back $700,000 in contributions—which meant that they lost $300,000 on the mailing, which was, and is, a substantial sum of money—but a friend of mine, John Carlson, who worked in President Ford’s press operation, later told me Ford got seven hundred thousand–plus cards, letters, and phone calls demanding that he veto the common situs picketing bill.
In a move that shocked Big Labor to its core, Ford broke his promise and vetoed the bill.
Reed Larson, who headed National Right to Work at the time, understood he was building and leading a movement, not just trying to raise money for next quarter’s budget. National Right to Work also added ninety thousand new donors to their file that, over time, probably gave tens of millions of dollars to the organization and more than repaid the $300,000 investment in the common situs mailing.
I received a lot of establishment media criticism back in the 1970s by those who saw political direct mail as having only one purpose—to raise money. I was regularly attacked in the national media if a mailing didn’t make a profit for the client. What these critics didn’t understand was that direct mail is advertising, and that it is a form of alternative media that educates voters, organizes activists to pass or defeat legislation, and identifies favorable voters and supporters—and raises money too.
However, all of the criticism I was subjected to stopped in a fewhours on Election Night November 1980. I could almost hear our critics in the political community and the media collectively saying, “Aha! That’s what Viguerie and his friends have been up to.”
When I started in 1961, direct mail was the second-largest form of advertising, second only to television. Today in 2014, direct mail is still the second-largest form of advertising.
Of course, the Left quickly began the process of trying to catch up with us conservatives!
I wasn’t initially worried because it had taken me more than fifteen years to do what I had done, and I thought it would take the liberals at least that long—but boy was I wrong.
Within three to four years, the Left had caught up and passed us in terms of using direct mail/direct marketing to advance their political-ideological agenda. It is my opinion today that the Left continues to be far better at using direct mail/direct marketing to advance their agenda than are conservatives.
In 2008, Barack Obama’s campaign had three million donors, and it had over four million donors in 2012; Mitt Romney had only a fraction of that number. As a general rule, the Democratic Committees are now far more professional in their direct-marketing campaigns than are the Republicans.
To fuel the rise of the New Right, we made a conscious effort to market our ideas and to bring new voters and new supporters, such as social conservatives, into the conservative movement. We worked to expand the number of voters who would support the candidates we backed and in particular to reach those conservative voters and potential supporters who were outside of the establishment Republican Party.
Many of the voters who backed New Right candidates and supported New Right organizations didn’t fit into the stereotypical picture of a Republican Party supporter as a white, suburban, or small-town middle-class businessman or corporate-type.
Our recruits were anti-Communist Eastern European immigrants; pro-life Catholic blue-collar workers; Evangelical Christiansconcerned about the erosion of values and lack of morality in popular culture—in short, they were the voters who had been ignored and disenfranchised by the Left and its me-too establishment Republican facilitators.
Contrast our efforts to expand the base of support for conservative candidates with today’s Republican Party that seems to go out of its way to exclude potential voters and supporters who don’t agree with the GOP establishment and especially its leadership on Capitol Hill.
Rather than work to bring new
In a move that shocked Big Labor to its core, Ford broke his promise and vetoed the bill.
Reed Larson, who headed National Right to Work at the time, understood he was building and leading a movement, not just trying to raise money for next quarter’s budget. National Right to Work also added ninety thousand new donors to their file that, over time, probably gave tens of millions of dollars to the organization and more than repaid the $300,000 investment in the common situs mailing.
I received a lot of establishment media criticism back in the 1970s by those who saw political direct mail as having only one purpose—to raise money. I was regularly attacked in the national media if a mailing didn’t make a profit for the client. What these critics didn’t understand was that direct mail is advertising, and that it is a form of alternative media that educates voters, organizes activists to pass or defeat legislation, and identifies favorable voters and supporters—and raises money too.
However, all of the criticism I was subjected to stopped in a fewhours on Election Night November 1980. I could almost hear our critics in the political community and the media collectively saying, “Aha! That’s what Viguerie and his friends have been up to.”
When I started in 1961, direct mail was the second-largest form of advertising, second only to television. Today in 2014, direct mail is still the second-largest form of advertising.
Of course, the Left quickly began the process of trying to catch up with us conservatives!
I wasn’t initially worried because it had taken me more than fifteen years to do what I had done, and I thought it would take the liberals at least that long—but boy was I wrong.
Within three to four years, the Left had caught up and passed us in terms of using direct mail/direct marketing to advance their political-ideological agenda. It is my opinion today that the Left continues to be far better at using direct mail/direct marketing to advance their agenda than are conservatives.
In 2008, Barack Obama’s campaign had three million donors, and it had over four million donors in 2012; Mitt Romney had only a fraction of that number. As a general rule, the Democratic Committees are now far more professional in their direct-marketing campaigns than are the Republicans.
To fuel the rise of the New Right, we made a conscious effort to market our ideas and to bring new voters and new supporters, such as social conservatives, into the conservative movement. We worked to expand the number of voters who would support the candidates we backed and in particular to reach those conservative voters and potential supporters who were outside of the establishment Republican Party.
Many of the voters who backed New Right candidates and supported New Right organizations didn’t fit into the stereotypical picture of a Republican Party supporter as a white, suburban, or small-town middle-class businessman or corporate-type.
Our recruits were anti-Communist Eastern European immigrants; pro-life Catholic blue-collar workers; Evangelical Christiansconcerned about the erosion of values and lack of morality in popular culture—in short, they were the voters who had been ignored and disenfranchised by the Left and its me-too establishment Republican facilitators.
Contrast our efforts to expand the base of support for conservative candidates with today’s Republican Party that seems to go out of its way to exclude potential voters and supporters who don’t agree with the GOP establishment and especially its leadership on Capitol Hill.
Rather than work to bring new
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