Vanguards

IN WRITING ABOUT HISTORICAL COMPARISONS, ALWAYS REMEMBER THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT.

 For Tuesday, read Rosenfeld ch. 7 .

The Great Reordering

New Left and the 1972 D platform: "We must restructure the social, political and economic relationships throughout the entire society in order to ensure the equitable distribution of wealth and power."

The 1972 election:  president by county

Incomplete Reordering: The 1972 election in the House



NIXON DID NOT REALLY GIVE A [EXPLETIVE DELETED] ABOUT CONGRESS

Carter and the New South



The third-party flirtation (Rosenfeld 188-190).

In California, the confusing legacy of the American Independent Party.

Present at the creation (Rosenfeld 190-191). Paul Weyrich, who founded Heritage and the Free Congress Foundation, spoke of the moment of inspiration in 1969, when he was a staffer for Senator Gordon Allott (R-CO).

Start at 24:20



Drives home two key points:

• Parties as networks, and the rise of the partisan outside groups.
• The Iron Law of Emulation -- the Kingston Group.  [And see below...]

Other Publications and Groups

• The Public Interest (1965)
• Copying  DSG, House conservatives  in 1973 found the Republican Study Committee (Rosenfeld 190-191)
• Cato (1977)

Thanks to primaries, Reagan comes very close to defeating Ford for the 1976 nomination.  The delegate count:

• Gerald Ford........... 1,187 52.57%
• Ronald Reagan...... 1,070 47.39%

Not photoshopped:  outgoing vp Nelson Rockefeller expresses his view of the New Right.

Carter years 

• Bill Brock at RNC (Rosenfeld 200-204)
• The Thatcher model (p. 208).
• Explicitly worked to tie the GOP to supply-side economics.
• Moral Majority (1979) and the culture war-- less abortion than civil rights moves against schools
• ERA
• Inflation leads to artificial increases in housing values, and income-tax bracket creep -- Supply side economics

(Currently around 7 percent)


"Of a sudden, the GOP has become a party of ideas."  -- Daniel Patrick Moynihan 1981

Looking ahead to next week: "By the end of the decade, liberal calls abounded for the explicit emulation of conservative organizational innovations from the 1960s and 1970s" (Rosenfeld 248)