click on book club to enter the chat room. once you're there you can log in as a guest or through your facebook or twitter account to post your thoughts on mr. rodriguez's book. >> you're watching book tv. next, richard vision uri looks -- viguerie looks at the split in the republican party over the size of the government, an argument that has existed since the teddy roosevelt administration. this program is just under 45 minutes. [laughter] >> thank you, john, and thank heritage foundation and thank heritage foundation's president, jim demint, for this opportunity. senator demint was my choice and i knew that jim[ó was goino be president, i just didn't know he was going to be president of

the heritage foundation. [laughter] and the heritage foundation, conservative movement, america is very fortunate to have jim demint as its president. >> i think it's been to our detriment, that's why i wrote the book, "takeover." the subtitle of the bill is $100-year war for the soul of the gop and how conservatives can finally win it. and i should say that, i jokingly refer to myself as 003. means i've been active at the national level, the conservative movement, longer than every living conservative except two others. 001 is the fist lady of the conservative -- fist lady of the

conservative movement, phyllis schlafly, and 002 is dr. edwards. so i've been at the front lines of this movement for a long time, and i've seen us take loss after loss after loss. and so i wrote this book because i think for the most part conservatives haven't understood that they're in this battle. and you're not going to win a battle, much less a war be you don't know -- if you don't know you're in a war. and so i think it's very, very important for conservatives to understand the past. pause if you don't -- because if you don't understand the past, you're not going to know how to chart the future. we've had as a movement, in my opinion, our political guns pointed at the wrong target. we've been focused on the democrats; pelosi, reid, obama. and that has been a mistake, quite frankly. because the real opponent of conservatives is inside the republican party.

we are like the biblical jews who had to wander through the desert for 40 years until that generation of failed, flawed leaders had passed from the scene. and we're not going to get to the political promised land until we get new leaders, okay? and the american voters just do not agree with republican leaders. they don't like the republicans. the media and the big government republicans have done a good job of blaming us conservatives, principled conservatives, limited government conservatives, tea partiers for their losses. but the opposite is the truth. the voters in 2006, 2008 took the congress and the white house away from the the republicans. in my opinion, having nothing to do with nancy pelosi, barack obama, harry reid. had everything to do with the failed, immoral, and in my

opinion, corrupt leadership of the big government republicans. people just don't like them. and when they are the face of the opposition to the democrats, republicans seldom win. there have been four, four big republican victories in my lifetime, and that's a long time. but only four. and in those four the face of the opposition to the democrats was conservatives, limited government conservatives. 1980 under reagan, 1984, reagan's re-election, 1994, contract with america, the gingrich revolution, 2010 you ur the leadership of the tea party. in 2010 boehner, mitch mcconnell, karl rove, bush, none of them are to be seen in this election. what people see is rush limbaugh, hannity, levin, the tea party, rand paul, mike lee, marco rubio. they like that and gave the republicans their biggest victory in 75, 80 years, okay?

so if we want to win in the future, we're going to have to make sure that we keep some advice in mind. and i get my advice by paraphrasing james carville. remember 1992 carville said ad nauseam, we were tired of hearing him say, it's the economy, stupid? i paraphrase that and say to conservatives, it's the primaries, stupid, it's the primaries, stupid. because we can see as conservatives this wave coming, and it could be a wave of tsunami proportions that's going to drive the democrats, many of them, out of office this fall. and if all it does is bring in more big government, establishment republicans, we will have wasted the opportunity of a lifetime, conservatives. so it is the primaries. and most states the filing deadline has not passed, so there's plenty of opportunity for conservatives yet to file for office for the congress, for state offices, governor,

lieutenant governor, state legislator, city council, mayors. and we just have to remember it is the primaries. 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 by 2016 and in 2017 actually be governing america. you know, this war started, actually, 102 years ago. lots of people think maybe it started with the tea party movement in 2009, 2010 or maybe in the gingrich revolution of '94, certainly by 1980. when reagan was nominated and elected. no. it started literally 102 years ago when teddy roosevelt failed to get the republican nomination for president, went across the street, in essence, started the bull moose party and split the republican vote allowing woodrow wilson, a very progressive

democrat, to become president of the united states with less than 42% of the vote. so we've been fighting that wing of the party ever since. and sometimes our opponents look like teddy roosevelt, sometimes tom dewey or nixon or ford or bob dole or john mccain or mitt romney. but that's -- and today it's john boehner, eric cantor, mitch mcconnell, lamar alexander. we're fighting that wing of the party. and as i said earlier, the voters reject them. and only when the face of the opposition to the democrats is a limited government constitutional conservatives do we score big victories. this very weekend, as a matter of fact, republican leaders eric cantor, kevin mccarthy are meeting at the ritz carlton in amelia island, florida, meeting with the main street partnership. and their objective, the main street partnership, is to in

