Free Congress Foundation

'I Don't Want Everybody to Vote' – The Roots of GOP Voter Suppression

Submitted by Josh Glasstetter on Monday, 11/5/2012 1:56 pm

The lower the turnout tomorrow, the better Mitt Romney will do. It’s always been this way for Republicans. Anyone who doubts that needs to watch the video below. 

The media frequently reports on right-wing and GOP voter suppression efforts, but they rarely acknowledge the root cause – Republicans do better when fewer people vote. This is the driving force behind the GOP’s draconian voter ID laws and efforts to limit early voting, voter registration drives, and provisional voting.
 
The right wing and GOP have whipped up hysteria around voter fraud, which is virtually non-existent, in order to justify roadblocks to voting for millions of Americans. I’ll let Paul Weyrich explain why.
 
Weyrich is widely regarded as the “founding father of the conservative movement.” He founded ALEC and co-founded the Heritage Foundation, Moral Majority, Council for National Policy, and Free Congress Foundation, among others.
 
Speaking more than 30 years ago at a right-wing conference in Dallas, Weyrich set out the case for voter suppression. The right-wing and GOP are still acting on it to this day.
 
Watch:
"I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people. They never have been from the beginning of our country, and they are not now. As a matter of fact our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down."

 

Right Wing Leftovers

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Thursday, 12/10/2009 6:32 pm

Conservative Icon Paul Weyrich Passes Away

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Thursday, 12/18/2008 10:26 am

Paul Weyrich, widely regarded as one of the founding fathers of the conservative movement, has passed away:

Paul M. Weyrich, 66, who helped found the Heritage Foundation and at one time was one of Washington's most visible conservatives, died this morning. At his death, he was president and CEO of the Free Congress Foundation.

Heritage announced this morning: "Paul M. Weyrich, chairman and CEO of the Free Congress Foundation and first president of The Heritage Foundation, died this morning around 1 a.m. He was 66 years old. Weyrich was a good friend to many of us at Heritage, a true leader and a man of unbending principle. He won Heritage’s prestigious Clare Boothe Luce Award in 2005. Weyrich will be deeply missed. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family, including son Steve, who currently works at Heritage."

You can see all of our past coverage of Weyrich here.

Sarah Palin: Mike Huckabee’s Biggest Nightmare

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Wednesday, 9/17/2008 11:31 am

Last week, we were noting with amazement how Sarah Palin went from complete unknown to de facto leader of the right-wing movement in a matter of weeks:

Eagle Forum President Phyllis Schlafly, conservative cause prompter Richard Viguerie and Free Congress Foundation President Paul M. Weyrich - all considered movement founders - each gave The Times the same two-word answer to the question about the emerging leader of the right: "Sarah Palin."

"None of the above names - Romney, Gingrich, Huckabee, DeLay - will be the conservative movement's leader in the coming years," Mr. Viguerie said. "Governor Palin's VP nomination is huge. It changes conservative, Republican and American politics for the next 20 years."

Of course, this raises an interesting prospect for what happens to Mike Huckabee in 2012 if John McCain loses this year:  

The former Arkansas governor emerged as one of Palin’s most vocal defenders when he spoke shortly before she took the stage at the Republican National Convention earlier this month.

But depending on how this election shapes up, they could end up political rivals for a future presidential bid with narratives that overlap and appeal to the same constituency.

“I think in a lot of ways, they’re pretty similar figures,” said Jay Barth, a political scientist at Hendrix College in Conway. “Their kind of personal style has some similarities to it. I think she really does cut into his turf significantly.”

Palin’s pick as John McCain’s running mate energized evangelicals, especially those who had been worried that he would choose a running mate who would support abortion rights. She’s also sided with the majority evangelical view in opposing gay marriage and expressing a desire to see creationism discussed alongside evolution in schools.

Those positions cut into Huckabee’s base of support among evangelicals, who were attracted to the Southern Baptist minister for his conservative stance on social issues. And, with a quick wit, Huckabee was able to make up for the lack of name recognition with an ability to grab the limelight.

But Palin—who’s selling herself as a “hockey mom” who hunts moose—is now dominating that limelight. If McCain loses in November, she could become the next in line for the GOP.

Back when he was running for the nomination, Huckabee saw Mitt Romney as the biggest threat to his efforts to secure his position as the Right’s favorite candidate and was absolutely merciless in attacking him, and while he might be willing to take a back seat to Palin at the moment in order to help John McCain’s campaign, he probably won’t be so deferential down the line if he finds himself in a face-to-face showdown with Palin for the Right’s support.

