FreedomFest is an annual meeting of Austrian free market economists, Libertarians, Tea Party members, and others who just want more freedom in their lives. Viguerie is a brilliant speaker who has been at many Tea Parties, and had comments which I’ve hopefully summarized accurately below. He’s President of ConservativeHQ.Com.
A great book was the Starfish and the Spider. Cut a leg off the starfish, it grows another one. Cut the head off a spider, it dies. So did the Inca civilization, but that didn’t work against the Apache. That’s the advantage of a leaderless group, and that’s what the Tea Party is.
If McCain had been elected, the 2010 midterms would have been catastrophic for the conservative cause. All of the events which had happened would have been blamed on McCain, and they would have gained a huge victory in the midterms. Now with Obama in office and the Tea Party influence we have an actual chance to correct the problems with the country. Not a certainty, but at least a chance.
The history of these people (Progressives) is that they bide their times and they can wait a long long time. It would be a disaster if conservatives supported a third party. Three times I’ve been involved in helping conservatives take over the Republican party. This fourth time, I think we can take it over and keep it. Where our methods for Reagan involved an innovative direct mail campaign, today it’ll be the Internet which leveled the playing field with respect to communication. It gives us an opportunity to come to power with communications without gatekeepers who decide what is important and what’s not. That genie is out of the bottle and we are not ever going back to those days of gatekeepers. No credible case has ever been made as to how a third party could govern America and the opponent we face is the most serious and dangerous ever faced in this country.
Instead of a third party, what we need is a third force. The left has had enormous sucess with a third force. Think the environmental, the feminist, the race action groups. We need to paraphrase Mao TseTung to let a thousand conservative groups flower.
Audience questions:
“I’m a Libertarian. What would induce me to join forces with the Republicans when they haven’t advanced the cause of freedom”
I’ve never seen a Libertarian come forth with a plan to govern this country. If you’re a Libertarian the best way for you to influence the country is to work within and try to take over the Republican party.
“When Reagan came to power he gave the VP slot to a country club Republican. How do we avoid having this happen again?”
All day long these elected representatives see lobbyist after lobbiest whose sole goal is to increase government. We cannot go back to ignoring what happens in Washington after the election. I don’t trust the committees – don’t give money to the Republican or the state committees, give it directly to conservative candidates. I don’t trust those groups.
Right now we need someone with whom we can “park our vote” and right now it is Jim DeMmint. It may change later, but for now let’s make him the standard against whom other candidates can rank themselves. I try to look for one characteristic in a candidate and thats “Are they a boat – rocker” because we don’t have a lot of time left in this country. That’s people like Jim DeMint, Sharron Angle, and Rand Paul. And will they base their vote on the Constitution. Will they challenge and oppose the present Republican leadership?
It is the Tea Party people who have made the difference in Obama’s agenda. It had very little if anything to do with Bainer and McConnell and Michael Steele.
“Why wasn’t Ron Paul more sucessful at the presidential race?”
There’s a book called A Glorious Disaster. It’s like when Barry Goldwater launched his candidacy for president, he knew he’d never be president. He did it to launch the conservative movement. It’s been said “Barry Goldwater won the 1964 election. It just took 16 years to count the votes”. We need to support many of our candidates and maybe from them the next Goldwater or Reagan will arise.
But don’t wait for people to tell you what to do. Get up and rush to the sound of the guns.