mitch mcconnell's words, to crush them everywhere. that means us conservatives. so the main street partnership that eric cantor and kevin mccarthy are meeting with this weekend are designed to crush conservatives. so make no mistake about it, our opponents in the republican party, the big government republicans, they understand the problem, okay? and they understand that we are their opponents. we hear in the press about the conservatives have lost, you know, ground, they've reached their highwater mark, they're on the downhill now. tea party is not what it used to be, you know? the main street republicans don't see it that way. they see us as a serious threat to the growth of government. so we're, we're doing well, conservatives, but we've got a good ways to go. i remember back in the '50s when i got involved in politics, i was harris county young republican chairman in the late '50s. and in those days the conservative movement rested on just a two-legged stool;

national defense which really meant anti-communism and economic issues. hoer taxes, balanced budget -- lower taxes, balanced budget. and we'd get sometimes 45,qv mae 47, very seldom did we get 51%. but only in the late '70s under the leadership of jerry falwell, ronald reagan, they reached out and brought social conservatives into the conservative movement. now we're sitting on the three-legged stool. and that changed everything.ñi we began to get 51, 52, 53% of the vote. so now we're winning, but we're not governing america. and in my opinion in recent years, there's been a fourth leg of that stool that's been added, and that fourth leg is the tea party. and sometimes people say, well, isn't the tea party just like

the economic conservatives? they believe in lower taxes, less government, balanced budget. yes, but there is a big, big difference. and the difference is this: a few years ago i was a friday night keynote speaker in dallas, texas, for about 125 conservatives who had gathered for a training session for the weekend. so first of all, i go out on the stage and look at my watch and tell 'em, say where you been? i've been waiting for you. i've been waiting 50 years for you people, you know? [laughter] but it's all very true. but anyway, i met in my hotel room maybe with 12, 15 tea party leaders before the speech. afterwards maybe 15, 20. and i remember very clearly there was a woman there from corpus christi, texas. and she headed up a tea party group of about, oh, 3,000 people. and periodically they had meetings, and it was publicized in the paper. and local politicians would call and say i want to come to your meeting next thursday.

she said, great, love of to have you come. i tell you what, we'll introduce you, but you don't talk. you listen to us, you know? i find that so refreshing. i don't know very many conservative leaders at the national level -- i know just about all of them, and many of them are in this room -- that would talk to a republican politician like that. it is so refreshing. reagan in 1976 when he ran for president had a wonderful phrase, i just loved this phrase. he ran against the entire republican establishment, remember? against the rockefeller wing of the party. rockefeller was vice president in 1976, ran against the ford wing, the nixon wing of the party. he said we need new leadership, leadership unfettered by old ties and told relationships. and old relationships. the tea party is unfettered by old ties and old relationships. and so i think if we welcome the tea party in with these other groups that reagan, you know, launched us on in the lathe '70s, early '80s, we've got

a very, very strong and winning coalition. the kind of part of what i just said there was kind of a criticism of some of the republican conservative leaders, and i think that too many conservative leaders -- not those in this room here, of course, but too many of our friends became an arm, they became an appendage of the republican party. and they lost their independence. as conservatives, we need more organizations, more money, more candidates, more publications. but the number one thing that we need in my opinion above everything else is new leadership. and leadership that's unfeterred to the republican party. and along that line i'm a big advocate of something that i call a third force. not a third party, but a third force. the left has had enormous success by establishing third

force organizationings. they have tensover thousands of third -- tens of thousands of third force organizations. think of all the unions out there, think of all the race-based organizations, the anti-family organizations, the environmental groups. if president obama called a meeting of all the liberal environmental groups, it'd be hundreds, maybe a thousand. white house probably couldn't hold 'em all. if jim demint called a meeting of the conservative free market environmental groups, there'd be a handful there. so on the left they have, the third force organizations have their own source of funds, their own membership, their own agenda, and they pull everybody their direction. and when you do that, you open up leadership positions for chairman, president, fundraising chairman, speaking opportunities, membership chairman. so the opportunities to bring in new leadership for our cause is magnified, you know? very few people are really,