A Star is Born

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Friday, 9/12/2008 9:26 am

You have to admit that it is rather amazing that an unknown, one-term governor of a sparsely populated state can not only be tapped as a major ticket vice-presidential candidate but can, in doing so, simultaneously become the new de facto leader of the conservative movement:

Gov. Sarah Palin has seemingly overnight become the leading candidate for future leader of the conservative movement in the nation - regardless of whether she and running mate Sen. John McCain capture the White House in November.

Mr. McCain and Mrs. Palin, the governor of Alaska, were invited to address this weekend's Values Voters Summit in Washington but are expected to be no-shows, leaving only Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich as two of the biggest political names scheduled to address the conclave of social conservatives.

Yet, neither the former Massachusetts governor nor the former House speaker tops the list of people conservatives are talking up as the next top leader of their movement.

Asked who that leader would be, Mr. Gingrich gave The Washington Times a two-word answer: "Sarah Palin."

Even more amazing is that Palin, with almost no discernable record of actually pushing or accomplishing anything on the Right Wing's agenda during her short time in office, has somehow managed to displace proven right-wing stalwarts like Tony Perkins and Mike Huckabee as the new leader of the movement: 

[Tony] Perkins has his admirers, but he and Mr. Romney look almost puny going up against Mrs. Palin - at least for now.

"The movement has a reasonably strong bench but no clearly identified leader coming from that bench right now," said Let Freedom Ring President Colin Hanna. "Tony Perkins is as close to being that next generation of leader as anyone."

Eagle Forum President Phyllis Schlafly, conservative cause prompter Richard Viguerie and Free Congress Foundation President Paul M. Weyrich - all considered movement founders - each gave The Times the same two-word answer to the question about the emerging leader of the right: "Sarah Palin."

"None of the above names - Romney, Gingrich, Huckabee, DeLay - will be the conservative movement's leader in the coming years," Mr. Viguerie said. "Governor Palin's VP nomination is huge. It changes conservative, Republican and American politics for the next 20 years."

Perkins and Huckabee have dedicated nearly their entire political careers to advancing the conservative agenda and yet, in the span of two weeks, have seen their rightful positions at the movement's forefront entirely usurped by someone who, just two weeks ago, nobody had ever heard of.  

Weyrich Repents, Again

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Wednesday, 4/9/2008 3:32 pm

Things have not been going very well for Paul Weyrich lately.  First, he endorsed Mitt Romney for President, but when Romney was forced to drop out, he threw his support behind Mike Huckabee.  Then, when Huckabee too dropped out, Weyrich apparently had a crisis of conscience and confessed his sins to his allies on the Right at a meeting in New Orleans last monthy: 

Weyrich, a Romney supporter and one of those Farris had chastised for not supporting Huckabee, steered his wheelchair to the front of the room and slowly turned to face his compatriots. In a voice barely above a whisper, he said, "Friends, before all of you and before almighty God, I want to say I was wrong."

In a quiet, brief, but passionate speech, Weyrich essentially confessed that he and the other leaders should have backed Huckabee, a candidate who shared their values more fully than any other candidate in a generation. He agreed with Farris that many conservative leaders had blown it. By chasing other candidates with greater visibility, they failed to see what many of their supporters in the trenches saw clearly: Huckabee was their guy.

In what was perceived to be a public act of penance for his earlier support of Romney, Weyrich signed on to an ad warning John McCain that the idea of naming Romney as his running mate was “utterly unacceptable” and that doing so would destroy the GOP’s long-standing ties with its right-wing base.

And that seemed to be the end of it … until The American Mind reported that Weyrich’s Free Congress Foundation had quietly sent out a press release trying to distance Weyrich from the anti-Romney ad: 

Recently I received a phone call from someone asking if former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney should be Arizona Senator John McCain’s selection for Vice President of the United States.

I said, “No” because I did not think this was the best path for Romney right now; nor was it, in my view, the right fit for McCain. My understanding was that this was to be a personal letter to the Senator; it was not clear to me that this was to be an advertisement.

Thus, I now request that my involvement in this effort be disregarded as this effort to influence the Senator moves on.

If Weyrich is to be believed, he either didn’t read the letter or didn’t know that it was going to be made public.  Of course, even if that was the case, the text of the ad, with Weyrich’s signature attached, was made public a few days before it ran, giving him plenty of time to disavow it or demand that his name be removed.  He did neither, choosing instead to furtively issue a press release to a conservative blog begging that his role in this entire imbroglio simply be "disregarded."

McCain’s Delicate Dance

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Monday, 2/4/2008 4:58 pm

With John McCain seemingly poised to emerge from Super Tuesday as the de facto front runner in the Republican primary, the question will become just how much he intends to try and make nice with the Religious Right base that does not much like him.

As the McCain campaign admitted last year, his previous efforts to win them over were entirely half-hearted and purely political, but now that he might very well become the nominee, it looks as if some on the Right might be starting to warm up to him out of political necessity:

Republican presidential candidate John McCain today publicly thanked two prominent conservative Christian leaders who have rallied to his defense in recent days.

