Richard Viguerie on the Future of Conservatism

Richard Viguerie is known as "the funding father" of conservatives for his pioneering use of computerized direct-mail fundraising campaigns. Lately, he's become a strong critic of the Republican Party, saying that they deserved to lose Congress after casting off any pretense to being the party of limited government. A strong Ron Paul supporter during the 2008 election season, Viguerie also runs the popular site Conservative HQ.

A former secretary of Young Americans for Freedom, Viguerie continues to challenge his long-held beliefs, writing an anti-death penalty story for the liberal religious journal Sojourners this past summer.

Viguerie sat down with Reason magazine Editor in Chief Matt Welch at Freedom Fest in July to discuss what went wrong during the Bush years and what's going wrong under President Barack Obama.

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• matt welch
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[TenseAlcyoneus]

I'm a lifelong Republican. I spent 20 years trying to achieve Republican control of Congress. We did it. Then what happened? Did one law get repealed? Did one oppressive federal agency get disbanded? Did government shrink?

No. No. No.

I HATE the Republican leadership. They betrayed constitutional conservatives and libertarian-conservatives.

The Republican leadership must be ousted. Until that happens, I'm not giving anything - neither time nor money. Screw the RNC.

[glv80]

I often said, liberals should have loved the Bush Presidency. All they did was pay attention to the R next to his name. If one looks at Obama and Bush, there is hardly any difference when it comes to governance. Both are big government, excessive regulation, and fiscally insane.

[jefevonQ]

People need to quite calling Stalin 'left wing'! A dictator is just a dictator. They just use whatever political system they can to gain power. No one knows how ahead of time, even the person in question. Can you imagine the power available to an Evangelical right winger (neo-con) after a major terrorist attack that leaves many people, or a whole city, dead! Dictatorial theocracy anyone?

[Silvsilvchan]

Well, I wouldn't say that. I've met irrational libertarians who spent most of their time practitioning fallacious debate methods, strawmans and ad hominen and such. Like wise I have seen liberals who can keep a level head and be respectful, they're just rare. I guess kinda like how it was rare amoung conservatives during the Bush era? When you have to 'defend your guy' against all the slings and arrows (some of which -are- preposterous) you can become too zealous and over compensate.

[Silvsilvchan]

Apologies, you were just explaining Ralph Nader's belief. >> I made an assumption. And you know... assume makes an ass of you and me.

[Silvsilvchan]

I dunno. How can you consider Ron Paul's views on abortion or border security similar to them?

What are we talking about? Fusionism. That's where, you know, people who disagree here and there come together for more important causes. What do all those groups have in common? Lots on foreign policy, opposition to government spying on citizens, opposition to collusions.

Some corporations would still be corrupt. Just to a far more insignificant degree. =P Don't place words in my mouth please.

[caltrop69]

Whoa! How can you reconcile Ralph Nader's "you must install a seatbelt" with Objectivism or Libertarianism?

I will admit that Ralph Nader is consistent, but his "government protection of the ill-informed against the corrupt corporation" stance is a repugnant slippery slope.

Corporations are ONLY corrupt, because we have a government in collusion. If lobbyists couldn't find any ears on capital hill, they'd be unnecessary and meaningless.

[Silvsilvchan]

I agree with Fusionism to an extent. But part of it is identifying what is the most important issues that need to be fuzed on. I am a conservative leaning Libertarian. I can identify with paleo-conservatives, objectivists, and green Ralph Nader types. I can not, and will not identify with the neo-conservative, George Bush wing of the republican party. Before you can fuze on these important issues, say in the Republican party, you need to clean house. Those people? Need to be shown the door.

[haypenny]

Sorry - I need to clarify. They self-identify themselves as Conservative, on all major issues. People have been leaving both parties in droves and becoming Independents because they're tired of our weak, and/or corrupt politicians who don't listen to the people. I think Rasmussen, among others held this poll a couple months ago.

[DescentToCocytus]

I was looking for something more scientifically rigorous than a Gallup poll or equivalent. If we include those sorts of polls in the discussion, then we see that the number of people who identify as Republican has more or less stagnated, if not slightly decreased, since the time of the more scientific poll I found from May.

You're a self-proclaimed "skeptic", shouldn't you know that Gallup is the American Idol of demographic research?

[AngrySkeptic]

The most recent polls you could find were from April?

Either you are the worst internet user I've ever seen or you are an intellectually dishonest cretin.

[DescentToCocytus]

The newest polls I could find are from April and May of this year, and they show that the number of Americans who self-identify as Republican has plummeted to 21-22 percent--a roughly 25 year low. Care to point the way to those polls you are referring to?