really focused on politics. but everybody's concerned about something in their community, their neighborhood, maybe it's their schools, maybe it's the crime issue, maybe it's overregulation of small business, maybe property rights. there are many, many issues that people are concerned and get them focused on those. remember, hillary rodham was a goldwater girl, 1964. by the late '60s, she's a hard core leftist, okay? and she didn't do it by just going from a goldwater girl to the democratic national committee, okay? she got involved in a single-issue group, you know? anti-vietnam war. and that gave her the transition to all things liberal. so if people are not interested in joining your conservative organization of cause, 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 dealing with public policy other than just the next election. the, now, i don't want to -- i'm very, very optimistic, and i'll talk about that in just a minute here, but we should not make, be under any illusion as to the challenge that we have in front of us. the leadership of every major institution in america, save possibly the military, is a raid against us. -- is arrayed against us. the views and values of big business, wall street, unions, hollywood, the media, nonprofit organizations, it goes on and on, all of these institutions the leadership is arrayed against us. ..

it is important to understand the magnitude of the problem and where we need to go. the conservatives, if you heard what i just said and understand it it would be easy to be discouraged. i am more optimistic than i have ever been in my life. for 50 years i have been involved in politics at the national level of the conservative movement, the national level, people periodically asked me is it too late? have we gone down too far down the road of socialism and can we turn things around? i always have one answer and one naturally weathered was 1970s or 90s or recently.

that one answer was we can turn things around, we can save america provided one thing happens, if things get real bad real quick and we are there. that water is boiling thanks to obama and the american people by jumping out of that as fast as they can. i say to people once, twice, three times today obama is going to do something to a anger you, frustrate you an upset, i understand that, happens to me too. take 30, max 40 seconds, throw something, get upset, then get down on your knees and thank god he is president of the united states because i know no other way to save america. we are going to have some great victories in coming years because of two things. one, the arrival of barack obama and almost signee tediously the arrival of the tea party, that has brought so much energy and

leadership to our cause. be encouraged, conservatives. some of us, morton blackwell and others here, were there when after 1964 the defeat of barry goldwater, after nixon's resignation in 1974 with jimmy carter's election in 1976 when there was a darkness of biblical proportions. it was tough. as tough as it is now, we have things going for us. we didn't have jim demint, rand paul and michael lee and ted cruz and marco rubio land all these wonderful governors, scott walker, we didn't have all of them. we didn't have talk radio or cable television or the internet. we have so much going for us now that we didn't have. we have persevered and conservatives we are close to

prevailing. in 2016 conservatives, if you remember, it is the primaries. if we do that we can score big victories in 2014, 2016, we can nominate, elect a principled limited government constitutional conservative to be the republican nominee and elect that person in november and the governing america by 2017. in order to chart the future we have to understand the past as i said earlier. so this is the cliffs notes version of my book takeover. read the book, understand the problem, where we have been, where we are now and how we go forward. we have a web site called conservativehq.com that is focused entirely on building and real 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 would be so kind as to identify yourself i do see that you subscribe to the stan evans school since he always argued the 1964 california primary in '76, north carolina primary were the two most important primaries. >> very much so. give me an opportunity to say something i don't often have a chance to say. we have some heroes in the conservative movement. we had barry goldwater, ronald reagan, jim demint and others but we also have unsung heroes in the conservative movement. one of them is my friend morton blackwell here. most americans have not heard of him but he is a person we all stand on his shoulders, deeply

in his deck and on the short list of unsung heroes is tom ellis who was a peer of former senator jesse helms in north carolina and in my opinion, ellis almost single-handedly elected three of the best senators of the 20th century, jesse helms, first election 1972, john east in 1980 and faircloth and tom is a lawyer in north carolina and tom ellis and jesse helms literally told ronald reagan and his team in 1976, reagan before he got to north carolina had lost four five primaries, lost the florida primary, new hampshire primary, things were looking really dark. so, ellis and jesse helms said don't come, we don't want you here, we will handle the

campaign. end take care of it but if you insist on coming in we have to do four things and jesse helms and tom ellis told reagan four things and four things were must attack ford, henry kissinger, the giveaway of the panama canal and detente. reagan said i am ok with all that and he did that and they leave north carolina that afternoon, declined to wisconsin, and great conservative today said that they were writing what reagan's withdrawal speech. you was going to consider withdrawing when he got to wisconsin. however when he got to wisconsin they learned they scored an upset victory in won 52%-47% in north carolina. reagan couldn't have held the

campaign together that long so it was a huge. texas primary came along, texas has 100 counties, reagan carried a hundred counties and that is how he became president. >> the other ironic aspect is barry goldwater in '64 and reagan in 76 were lost but also they won. >> it is not an original with me. maybe george will said it. barry goldwater was -- senator goldwater running for president in 1964 was the most quintessential loser in american political history and also barry goldwater won 1964 reelection. it just took 16 years to count the ballots. >> before hanging 10. any other questions from the audience? you are bound to have a question. >> i'm supposed to wait until i have a microphone. >> if you don't raise your hand