``I was very pleased to see comments made by people like Tony Perkins and Dr. Richard Land,'' McCain told reporters after a rally in Nashville, Tennessee. ``I appreciate the words that they have been using.''

Perkins, head of the Family Research Council, a conservative public policy group, and Land, a leader in the 16- million member Southern Baptist Convention, have criticized McCain in the past. Perkins told the New York Times that he has ``no residual issue with John McCain,'' while Land told the newspaper McCain ``is strongly pro-life.''

But even in accepting this praise, McCain went out of his way to make it clear that it was not he who did the reaching out :

“I will continue to reach out to all parts of the party but I did not call anyone,'' the Arizona senator said today. McCain's acknowledgement that he is not proactively reaching out to conservative leaders comes a day after he told reporters that he doesn't listen to conservative Rush Limbaugh's radio show.

Should he win the GOP nomination, McCain will undoubtedly change his tune on this issue – but quotes like this won’t be easily forgotten

McCain seems distinctly uninterested when asked questions concerning abortion and gay rights. While campaigning in South Carolina, he told reporters riding with him on his bus that he was comfortable pledging to appoint judges who would strictly interpret the Constitution in part because it would reassure conservatives who might otherwise distrust him.

"It's not social issues I care about," he explained.

Thus, it comes as no surprise that right-wing activists who care only about social issues are attacking him, such as BOND’s Jesse Lee Peterson, Faith and Action’s Rob Schenck, Janet Folger’s RoeGone front group, and various others:

"Most Texans I know think that McCain is the second-least desirable candidate" among all those who ran this year and with Rudy Giuliani out, he's now officially the worst, says Cathie Adams, head of Texas Eagle Forum. "McCain's policies are awful."

…

"He is no conservative. Yes, maybe on the war, although many of us are not happy about the war," said Mitt Romney supporter Paul Weyrich, president of the Free Congress Foundation and a founder of the conservative Heritage Foundation and the Moral Majority. "McCain hates strong conservatives. McCain hates the religious right. Thus far he has made no overtures to us."

When it comes down to it, McCain needs the Right if he hopes to win the presidency – and some of the Religious Right’s political leaders seems to realize that they might have the upper hand at the moment, with Tony Perkins saying that what happens between McCain and the Right going forward entirely "depends on how bad he wants to be president. Really it does."

Who's Who At the Values Voter Debate

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Monday, 9/17/2007 12:53 pm
Below are short biographies of those who have been mentioned as participating in tonight's "Values Voter Presidential Debate" in Fort Lauderdale, Florida:

Katherine Harris: The Right’s Best Hope?

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Thursday, 9/7/2006 2:11 pm

Agape Press reports that some on the Right are concerned that the GOP is turning its back on its right-wing base and that doing so could have dire consequences in November.  

The Right’s recommendation? The GOP needs to work harder to support good Christian candidates – like Katherine Harris 

With the mid-term elections less than nine weeks away, Republican Party leaders are worried they could lose control of Congress -- and political observers feel that fear is justified.

Capitol Hill conservative icon Paul Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation says there could be huge changes ahead for the United States after the November elections. The GOP, he says, is in "deep, deep trouble." And according to Weyrich, an "anti-incumbency" attitude is sweeping the nation.

Rev. Rob Schenck, director of the National Clergy Council in Washington, DC, agrees with Weyrich's assessment, saying the Republican leaders have turned their backs on the grassroots of the Party, which is their strength. He contends Party leaders have forgotten that Christians "were really driving the revival of the Republican Party."

One case in point perhaps could be two-term U.S. Congresswoman Katherine Harris, a Florida Republican -- and professed Christian -- who on Tuesday overcame being abandoned by leaders in the GOP to claim the Party's nomination for the U.S. Senate. Fellow Republicans had criticized Harris for calling separation of church and state a lie, and for saying that not electing Christian candidates amounted to "legislating sin." Harris -- who observers say faces an uphill battle in November against the Democratic incumbent, Bill Nelson -- drew 49 percent of the vote in the Republican primary.

Instead of looking to conservatives like Harris, Schenck suggests that Republican leaders are leaning a different direction in their search for new leadership in the Party -- and they do not like depending on the "religious" voters for their wins, he adds.

Harris is currently tied to a bribery scandal, is constantly losing her staff,  barely won her primary and trails in the polls by nearly 40 points to her Democratic opponent, and has, according to some, basically lost her mind.

If the Right honestly believes that the GOP needs to support staggeringly incompetent candidates like Harris if it hopes to maintain control of Congress, then it is in “deep, deep trouble” indeed.  

