they are at its foundation, america's fortunate to have jim demint as its president. jim has been the de facto leader of the conservative movement for many many years. as that later he has understood something that most conservatives quite frankly have an understood and i think it's been to our detriment. that is why he wrote the book. the subtitle of the book is a 100 year war for the soul of the gop and how conservatives can finally win it. ..

haven't understood that they are in this battle and you're not going to win a battle with much less a war if you don't know that you are in a war and so i think it's very important for conservatives to understand the past, because if you don't understand the past, you're not going to know how to chart the future. we have had as a movement in my opinion our guns pointed at the wrong target. we have been focused on the democrats, pelosi, reid and obama and that has been a mistake because the opponent is inside the republican party. we are like those that had to wander through the desert for 40

years until the generation failed the flawed leaders that passed from the seat and we aren't going to get the political promise land until we get new leaders. the american voters do not agree with republican leaders. they don't like republicans. the media and the big government republicans have done a good job of blaming us conservatives, limited government conservatives, tea party for their losses but the opposite is the truth. the voters in 2006 and in 2008 took the congress and the white house away from the republicans. in my opinion having nothing to do with nancy pelosi, barack obama and harry reid. it had nothing to do in my opinion with the corrupt leadership of the big government republicans. people don't like them and when

they are the face of the opposition to the democrats, republicans seldom went. there have been for republican victories in my lifetime. that's a long time, but in those four the face of the opposition from the democrats was conservatives, limited government conservatives, 1980 under ronald reagan, 1984 under the reelection in 1994 contract with america, 2010 under the leadership of the tea party. in 2010, mitch mcconnell, karl rove, bush, none of them were to be seen. what people see as rush limbaugh, hannity, the tea party, rand paul, marco rubio and they gave republicans their biggest victory in 75 and 80 years. so, if we want to win in the future we are going to have to

make sure that we keep some advice in mind. and i guess my advice byte pairs racing james carville. they never 1992, carville said over and over again it's the economy, stupid. well, i paraphrased that and say it's the primary, stupid. it's the primary. because we can see as conservatives this wave coming and it could be up soon on the proportions that's going to drive many of them out of office this fall and if all it does is bring in more big government established with republicans we would have wasted the opportunity of a lifetime. so it is the primaries. the deadline hasn't passed as plenty of opportunity yet to file for office before the congress, for the state offices, the governor, lieutenant governor, city council, mayor's.

we just have to remember is the primary. and in my opinion, it is entirely possible if we focus on taking back the republican party from the big government republicans we can do that. and by 2016 and in 2017 actually governing america. now this war started actually 102 years ago. a lot of people think maybe it started with the tea party movement in 2009, 2010 or maybe in the gingrich revolution of 94 and certainly by 1980 when reagan was nominated and elected. it started literally 102 years ago when the roosevelt field to get the republican nomination for residents and went across the street in athens and started the party and split the republican vote allowing woodrow wilson and very progressive democrats to become president of the united states was busted and

42% of the vote. so, we've been fighting that wing of the party ever since. sometimes our opponents look like teddy roosevelt. sometimes tom dewey when mixing or ford or bob dole or john mccain or mitt romney. but in today it is john boehner, eric cantor, mitch mcconnell, lamar alexander. fighting that wing of the party. and as i said earlier, the voters reject them. and only when they are faced with in opposition to the democrats is a limited government constitutional conservatives do we score big victories. this very weekend as a matter of fact, eric cantor, kevin mccarthy committee meeting at the ritz carlton in many island florida meeting with the mainstream partnership and their objectives in the mainstream partnership is to crush them everywhere that means us

conservatives out to the mainstream partnership with eric cantor and parking are meaningless at this weekend are designed to crush conservatives. so, make no mistake about it. the opponents were in the republican party. they understand the problem. and they understand that we are the opponents. we here in the press about the conservatives have lost ground. they've reached their high water mark. they are on the downhill now and the tea party isn't what it used to be. the main street republicans don't see it that way. we are doing well as conservatives, but we have a good way to go. i remember back in the 50s when i got involved in the politics that was inherent county, the young republican chairman in the late 50s and in those days of the conservative movement rested on a two legged stool.

and economic issues, lower taxes, balanced budget, less government. and that was a two legged stool and we would get 40, sometimes 45, maybe 47%. very seldom do we get 51%. but only under the leadership of jerry falwell, ronald reagan they reached out and brought social conservatives into the conservative movement and now we are sitting on a three-legged stool and that changed everything we began to get them but we are winning and if you know it isn't very sturdy that is how we sold him one but now we are winning but we are not burning america and in my opinion in recent years there has been a leg added and that is the tea party and sometimes people say isn't it just like the economic conservatives they believe in the lower taxes?

