Richard Art Viguerie

Richard Art Viguerie (born September 23, 1933 in Golden Acres near Houston, Texas, USA) is a conservative figure and writer on American politics. He is the current chairman of ConservativeHQ.com.

Born: 23-Sep-1933
Birthplace: Golden Acres, TX
Gender: Male
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Activist
Party Affiliation: Republican

Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Conservative activist

Wife: Elaine O. Viguerie (three children)

High School: (Houston, TX)
University: University of Houston

MEMBER:
    American Conservative Union
    Americans for a Republican Majority
    Arlington Group
    Bush-Cheney '04
    Council for National Policy
    Friends of George Allen
    Fund for a Free Market America
    George W. Bush for President
    Judicial Watch
    Moral Majority
    National Conservative Campaign Fund
    Santorum 2006
    Young Americans for Freedom Executive Secretary (1961-64)

In Viguerie's own words:

"Pioneered political use of computerized direct mail. That technology was the Internet of its day: it enabled conservatives to get around liberals' dominance of the mass media; it allowed thousands of conservative candidates, organizations and causes to get their messages to grassroots Americans."

Viguerie has been dubbed the "funding father" of modern conservative strategy in the United States.

Viguerie worked for the Christian evangelist Billy James Hargis in his early career.

In an autobiographical note, Viguerie wrote that in 1961 he became executive secretary of the conservative youth group Young Americans for Freedom:

"Since 1965, owner of direct marketing/advertising companies such as American Target Advertising. Political/campaign strategist, activist and conservative spokesman and writer."

Viguerie founded Conservative Digest magazine in 1975 and served as its publisher for ten years. Opposing President Gerald Ford's election, Viguerie in 1976 unsuccessfully sought the presidential nomination of the American Independent Party, which had been formed eight years earlier by George Wallace. The party instead nominated former Georgia Governor Lester G. Maddox, to challenge Ford and Democrat Jimmy Carter, also a former Georgia governor.

In 1977, Viguerie worked on a project to raise money for Sun Myung Moon's Children's Relief Fund, which reportedly only received 6.3% of the $1,508,256 raised. $920,000 went to Viguerie according to New York State charity auditors.

Viguerie sought the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor of Virginia in 1985, but did not receive the nomination at the GOP state convention.

Asked by Campaigns and Elections in May 2000 what his immediate goals were, Viguerie answered:

"To use the Internet to involve Americans in the political process, to help conservatives gain an advantage over the left. To fight against government's use of power, to fight for individual rights and responsibilities, and to fight to extend the blessings of liberty throughout the world."

Writing in The Nation, David Corn noted that Viguerie "raised money for Judicial Watch" and is associated with Larry Klayman, a conservative lawyer and activist who had been a failed candidate for the Republican nomination for US Senate in Florida in 2004.

Viguerie has long been associated with conservative activist Howard Phillips through creation of the Moral Majority in 1979.

In January 2008, Viguerie launched http://www.ultimateronpaul.com , a website designed to promote the 2008 presidential candidacy of U.S. Congressman Ron Paul, whom Viguerie described as "truly a principled conservative in the grand tradition of Robert Taft, Barry Goldwater, and Ronald Reagan" and who "has differentiated himself from all the other candidates, whose allegiance is to Big Government Republicanism."

Richard Viguerie's Big Con

excerpted from an article by Rick Perlstein | Friday, May 18, 2007 11:

This one goes out to my fellow journalists, progressive or otherwise.

Please please please please please stop reporting it as news when Richard Viguerie says if the Republican Party doesn't do what he wants it to do, it is no longer "conservative," and that he, as Pope of the nation's "conservatives," will withdraw "conservative" support from the Republican Party, thereby destroying it, unless it does what he says.

Getting these meaningless threats of his quoted is his way of making the Republican Party an offer it can't refuse.

He's been working this hustle for over 30 years. "Conservative" means: all those millions of people you Washington folk can't possibly understand, but I do. He sells his supposed mystic access to these masses for cash on the barrelhead, in the form of mailing lists. If the media stopped quoting him as the arbiter of what is "conservative," he'd lose all his cachet, and have to beg for quarters off a highway exit.

Special coda for progressives: taking him seriously is deeply, deeply, deeply counterproductive to the project of weakening the hold of conservatism in the long term. Every time a conservative—say, Bush—is revealed as a miserable failure, the Vigueries of the world can say he was never "conservative" in the first place, and that "conservatism"—like Trotskyists used to say of "Communism"—has never been "tried." So give us one more chance. We swear it will work this time.

Moral Majority Beginnings

Richard Viguerie, the right-wing direct-mail guru hired by Giuliani to carry his anti-Hillary message to heartland donors, founded the Moral Majority with Falwell. Viguerie launched his Manassas, Virginia-based direct-mail business right after his candidate, Barry Goldwater, lost the presidential race of 1964. Lynchburg voted for Goldwater seven to one. Combined with the rise of Falwell, that kind of plurality has made the Virginia Area the natural repository for a swill of Viguerie mailings.