-- you have a statement anyway. >> i'm going to lay the groundwork. in 1980, when reagan so up the nomination george herbert walker bush was the last surviving serious opponent to him and reagan soda in 1980. if you define everybody who's supported reagan at the time he sewed up and call from reagannights and those who were not supporting reagan at that point don't qualify even though many of them did support him when he became the nominee. since reagan the republican party has nominated a number of other candidates for president

of the united states. 1 of the united states. none of them met the definition, it is high time for us to nominate another reagannight. who should that be? >> well said. in this very building some years ago dr. lee edwards's panel discussion on one of his 20 plus books he has written, i remember frank shakespeare, the great conservative, was in the audience. frank asked a version of that question. in all the years we had the conservative movement since the early 50s through now we have only thrown up from the grassroots one principled conservative, ronald reagan. why haven't the conservatives

done a more successful, better job? no one had the answer and i certainly didn't at that time. i am very, very encouraged going forward. since 1984 we have seldom had a major top tier conservative running for the republican b?omination. many of them if not most of them were top tier. in 2016 i think we have a traffic jam of limited government, constitutional conservatives running for president. b?ow, without giving away a my favorite candidate is and i did the happy with any number of them, what i'd do is marketing. most of them for 50 years, when you have a product, a cause, you have to position if you want to be successful your prou hct opposite the competition, if you

assume our competitor will be a washington insider, hillary clinton, i don't think you want another washington person to run against him. the si tongest candidate would e somebody in the states. we have many governors, scott walker, by the gentle -- governor bobby jindal, rick scott in florida, many to choose frogai that would make the si tongest ticket in 2016. now, probably shouldn't say thi1 but i think it is important as conservatives to understand this. there was an element in pu, pic policy, trying to take over the conservative movement, the republican party and the leadershnci of bill buckley we successfully fended off these people that are identified as

libertarians. we had a big battle with them, republicans and conservatives prevailerw libertarians are back stronger the never ending in many ways that is a good thinket there are many things we do agree on and that is important for conservatives to find common ã--round with the bridge aryans and if we don't do that it will be difficult for us to win presidential elections and my lifetime have not seen a finer principled conservative run for m maor oit wiice than kim to generally --cuchinelli a libertarian ran against him, and outrage in my opinion. in order to have strong united voting base as we can, conservatives would be well

advised to come back to washington and take a look at rand pauful rand paul has a lare following, not only libertarians, young people, put it together like that, it would be unbeatable. >> kerri campo. i was on the right side. your question, a really important point your referred to as traffic jam the conservatives. isn't that part of the problem? the last three four election cycles we had two four strong conservative candidates who split the vote on the right in the republican primary allowing single moderate esta, pishment figure to basically prevail with 40% of the 3 c1 fte.

>> you are exactly rigigh. a lot of the conservatives who recently run were topped year but we did have some good candidates and that is a serious problem. the primaries noah thousand% more than i do. the early primariesknow a thous more than i do. the eancey primaries are in the b?ortheast. down south it is proportionate for the most part. if you are a conservative and you get a 30% of the vote, everybody else blitz the vote too, the moderate, je it is of problem and hopefully the conservatives will unite

o a foolproof test of whether you are conservative, absolutely foolproof and it is this. i never saw ronald reagan in late 650 and throughout the 1970s, i saw him a fair amount, o

and what is your issue and tony, what is yours and what is yours? the last of the table, richard, what is yours. wall street types, we have lost, okay, personnel is policy. someone tells you, what is around him.

and some of these governors i talk to, certainly mike lee, rand paul, ted cruz, they walk with us and some of the governors do the same. if you haven't walked with conservatives the last 15 or 20 years, if you move into that white house you are not likely to surround yourself with conservatives. i part company with 77 employees, one of our presidents, marc gibbons comes into my office with four or five other executives and said we studied this problem and think you should go over here. i trust these people, have confidence in their judgment, they suggest, highly likely to do x. things the president of the united states, personnel, policy, conservatives. >> speaking of mark fits gibbons. >> richard, the tea party emphasizes the constitution you