yes but there is a big difference. i was a friday night keynote speaker in dallas texas for about 125 conservatives who gathered for a training session for the weekend. so first i go out on the stage and look at my watch and tell them where have you been? we have been waiting for you. but anyway i met in my hotel room with 12 or 15 liters below the speech afterwards and i remember there was a woman from corpus christi texas and she headed up the tea party group of about 3,000 people and periodically it was publicized in the paper local politicians with call and say i want to come to your meeting and she would say okay great. i will tell you what we will introduce you.

but you don't talk you listen to us. i noticed about al know just abm and many of them are in this room that would talk to the republican politician like that. in 1976 when he ran for president he had a wonderful phrase. he ran against the republican establishment and against the rockefeller wing he ran against four and mixing and said we needed neneednew leadership, nep unfettered by old ties and old relationships. the tea party is unfettered by old ties and relationships and so i think if we welcomed the tea party and with these other groups that ronald reagan launched we have a very strong and winning coalition.

part of what i just said there was a criticism of republican conservative leaders and i think to many conservative leaders not those in this room is too many of our friends became armed they became an appendage of the republican party and lost their independence. we need a lot of things, more organizations, more money, more publications that the number one thing that we need in my opinion above everything else is new leadership coming of the leadership that is unfettered to the republican port. along that line i am a big advocate of something that i call a third force. by establishing the third force organization we have tens of thousands of third force

organizations. think of all the unions out there and all of the organizations based. the anti-family organizations. if president obama called a meeting of all of the liberals environmental groups maybe 100,000. if jim demint called the meeting of the conservative free-market environmental groups there would be a handful. so they have the agency committee have their own source of funds and membership agenda, and they pull everybody their direction. you open up the fund-raising chairman, the speaking opportunities, membership chairman. so the opportunities to bring in new leadership for the cause is magnifying. very few people are really, really focused on politics.

but everybody is concerned about something in their community, their neighborhood, their schools. maybe it's a crying issue. maybe it is in overregulation of small business, property rights and many issues people are concerned. by the late 60s she was a hard-core leftist and she didn't do it by going to the committee. she got involved by the single issue group of the anti-vietnam war and that gave her the transition to all things liberal. so, if people are not interested in joining your conservative organization, think about what are the top issues in your community that you can get people involved in here. and there are many opportunities to get people involved in something even in public policy other than the next election.

i'm very optimistic and i will talk about that in just a minute. we shouldn't be under any illusion as to the challenge that we have in front of us. the leadership of every major institution in america saved possibly the raid against us. the views and values against the big governance, wall street, hollywood and other nonprofit organizations that goes on and on. all of these institutions, the leadership is already against us and if you haven't read another book out there, read of the ruling class. we were there in chicago for the conservative meeting and he's brilliantly analyzed how the

leaders of the republican party and democratic party basically have rigged the rules to themselves. it's important to understand that the magnitude of our problem and where we are -- where we need to go. if you heard what i just say you understand it, it's easy to be discouraged but we shouldn't be discouraged and im or optimistic than i have ever been in my life. for the 50 years i've been involved in politics at the national level and the conservative movement at the national level, people periodically ask me is it too late had we gone too far down the road and can we turn things around at this late hour and i've always had one answer or that was 1970 or 90 were recently and that one answer was we can turn things around, providing one thing happens and

that is if things get really down really quick guess what, we are there. that water is boiling thanks to obama and the american people are jumping out of it as fast as they can. i say to people once, twice, three times a day obama is going to do something to anger you, frustrate you and upset and i understand. it happens to me, too. take 30 or 40 seconds, then get down on your knees and thank god he'he's president of the united states because no other way to save america. we are going to have some great coming victories because of two things. one, the arrival of barack obama and almost simultaneously the arrival of the team part tea pat has brought so much energy and leadership to the cause. so be encouraged. some of us here were there after

