Takeover by Richard A. Viguerie Read Free Book Online Page B

work—and we shall win in November! 6
    Nixon was no conservative, but he knew better than anyone how the Republican establishment worked, and he was prepared to help Goldwater on the theory that the favor would be repaid.
    He was right. On January 22, 1965, just two days after Lyndon Johnson was sworn in for his full term as president, Goldwater and Nixon attended a meeting of the Republican National Committee.
    Goldwater turned to Nixon during his remarks and to express his gratitude for the extraordinary effort Nixon made on his behalf, told him: “Dick, I will never forget it.” He then added, “If there ever comes a time, I am going to do all I can.” 7
    In 1966, while Reagan campaigned for governor of California, Nixon traveled the country, stumping for Republican candidates, hammering Johnson on foreign policy, and reestablishing his credibility with the leaders of the Republican Party. Nixon’s political resurrection began to take shape.
    In his 1966 run for governor, Reagan defeated Brown with a campaign that emphasized law and order, wasteful government, welfare, overtaxation, and dealing with student disturbances at the University of California. 8
    Having defeated Brown by almost a million votes, Reagan proved the power of what, broadly speaking, became the Republican message on the national domestic policy front from the mid-1960s through the 1970s.
    Going into the 1968 presidential primary campaign season, Governor Reagan was probably the hottest political “property” on the national scene.
    Reagan was the charismatic standard-bearer for the new conservative movement, and he was the spokesman for millions of Americans who were beginning to see the Democrats as the party of wasteful government, welfare, overtaxation, and the coddling of criminals and student protesters. Ronald Reagan was a contender for the Republican presidential nomination, even if he hadn’t officially announced.
    As “hot” and charismatic as Reagan was in 1968, the inability of conservatives to unite to control the inner workings of theRepublican Party would launch Richard Nixon into the White House first, and ultimately place political power and control of the Republican Party firmly back into the hands of the “me-too” Republican establishment.
    If going into the 1966 campaign cycle it seemed that the only logical Republican candidates for president were progressive “me-too” Republicans, like Rockefeller and Romney, coming out of the 1966 Republican victories, the somewhat unanticipated resurrection of Richard Nixon suddenly put a new player on the field.
    Nixon didn’t fit neatly into the political landscape created by the fight between the mostly Eastern progressive Republicans and the new movement conservatives who had supported Barry Goldwater.
    And that’s the way Nixon wanted it.
    When Nixon was running in 1967, he made a point of meeting with conservatives in DC. As introductions were made and came around to Neil McCaffery, the head of the Conservative Book Club, Nixon said he didn’t know “we” had a book club.
    Establishment Republicans saw Nixon as a known quantity, and they knew that even if they didn’t like him, they could do business with him; the question was, would they even have to if Governor Romney continued to be the leading contender for the nomination?
    Those on the inside of the conservative movement viewed Nixon with skepticism as the architect of the “Fifth Avenue Sellout” to Nelson Rockefeller on the 1960 Republican platform, and as Eisenhower’s silent partner in the growth of government and the continuation of the New Deal during Ike’s presidency. But to many grassroots Republicans, Nixon’s strong anti-Communism, his support for Goldwater, and his tough talk on law and order made him look and sound like a conservative.
    There was also a strong feeling among many Republicans that the media had conspired to defeat Nixon and that Nixon had been cheated out of the presidency in 1960