ‘Fake Conservative’

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by Ben Shapiro19 Jan 2016, 6:49 PM PST1,636

[Rhodes]

Apart from the "over all else" I am inclined to agree with that insight.

One could vote for Sanders and slap the Repub establishment pretty dam hard but that is cutting off ones leg to spite a toenail.

As far as conservative values those have never been clear lines. Some singular issues might fall into clear cut ground but most will not.

I guess it boils down to the destruction of the Repub establishment that has lied and misled for so long no one can tell who is who any longer. That should be a top priority for both sides if folks think it through. But if they thought things through we wouldn't be where we are would we. 

[DE]

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by Ian Hanchett19 Jan 2016, 5:23 PM PST3,646

[Virginia Foulk]

Well put them both out there - pres/vp. And Trump you take the VP. Anyone could look better in that spot, after Biddie Biden..

I'm beginning to like Rand Paul much better, but right now?  And if the GOP tries to put Paul Ryan there, or Marco Rubio - we'll have a very hard time against the Dems. And what about Sanders - he is taking over the colleges and youngers. Even my grandson said he'd vote for sanders; though I may have convinced him that Sanders and Hillary are a BIG NO.  He likes the free college and higher wages. After I explained a few things to him, he may have changed his mind. He'll be 19 this month, so he has a lot of growing and experience to face.

[Rhodes]

Frankly if Cruz was the reincarnation of Thomas Jefferson I still would not vote for him as I am obviously too stupid to know the Constitution is a living document subject to change on cultural whims.

Words mean things and I take them seriously when my liberty hangs in balance. I disagree with the Framers on much and question their motives at times but I do not bend their words.

I cannot vote for Cruz for either office, it is that clear, ideology is immaterial. But then I could not vote for BO either so that is how in touch with the American electorate I am.

Trump would not take the VP slot anyway, not in his nature as he is no professional politician, so this DT/TC ticket would become a nightmare choice for some and thus stay home. Perhaps not many but that is immaterial when principle is involved and I've a feeling it will be no romp as some see it. Time will tell.

[DE]

Ted Cruz finds eager religious audience in moderate New Hampshire

The Iowa front-runner is gaining here without softening his evangelically driven political message.

By Katie Glueck

01/20/16 05:13 AM EST

Ted Cruz's rhetoric is playing well with the slice of the party this is particularly religious. | Getty

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PLYMOUTH, N.H.—In a dimly lit bar covered in Red Sox memorabilia, a bundled up, beer-drinking crowd jostled to get a glimpse of Ted Cruz.

“Scripture tells us there’s nothing new under the sun,” said Cruz, standing on a stool.

Story Continued Below

“Amen!” a woman shouted back.

In New Hampshire, the second-most secular state in the country following only nearby Vermont, Cruz is leaning hard into his evangelical persona. He isn’t roaring like a preacher here the way he does in Iowa and South Carolina, but the religious rhetoric is virtually the same—and it plays well with a small but increasingly committed group of Christian conservative voters who appreciate the emphasis on faith, or at a minimum aren’t bothered by it.

“Absolutely, it’s a plus,” said Colleen Garrity, 55, of Cruz’s openness with his faith. Garrity is torn between Cruz and Chris Christie, while her husband, Tom, was won over by Cruz after seeing him speak at a diner earlier in the day in Tilton, N.H. “Faith is very important to us. We’re both Christians, we’re very involved in church, we make decisions based on, ‘What would Jesus do?’”

That’s a common thread among Iowa and South Carolina voters, but in flinty New Hampshire, voters and politicians alike are far less likely to wear their faith on their sleeves.

Not Cruz, who at stop after stop on his four-day swing through New Hampshire this week routinely asked voters to pray, railed against what he characterized as an assault on religious liberty and promised that members of the military would be able to pray unimpeded. He noted that his dad is a “pastor who travels the country preaching the Gospel.” And he dished out Bible references, chapter and verse.

At many of the stops, Cruz would ask voters ”that you commit, each and every day between now and Election Day just to lift this country up in prayer,” he said. Closing his eyes, he often continued: “Just one minute a day…saying ‘Father God, please continue this. Continue this revival across this country that we can pull back from this abyss.’ We’re here standing on the promises of Second Chronicles 7:14,” he says, and goes on to quote the Scripture.

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It’s all part of Cruz’s effort to emerge as the conservative standard-bearer in the Republican race, in New Hampshire and nationally. In New Hampshire, he is also focused on engaging tea party and libertarian support, but the thinking is that if he can unify evangelicals and other religious Christians—even if that’s a relatively small constituency—that puts him one step ahead of the many other candidates duking it out in New Hampshire’s particularly fractious field. Exit polls from 2012 showed that about 22 percent of those who voted in the GOP primary identified as evangelical or born-again Christians.