1964 when they defeated goldwater and after nixon's resignation of 1974 with jimmy carter's election of 76 when there was a darkness of the biblical proportions. it was tough. as tough as it is now, we have things going for us. we didn't have talk radio or cable television. we have so much going for us now that we didn't have but we persevered and we are close to prevailing. i think that in 2016, conservatives if you remember is the primary, stupid, it's the

primaries. and we can score big victories in 2014 and in 2016. we can nominate and ian black in principled limited constitutional conservative to be the republican nominee and elect the person in november and the governing america by 2017. so, in order to chart the future we have to understand the past as i said earlier. this is a quick note version of my book. read the book and understand the problem where we have been and where we are now and how we go forward. we have a website called conservativehq.com that is focused on building and launching the conservative movement. so, thank you very much. appreciate being here today. [applause]

>> we will be glad to recognize you for questions if you could wait to identify yourself for the guest speaker. i do see that you subscribe to the school since he always argued that the 1964 california primary in the 76, full-time north carolina primary with the two most important primaries. >> absolutely. very much so. it gives me an opportunity to say something i don't often have the chance to see. we have barry goldwater, jim demint and others but we also have unsung heroes of the conservative movement. one of them is my friend nor can block well and most americans haven't heard of him that he is a person that we stand on the shoulders deeply with in the unsung heroes is a man named tom

ellis that was a peer of jesse helms in north carolina and in my opinion, tom ellis almost single-handedly elected three of the best senators in the 20th century. john east in 1980 and laurence faircloth and tom is still in active lawyer in north carolina. they were told ronald reagan and the team in 1976 -- by the way before he got to north carolina he lost four or five primaries. he lost the florida primary, the north primary and things were looking really, really dark. so, he wants to come into north carolina and tom ellis said we don't want you here. we will handle the campaign. we will take care of it. however if you insist on coming and we have to do four things come and he said tom ellis told

him he is for things. you must attack forward, kissinger, give away the panama canal and détente. reagan said i'm okay with that. and they are supposed to lose. they leave north carolina the day of the election to fly to wisconsin and a friend of mine that shall remain nameless have a great conservative today said they were writing the withdrawal speech and they were going to consider withdrawing when they got to wisconsin however when they go to wisconsin they learned the upset victory to 47% of north carolina. but the next primary is not for five weeks in texas. he probably couldn't have held the campaign together for that long. so it was huge and the texas primary came along in may and

has 100 counties and ronald reagan. 100 counties and that's how he became president. >> and the other ironic aspect is old water in the 64 and ronald reagan and 76 where he lost but then they also want to. >> it's not an original with me. maybe george said it, but goldwater was the most -- senator goldwater was the most consequential loser in american political history and also said that barry goldwater won the 1964 election interests took 16 years to count the ballot. >> [inaudible] >> you will have a statement anyway.

[laughter] in 1980 when ronald reagan showed up at the nomination, george herbert walker bush was the last surviving serious opponent. if you define everybody that supported ronald reagan at the time that he showed up and you call them reaganites and those that were not supporting them don't qualify as reaganites even though many of them d did suppot him when he became the nominee. >> since reagan the republican party has nominated a number of other candidates for president of the united states. it happens that none of those nominees met the definition of reaganites which i just gave you.

here is the statement i knew was coming. i think it is high time to nominate another reaganite. my question is who should be? >> thank you. well said. in this building some years ago, doctor lee edwards had a panel discussion on one of his 20 plus books that he has written. i remember the great conservative ambassador was in the audience, and he asked a version of the question he said in all of the years we had the conservative movement since the 50s through now we have only flown up from the grassroots from a principled conservative ronald reagan anymore successful better job and no one had the answer. i certainly didn't affect time.

i am very encouraged going forward. since 1984, we have seldom had a major top-tier conservative running for the republican nomination. we have had good conservatives but quite frankly many of them if not most of them were not top-tier. in 2016 i think we are going to have a traffic jam of the constitution running for president. now, without giving away who my favorite candidate is and i could be happy with any number of them right now i do is marketing and that's what i've done for 50 years is marketing. so, when you have a product when you have a product opposite to the competition if we assume that the competitor in a 2016 is going to be the washington insider i don't think that you

want another washington person to run against him. the stoutest candidates would be somebody in the states. so we have bobby jindal, governor scott, rick. rick scott and florida. we have many to choose from. and i think that would make the strongest ticket in 2016. now, probably shouldn't say this, but i think it's important as conservatives to chart the future and understand this. back in the 60s there was an element in the public policies trying to take over the conservative movement and the republican party and under the leadership of bill buckley we fended off these people and they are identified today as libertarians. we had a battle with them and conservatives prevailed. the libertarians are back stronger than ever and in many