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Free Congress Foundation Posts Archive

'I Don't Want Everybody to Vote' – The Roots of GOP Voter Suppression
SUBMITTED BY: Josh Glasstetter, Monday 11/05/2012, 1:56pm
The lower the turnout tomorrow, the better Mitt Romney will do. It’s always been this way for Republicans. Anyone who doubts that needs to watch the video below.  The media frequently reports on right-wing and GOP voter suppression efforts, but they rarely acknowledge the root cause – Republicans do better when fewer people vote. This is the driving force behind the GOP’s draconian voter ID laws and efforts to limit early voting, voter registration drives, and provisional voting.   The right wing and GOP have whipped up hysteria around voter fraud, which is... MORE >
Right Wing Leftovers
SUBMITTED BY: Kyle Mantyla, Thursday 12/10/2009, 6:32pm
According to Human Events, Free Congress Foundation has elected Former VA Governor Jim Gilmore as president and chief executive officer of the organization. A couple of activists even further to the right than the Family Research Council are demanding that FRC President Tony Perkins resign. The Susan B. Anthony List is now targeting Arkansas Senator Blanche Lincoln over her vote on health care reform. Roy Moore knows what Alabama public schools need: more God. Tea Party activists are gearing up for the 2010 elections and Sen. Jim DeMint hopes they'll help him... MORE >
Conservative Icon Paul Weyrich Passes Away
SUBMITTED BY: Kyle Mantyla, Thursday 12/18/2008, 10:26am
Paul Weyrich, widely regarded as one of the founding fathers of the conservative movement, has passed away:Paul M. Weyrich, 66, who helped found the Heritage Foundation and at one time was one of Washington's most visible conservatives, died this morning. At his death, he was president and CEO of the Free Congress Foundation.Heritage announced this morning: "Paul M. Weyrich, chairman and CEO of the Free Congress Foundation and first president of The Heritage Foundation, died this morning around 1 a.m. He was 66 years old. Weyrich was a good friend to many of us at Heritage, a true leader... MORE >
Sarah Palin: Mike Huckabee’s Biggest Nightmare
SUBMITTED BY: Kyle Mantyla, Wednesday 09/17/2008, 11:31am
Last week, we were noting with amazement how Sarah Palin went from complete unknown to de facto leader of the right-wing movement in a matter of weeks: Eagle Forum President Phyllis Schlafly, conservative cause prompter Richard Viguerie and Free Congress Foundation President Paul M. Weyrich - all considered movement founders - each gave The Times the same two-word answer to the question about the emerging leader of the right: "Sarah Palin." "None of the above names - Romney, Gingrich, Huckabee, DeLay - will be the conservative movement's leader in the coming years,... MORE >
A Star is Born
SUBMITTED BY: Kyle Mantyla, Friday 09/12/2008, 9:26am
You have to admit that it is rather amazing that an unknown, one-term governor of a sparsely populated state can not only be tapped as a major ticket vice-presidential candidate but can, in doing so, simultaneously become the new de facto leader of the conservative movement:Gov. Sarah Palin has seemingly overnight become the leading candidate for future leader of the conservative movement in the nation - regardless of whether she and running mate Sen. John McCain capture the White House in November.Mr. McCain and Mrs. Palin, the governor of Alaska, were invited to address this weekend's... MORE >
Weyrich Repents, Again
SUBMITTED BY: Kyle Mantyla, Wednesday 04/09/2008, 3:32pm
Things have not been going very well for Paul Weyrich lately.  First, he endorsed Mitt Romney for President, but when Romney was forced to drop out, he threw his support behind Mike Huckabee.  Then, when Huckabee too dropped out, Weyrich apparently had a crisis of conscience and confessed his sins to his allies on the Right at a meeting in New Orleans last monthy:  Weyrich, a Romney supporter and one of those Farris had chastised for not supporting Huckabee, steered his wheelchair to the front of the room and slowly turned to face his compatriots. In a... MORE >
McCain’s Delicate Dance
SUBMITTED BY: Kyle Mantyla, Monday 02/04/2008, 4:58pm
With John McCain seemingly poised to emerge from Super Tuesday as the de facto front runner in the Republican primary, the question will become just how much he intends to try and make nice with the Religious Right base that does not much like him. As the McCain campaign admitted last year, his previous efforts to win them over were entirely half-hearted and purely political, but now that he might very well become the nominee, it looks as if some on the Right might be starting to warm up to him out of political necessity: Republican presidential candidate John McCain today... MORE >
Who's Who At the Values Voter Debate
SUBMITTED BY: Kyle Mantyla, Monday 09/17/2007, 12:53pm
Below are short biographies of those who have been mentioned as participating in tonight's "Values Voter Presidential Debate" in Fort Lauderdale, Florida: MORE >