“The hope is two things: to have it be unified, and to have them come out,” said former New Hampshire House Speaker Bill O’Brien, a Cruz backer and his state co-chairman here. “Over the past several years, they’ve not been coming out to the degree that they should. This will help motivate them to do that. If all of the evangelicals come out and vote for Cruz, he’s got this primary won.”

Still, virtually no one expects Cruz to win outright in New Hampshire, a state where Donald Trump is routinely notching double-digit leads. But his campaign’s belief is that this cycle, in contrast to others, there is no obvious choice for the establishment pick, meaning that Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, John Kasich and Marco Rubio are all duking it out for similar pools of voters—and that there is space, fueled by evangelical and other conservative support, for Cruz to make a stronger-than-expected finish, beating expectations and generating momentum.

And there were signs during his New Hampshire swing that Cruz—who is currently between second and fourth in polls here, along with the other more centrist-leaning candidates — was sparking interest, and increasingly, commitments, from voters who stem from the most conservative wing of the party. In his first 12 stops on the trip, he often, though not always, spoke to full rooms.

Certainly, there were plenty of undecided voters who asked questions about Common Core, health care and paid family leave, and some Democrats who showed up out of curiosity. But there was also a steady flow of people who described themselves as conservative, including on social issues, and many said they had decided, or close to it, on Cruz.

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“I’m pretty much settled on Cruz,” said Sandy Boyce of Hill, N.H. “He’s a conservative, I like the direction he wants to take the country … and I like his family values. That’s very important.”

Trump draws support from a variety of GOP constituencies, including from evangelicals, but a day after a flap at Liberty University, in which he referred to an important Bible verse as “Two Corinthians” rather than “Second Corinthians,” an undecided voter in North Conway, N.H., who declined to give her name, noted approvingly of Cruz: “he knows it’s not Two Corinthians. That is a plus.”

By seeking to shore up that small slice of the party, however, there is the risk that Cruz lowers his ceiling in the state, turning off other voters who may be conservative on fiscal issues and even social issues but who are uncomfortable with too much overt discussion of religion. His more faith-minded lines here were rarely the biggest applause moments, as they are in Iowa and South Carolina. And sometimes points that bring crowds in those other early states to their feet—for example, that the Catholic charity Little Sisters of the Poor would find a contraception mandate-related case against them dismissed in a Cruz administration—were met with silence.

“We are Yankees first, evangelicals second,” said Fergus Cullen, the former chairman of the New Hampshire GOP. “We do have people who think faith is important, but we tend to be Yankees about it, more taciturn about it, you’re not going to necessarily know someone is a serious Christian because they won’t tell you about it.”

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Roger Dugre, 51, showed up at the Tilton diner to hear Cruz, undecided between him and Rubio. But he had reservations, before Cruz spoke, about the degree to which Cruz would emphasize religion. As the senator’s speech and subsequent question-and-answer session got underway, Dugre grew increasingly turned off.

“I was giving him a chance, but I’m not hearing a lot of political views, I’m hearing a lot of religious views,” he said, shaking his head part way during Cruz’s diner bull session. “That concerns me.”

The Texas senator brought up religious references and social conservatism on his own, as part of his routine stump speech (though he was not always buttoned up—his standard answer to questions about border security and ending sanctuary cities is “Yes, yes and hell yes”). But it also came up at the prompting of voters, another indication that Cruz is getting evangelicals and other religious Christians to turn out. In Tilton, for example, he was asked about his personal relationship with God, a question that was repeated again the following day in another city.

“Nobody wants a puritanical scold,” Cruz said in Tilton, appearing to be aware of focusing too heavily on religious language. “I’m not running to be preacher-in-chief. But Scripture tells us, ‘If you are embarrassed of me, I will be embarrassed of you.’ We should speak the truth and acknowledge our faith with a smile

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/01/ted-cruz-finds-eager-religiou...

[Rhodes]

Heh are they saying Cruz has a Yankee problem?

Tell him we understand... we have experienced that problem for about 200 years. As yet no solution has presented itself but hope remains.

[Dmitri Veans]

I continue to see a romp for the GOP this cycle and expect it to be in the margins of Reagan's victory. What the media keeps ignoring is that minorities are moving to the GOP in large numbers, they will keep the facade of elect-ability up until November when the Democrats get smashed just like they did with Reagan.

The polls into election day had Reagan losing by double digits but once the votes where counted he won with more states then any GOP candidate before him. We are heading for another wave election just like that. Then we turn our eyes to the senate in 2018 with 25 democrat controlled senate seats and only 8 republican. Only 15 of those are safe, it will be another killer for dems, the future is so bright for the GOP it is wonderful. 

(had to delete and re-due this because I stated turn our eyes to senate in 2016 meant 2018) sry

[DE]

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