Conservative groups are already planning eagerly for 1982
"Like all the New Right, I'm between five and ten feet off the ground," exults Richard Viguerie, who loosely coordinates the grass-roots conservative movement from his computer nerve center in Falls Church, Va. And indeed the spirits of the right are soaring after the triumph of the G.O.P. at the polls last month. Hardly taking time out to celebrate, the groups composing the conservative alliance are already preparing for another assault on the liberals in 1982. Not only are they taking aim again at some Democratic Senators, but they have added a sprinkling of Republicans to their list. They are also thinking of going after key Democratic leaders in the House. Asserts Terry Dolan, head of the National Conservative Political Action Committee (N.C.P.A.C.): "It's never too early."
As it prepares for the future triumphs it envisions, the New Right is undismayed by the fact that there is still a hot debate over how much it affected the outcome of the 1980 elections. One difficulty is that the New Right is a confederation of disparate political and religious groups bound together by their hostility toward what they consider to be the excesses of the liberal-left and the erosion of values in America. At the center of this alliance is the Committee for the Survival of a Free Congress, which specializes in campaign organization and funding. Survival's Paul Weyrich is a top strategist for the New Right, advising such groups as the well-organized N.C.P.A.C., which aggressively stalks vulnerable liberals, and the Moral Majority, founded in 1979 by TV Evangelist Jerry Falwell. The Moral Majority spent an estimated $5 million this year on its campaign, claims to have signed up 72,000 ministers and 4 million lay members, and angered liberals, as well as a number of evangelicals, by arguing that Christians should not only fight for prayers in schools and against abortions, but should also actively oppose such measures as the Panama Canal treaties and SALT II.
The conservative evangelicals undoubtedly hurt Jimmy Carter. According to an ABC News/Harris survey, Carter won the white Baptist vote in 1976, 56% to 43%, and lost it this time, 56% to 34%. The Harris analysis indicates that the shift in the evangelical vote accounted for two-thirds of Reagan's ten-point margin over Carter. Other experts do not agree; they claim that the New Right had its main effect in state and local elections where certain targeted liberal candidates were already in serious trouble.
Early and methodical organization was the key to this year's New Right campaign. In its effort to get the Silent Majority to roar, the alliance made extensive and artful use of direct mail techniques. By marketing their cause directly to supporters, the alliance circumvented what it considers to be the liberal-dominated media. Says Viguerie: "The left had a monopoly of all the microphones of the country. Never before has the right been able to bypass the evening news."