talk about rand paul, ted cruz, mike lee, the three of them have in common their emphasis on the constitution. in distinguishing between the conservative movement and establishment republicans what role do you see the constitution play in the debate for 2014-2016, and how we can move america forward to essentials reclaim the constitution? >> i am hesitant to have any conversation about the constitution with my friend mark who is a world-class constitutional scholar. maybe there is no more important issue out there. i don't think i said this but i meant to in my prepared remarks. the democratic party entirely has come unhinged from the constitution. most of our republican leaders

are unhinged. can you imagine republican democratic leaders of congress analyzing something, this farm bill, is this constitutional? is this tariff constitutional, is this legislation pass constitutional muster? highly unlikely the 5 crosses their mind. we remember nancy pelosi's famous comment asking where in the constitution is obamacare permitted and she said i you kidding me? she had no interest in that. that is one of the things that launched the tea party, faithfulness to the constitution to many people in politics have forgotten about it, we have seen, heard more about the constitution in the last five years or so than in the previous 50 years so it is very healthy so i encourage all of you out there emphasizing the

constitution, make sure the candidates that you support, get involved with, that they understand the constitution and are going to be faithful to the constitution and our founding documents. marcus taught me a lot and one thing he likes to stress is the federalist papers, 44, madison talks about there is a remedy available to the people and that is calls elections. madison said if we have politicians who are not faithful to the constitution there is a remedy in the constitution and we can vote them out of office. one additional comment, what morton said earlier about george bush 41 brymac reminded [*roman

me there were those reagan nights, he did make some mistakes and his first decision after the republican nomination was a forced decision when he selected george bush to be his vice president. jewish bush campaigns, george h. w. bush campaigns throughout the 80s and says trust me, i am a conservative. if nominated i will govern as a conservative. 1984 republican convention in dallas, texas i am there with howard phillips, chairman of the conservative caucus and dan rather interviews us one night on television and so he asked about the vice president, he is not in our opinion a conservative for this reason, this reason, this reason. the next night dan rather has george h. w. bush on and he says

mr. vice president, last night i had howard phillips and richard viguerie on and they said you are not a conservative for the serious reasons, what do you say? and a chuckle and his answer, yes, i am a conservative but i am not a nut about it. he certainly wasn't. he was sworn in at noon, january 20, 1989, by sundown every reagannight that could be identified was fired. not in the coming days or weeks but in the first five hours by sundown, politically executed, you could have supported jewish bush in the 80 primary. if you supported reagan in the 1980 primary you were fired and persona non grata in the george h. w. bush administration so remember conservatives who you

walk with, personnel is policy. >> center for public policy. what are your thoughts on how conservatives address the changing demographics of the united states? this is a demographically the same country as it was when reagan ran in '80, '84. look at the results of the 2012 presidential election allowing for the fact mitt romney was know conservative by any stretch of the imagination, you do see how poorly he did in various minority communities, got 59% of the white vote but was wiped out substantially in other ethnic and racial groups, you mentioned you were in the business of marketing. how would you market conservative islam --

conservatism to new demographics in the united states? >> i got asked that question last night on the lou dobbs show. and in terms of the minority hispanics, asians, many things we need to do. in my opinion number one above everything else, how to get the hispanic vote, very simple, run hispanics. look for the marco rubios, ted cruzes and suzanne martinezes out there. we have many ethnic conservatives and we ought to showcase them, put them forward and that will go a long way toward communicating to these various minorities that we are very much in sync with them. i am a big believer that we have got to change the rhetoric, how we talk about people here who

are here illegally, illegal aliens. these people for the most part with rare exception -- they have an economy in their own home country that is disastrous. governed by us socialist or marxist and whatever we can do within the constitution to help these people get a free market rule of law establishing their own country, their economy is going to improve and we are seeing fewer mexicans come over because their economy is improving and they are instituting free-market reforms in mexico and so we have got to -- i don't care how high you build a fence figure people will find ways to get around it so we have to look at the root cause of why people coming here in the first place, their economy is so

terrible. another problem is for the most part the people americans are seeing as republicans don't know how to talk to 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 ted cruz and rand paul out there and scott walker, they communicate quite nicely our views and values to unmarried women, hispanics, asians. so as long as our message is going through the john boehners and mitch mcconnells and eric cantor ors of the world we have a problem, we need to change the messengers. people don't have a problem with the message, it is the messengers. [applause]

>> always pleased to know something that heritage, somewhere in between the lines of the 44th federalist paper is it is the primary, stupid. i learned madison knew what he was talking about. thank you for joining us. we have copies available for purchase and our guest will be up here glad to sign any of them. thank you very much, we are adjourned. [inaudible conversations] >> si c-span2 providing live coverage of the u.s. senate floor proceedings and public policy events and every weekend booktv for 15 years thenl