Paul Weyrich R.I.P.

by Richard A. Viguerie

Paul Weyrich was the linchpin of the conservative movement. Along with William F. Buckley Jr., Barry Goldwater, and Ronald Reagan, he was one of the persons most responsible for the movement’s successes.
Over decades, he was a founder or co-founder of virtually every major conservative organization. Single-issue groups, PACs, foundations, lobbying groups – you name it, and, chances are, he had a hand in it.

He co-founded the Heritage Foundation, the movement’s first think tank, and served as its first president. He created and chaired the Committee for the Survival of a Free Congress, which prevented a complete leftwing takeover of the federal government in the 1970s.

He founded the American Legislative Exchange Council, bringing together conservative state legislators from across the country, turning states into laboratories for conservative ideas and nurturing the careers of future governors and members of Congress.

Through the Free Congress Foundation and other organizations, he trained thousands of conservative activists. He worked with Jerry Falwell to create the Moral Majority, and helped bring tens of millions of religious conservatives into politics for the first time and made the GOP, for a time, the nation’s majority party.

In the 1990s, he laid the groundwork for conservative broadcasting with National Empowerment Television and America’s Voice, and he trained activists who played a critical role promoting democracy in the former Soviet Empire.

For decades, it has been at Paul’s Washington offices that social conservatives and their allies gather weekly to discuss politics and policy.

Bill Buckley, who died earlier this year, was the conservative movement’s... Read more>>>>