ways that is a good thing. there are many things we do agree on and i think that is important for conservatives to find common ground. and i think if we don't do that it's going to be difficult for us to win as well as many governors and senate elections. in my lifetime i haven't seen a finer principle that a conservative run for a major office began running for governor in virginia this past november to end a libertarian candidate rathe libertariancandd got 7% of the vote as an outrage in my opinion. so, in order to have a strong united voting because we can, i think conservatives would be advised to look to come back for the vice presidential nomination and take a good look at rand

paul. he i has a large following of young people out there. you brin bring a ticket togethee that and i think that it can be unbeatable. >> i was on the right side -- [inaudible] is a really important. you reported it to the traffic jam. isn't that a part of the problem that affects the last three or four cycles, we have had three or four conservatives that split the vote on the right in the republican primary allowing single establishment figure to basically prevailed with 40% of the vote. >> you are exactly right. i'm not sure that a lot of the conservatives who've recently

run were top-tier but we did have good candidates and that is a serious problem. they know what thousand% more about this than i do but the early primary is in the northeast and is weighing or take all so you get all of the delegates and then when you come down south it is proportionate for the most part. if you are a conservative and you get 30% of the vote and it's divided in other ways everybody else puts it, they get a good number of votes and 100% down south in the same southwest. so it is a problem and hopefully the conservatives will unite behind one candidate and avoid this problem that we have had in the past. let me mention one thing along

that line. periodically people ask me why do you think john mccain is not a conservative and why do you think mitt romney isn't a conservative? it is a foolproof test whether you are a conservative. absolutely foolproof, guarantee it. i saw him a fair amount. but i've never seen him except i saw the friends of the conservative movement. when you saw ronald reagan you said that there is ed meese and morty anderson and judge clark and paul. so it was natural when he became president of january 20, 1981, the conservatives moved into the white house. some of us are meeting with a presidential candidate i guess i shouldn't identify him here. he goes around the table and he says 20, 25 what is your issue

and what is your issue and tony, what's yours and gerry, what's yours? i'm towards the end of the table and he said richard what is yours? i said with all due respect to my friend, governor, they are all wrong. ..

they walk with us. some of the governors do the same so if you haven't walked with conservatives for the last 15 or 20 years, if you move in that white house you are not likely to all of a sudden surround yourself with conservatives. i have our company of 77 employees and their presidents mark stevens. mark comes into my office with four or five executives. richard we have studied this problem and we think you should go over there. i'm likely to say i trust these people and have confidence in their judgment. i'm high the life we to do x in the same for the present united states. >> richard, the tea party emphasizes the constitution and he talked about rand paul, ted

cruz and mike lee and the three of them have an emphasis on the constitution. in distinguishing between the conservative movement and the establishment republicans, what role do you see the constitution play in the debate for 2014, 2016 and how we can move america forward to essentially reclaim the constitution? >> well i'm really hesitant to have any conversation about the constitution with my friend mark who is a world class constitutional scholar. and maybe there is no more important issue than the constitution. i think i said this and i meant to in my prepared remarks that the democratic party, has come unhinged from the constituconstitu tion and most of our public and leaders are unhinged. can you just imagine the republican and democratic leaders of congress and lacing

something, is this constitutional? is this tariff constitutional? is this legislation passing constitutional muster? it's highly unlikely that the thought ever crosses their mind. maybe you'll remember nancy pelosi's famous comment when asked where the constitution is obamacare is about them permitted and she said are you kidding me? she had no interest in that. but bark that is one of the things that has launched the tea party ,-com,-com ma their faithfulness to the constitution and i think too many people in politics that have forgotten about it. we have probably seen and heard more about the constitution and the last five years or so then maybe in the previous 50 years so it's very healthy. i encouraged all of you out there to emphasize the constitution and make sure the candidatecandidate s that you

support and get involved with, that they understand the constitution and that they are going to be faithful to the constitution and our founding documents. mark has taught me a lot and one of the things he likes to stress is the federalist papers where madison talks about there is a remedy available to the people and that is called elections. madison said if we are having politicians that are not faithful to the constitution there is a remedy in the constitution and in the constitution and we can vote them out of office. let me make one additional comment john about what martin said earlier about bush 41. he reminded me that there were those reaganites like morton and 76 and the 1970s and 1980 and in my opinion he wasn't a saint.

