Politics / The Twelve Commandments
Norquist, Grover G.
H aley Barbour, the recently elected Republican National Committee chairman, would like to add a twelfth commandment to Moses' ten and Ronald Reagan's eleventh ("Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow...
...Only Bill Bennett went out to campaign for Linda Cross, the pro–school choice candidate for Wisconsin Education Commissioner...
...But the real action for the next two years will be in what Barbour calls the "target-rich environment" of the 1994 elections, when twenty-two Democratic Senate seats will be up for whited out and "Idaho" typed in...
...Massachusetts Governor William Weld argues for low taxes, free markets, and "tolerance" on abortion and homosexuality...
...Gingrich inherited GOPAC from Pete du Pont in 1986...
...Off-year elections can be just as crucial in determining which issues hurt as which issues help...
...What Haley Barbour is looking for is a way of airing those differences that does not focus on 1996...
...Armey created PIPAC (Policy Innovation Political Action Committee) to support Republican candidates through contributions and also through the production of a brilliant vote guide that provides challengers with information on their opponents' voting records—and suggestions on "spinning" these votes...
...School choice might be that breakthrough issue...
...He personally raised $150,000 for Republican House candidates in Georgia, leading to a three-seat pickup in the state—one-third of the Republican net gain in 1992...
...The men who deserve to lead the GOP in 1996 will be those who realize that the party's future will be charted this year and next...
...Such copycat initiatives put tax cuts on the political agenda and every Republican running for president in 1980, except George Bush, endorsed supply-side economics...
...In 1992 he created a fax program to send information on key votes in Congress to Republican challengers...
...GOPAC also pioneered a conference-call training program that included...
...Symington has signed a property rights protection bill that puts teeth into the takings clause of the Constitution...
...Just as Democratic victories in November of 1989 in New Jersey and Virginia traumatized pro-life Republicans victimized by flip-flop candidates, victories in the gubernatorial and state legislative races in those two states this November could squelch talk that the party needs to adopt a pro-choice platform to salvage its coalition...
...As a backbencher in 1986, Armey campaigned for twelve candidates, in 1990 for fifteen, and in 1992 for twenty...
...H aley Barbour, the recently elected Republican National Committee chairman, would like to add a twelfth commandment to Moses' ten and Ronald Reagan's eleventh ("Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican...
...Symington or another governor could become the leader and spokesman for property rights nationally...
...Cross narrowly lost on April 6 in a race that received national coverage...
...Activists pushing school choice initiatives in Oregon, California, and other states will be speaking directly to potential candidates ex–Education Secretary Lamar Alexander and South Carolina Governor Carroll Campbell—who have failed to lead on this critical issue...
...Massachusetts' Weld has won public-school choice (once anathema to liberals, now their fall-back position to stop full choice), and is fighting to expand it...
...Local property-rights groups now number more than five hundred around the nation...
...In 1992 alone, GOPAC raised $1.7 million for Republican House challengers, contributed another $100,000 directly to state legislative candidates, and trained more than 2,800 candidates, and activists in forty-two seminars across the country...
...and that the 1994 elections offer a chance to end the Clinton era after two years, not four...
...The victims rights' movement and its sister movement to imprison repeat offenders without reduced sentences will have a measure on the 1993 ballot in Washington and maybe a dozen more states in 1994...
...Some were long-shots...
...Whither the party...
...That is, he is looking for an alternative to fratricide...
...Now Haley Barbour is asking where the next Roth-Kemp will come from...
...Pete Wilson is rumored to be willing to support such a measure in California, not a bad way to revive his flagging prospects...
...Bob Dole leads the deficit hawks and guards against union power grabs...
...Jack Kemp today opposes term limits, but after the 1994 election, when eight more states pass term-limits initiatives, adding to the impressive list of fifteen that already have them, Kemp may reconsider...
...Thanks in large part to GOPAC, Republicans in Georgia also gained a total of twenty-two seats in the state legislature...
...Though it too has as yet no leader, a challenge to the environmental lobby will take as much courage and is as important politically as Ronald Reagan's 1970 challenge to the welfare lobby...
...Gingrich-led briefings for House candidates every Thursday night of the campaign...
...After George Bush threw away his presidency, many conservatives immediately focused on the task of reclaiming the White House in 1996...
...And in 1992, Gingrich turned the tables on a Democratic attempt to gerrymand him out of office...
...California, Oregon, Arizona, and other states will likely have initiatives on the ballot to repeat the success of Colorado voters in requiring a vote of the people to raise taxes...
...The 1993 and 1994 initiatives promoting victims' rights and longer incarceration periods will help write the 1996 platform on crime...
...T the GOP is not lacking in innovative policies around which to build a platform...
...In 1988, he led efforts that brought sixty new locally elected Republicans into office...
...Pat Buchanan would have the Republican Party abandon free trade and limit immigration...
...Barbour's twelfth is: "Thou shalt not even think about the 1996 presidential election until after November 8, 1994...
...The National Republican Congressional Committee plans to build on Armey's efforts...
...Many won...
...In his home state of Georgia, Gingrich gets much of the credit for building the coalition that elected Paul Coverdell...
...The GOP could do worse than have its leaders compete on the basis of who can help elect the most congressmen, senators, and state legislators in 1993 and 1994—just as armies promote the officers who capture the most enemy territory...
...Thompson is pushing to double the number to 2,000...
...A debate over policy will be useful for Republicans—provided they remember Ronald Reagan's Eleventh Commandment...
...R epublicans hold more seats in the House and Senate today than they did in 1978, when Jack Kemp, Bill Steiger, and Bill Roth led the fight to cut the capital gains tax and slash income tax rates...
...The state's Republican governor, Tommy T wo House Republicans, Newt Gingrich and Dick Armey, have pioneered party-building both personally and by creating new institutions to help other candidates...
...Jack Kemp promotes economic growth through lower taxes...
...Leadership on this crime issue is up for grabs...
...And the perennial taxpayer movement is similarly without its Jarvis or Reagan...
...John Engler of Michigan and Fife Symington of Arizona are pushing education choice in their states...
...Let the market decide.campaign funds to support Republican challengers...
...In 1992 Armey contributed more than $80,000 of his own Thompson, pushed through the choice legislation with Democratic legislator Polly Williams that gives 1,000 poor Milwaukee students a choice between public and non-religious private schools...
Vol. 26 • June 1993 • No. 6
