Conservative icon Richard Viguerie likes numbers. But most of those he collects stink for his side.
- The Left has 20,000 single-issue groups and the Right 1,000-2,000.
- Liberals raise $21 billion a year to $4 billion by conservatives.
- The Right has maybe 10 high-energy leaders, the Left hundreds.
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But there is one statistic that gives him hope. “America is still a 50-50 country politically after all of that,” he said.
“If we had the organization and the numbers that they have, and we raised the money that they raised, you know we would be winning elections 60%-40%, 65%-35%. I mean, the issues [are] on our side,” the father of political direct-mail fundraising told Secrets.
Now, 89 and one of just two living signers of the 1960 “Sharon Statement” creating the modern conservative movement, Viguerie is turning his efforts and money to rallying younger conservatives to build up the effort and compete with liberals.
His goal is to help field 10,000-20,000 conservative nonprofit groups, expand fundraising, and build a communications operation as effective as the Left and its media friends. “Nothing moves that isn’t pushed,” he said, quoting from his 2022 book Go Big.
Viguerie, who was just awarded Hillsdale College’s Freedom Leadership Award, cited young conservatives such as commentator Candace Owens and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk as leaders ready for battle.
“I’m going to focus on the young people. Those in their 60s and 70s, whatever they do, God bless them, we’re not going to save America with them. It’s going to be the people who are 28, 30 years old,” said Viguerie, founder of American Target Advertising.
Putting a few more zeros on the late Sen. Everett McKinley Dirksen’s comment about the federal budget: a trillion here a trillion there pretty soon it adds up to real money ??? https://t.co/V0MDnvRawb
— Richard Viguerie (@RichardViguerie) March 23, 2023
“I tell people, you know, nobody pounded on Donald Trump’s door to run for president. Nobody did it to [Virginia Gov.] Glenn Youngkin’s door either. They appointed themselves. So, I urge people to appoint yourself as a leader. You’re the leader. You’ve been waiting for it. Here’s how you do it,” he said.
For his part, Viguerie pledged to boost his direct mail operation to help with the effort. He told Secrets of plans to increase his staff of 90 to 135 and double his 2020 mailings of 139 million in advance of the 2024 elections to make victories easier and help younger leaders succeed.
He also will use his new blog, podcast, and 2022 book of fundraising secrets to give the new generation a hand-up.
“I’m going to do a lot more and explain that this is how you launch a new organization, how you raise money. This is how you get media. I’ve got 45,000 hours, I guess, of learning in all of this, and I want to share it with everybody,” he said.
“We need a lot of things, Paul,” he said. “We need more organizations, more money, more candidates, more elected officials. But the thing that we’ve needed from day one is leadership. We lack the leadership. So whatever time the good Lord has left for me on Earth, I’m going to help build leadership out there because that’s what it’s gonna take.”
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And, he concluded, “I am optimistic. I really am. I think that we can have a huge victory in 2024. It will take hard work, leadership, sacrifice, but it can be done. If it’s not done, we won’t save America. America will go into the ash heap of history.”