he did make mistakes and his first decision after he got the republican nomination was probably his worst decision and that was when he selected george bush to be his vice president. george bush campaigns. george h.w. bush campaigns throughout the 80s and says trust me. i am a conservative and if i'm nominated i will govern you as a conservative. in 1984 the republican convention in dallas texas i'm there with howard phillips president chairman of the conservative caucus and dan rather interviews as one night on television. so he asked us about the vice president we explained he is not in our opinion a conservative for this reason, this reason this reason and the next night dan rather has george h.w. bush the vice president on and he says vice president last night i had howard phillips and richard

viguerie on and they say you're not a conservative for these various reasons. what do you say? are you conservative? i had to chuckle when i think of his answer. guess dan i am not -- i am a conservative that i am am not a not about it and he certainly wasn't. he was sworn in at noon january 20, 1989. by sundown that very day every reaganites in the reagan administration that could be identified was fired. not in the coming days or weeks. that day in the first five hours by sundown they had politically executed every reaganites. you could have supported bush in the 88 primaries and it didn't matter. if you supported reagan in and the right to navy riemer a fight you worth fired in your persona non grata in the george h.w. bush administration. so remember conservatives who you walk with. personnel is policy.

>> what are your thoughts on how conservatives can address the changing demographics of the united states? this is not demographically the same country it was in 80 and 84. if you look at the results of the 2012 presidential election allowing that mitt romney was no conservative by any stretch of the imagination you do see help poorly he did in various minority communities and was wiped out substantially and other ethnic and racial groups. you mentioned that course you are in the business of marketing. how would you market conservatives to the new demographics in the united states? >> that's an excellent question and i got asked that question

last night on the lou dobbs show. in terms of the minorities, the hispanics and asians there are many things we need to do. in my opinion number one above everything else, how do he get the hispanic vote? very simple, run the hispanics. go out there and look for the marco rubio's and the ted cruz's and suzanne are tina's. we have many of the conservatives out there and we ought to showcase them and put them forward and that will go a long ways towards communicating to these various minorities that we are very much in sync with them. i am a big lever that we have got to change the rhetoric of course in how we talk about people here who are here illegally, illegal aliens but i

think these people for the most part with rare exception they want to come here but they have an economy in their own home country that is disastrous. they are governed by a socialist or a marxist and whatever we can do within the constitution to help these people get a free market rule of law established in their own country, their economy is going to improve. we are seeing fewer mexicans come over because their economy is improving and they are instituting free-market reforms in mexico. so we have got to, i don't care how high you build a fence, people will figure ways to get overrepresented in there. i think we institute and go to the root cause of why these people are coming here in the first place. they would want to come except that their economy is so terrible. but another problem is that for

the most part the people who are part of the country class versus the ruling class. the ruling class doesn't know how to talk to average americans and when we put the ted cruz's and they ran paul's in the ted huelskamp's and justin amash's and mike pence they will communicate nicely arab views and values to unmarried women, to hispanics and asians so as long as our message is going through the john boehner's in the mitch mcconnell's and they eric cantor's of the world we have a problem. people don't have a problem with the messages. it's our messengers. >> thank you. >> it's a pleasure. thank you. [applause] >> i'm a is pleased to learn

something at heritage at one of our events and somewhere in between the lines of the 44th federalist papers is, it's the primary stupid. i learned that madison knew what he was talking about. thank you again for joining us. we do have copies available in the foyer for purchase and their guests will be up here glad to sign any of them and carry on our conversations further. thank you very much. we are adjourned. [inaudible conversations] >> the tv covers hundreds of

other programs throughout the country all year long. here's a look at some of the events we will be attending this week. look for these programs to air in the near future on booktv on c-span2's.

>> these pictures now survive to verify the theatrical qualities and the variety of stages that they claimed for their victims dangled notches from trees but also light post telephone poles and bridges. when we elevate the photographs above other artifacts of the same time period our focus on strange fruit amounts to an acceptance of a specific representation of this violence. after all these gruesome images were created and preserved because they fell in line with discourses that supported racial violence. the black course is surrounded by mobs of righteous whites no grieving loved ones inside. this mainstream lynching photography depicted victims as isolated routes with no connection to family or community or to institutions

like marriage. to similar effect the image is today encourage and it knowledge meant a lack bodies and even black bodily pain but the interest in them is not naturally led to an appreciation of the communities more enduring losses including psychological, emotional and financial suffering. too often historians have interpreted the photographs according to the perspective that produced them. sure scholars worked to expose the pictures gracious -- racial orientation but racial orientation but we been slow to underline it by placing victimized communiticommuniti s on par with the photographs. today i do just that using black author lynching dram off. african-americans who lived at the height of mob violence in this photograph representation effects including plays that offer insights into the causes and consequences of mob violence