The MacNeil/Lehrer Report; Young Republicans

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. TV comics and Democrats have been having a fun time since November joking about the Republican Party --those caucuses-in- a-phone-booth and inclusion-on-the-endangered-species-list kinds of things. But down in Memphis, Tennessee, where the Young Republican Convention is under way and where Robert MacNeil is tonight, nobody`s laughing. Robin?

ROBERT MacNEIL: Jim, trying to avoid extinction as a party is one of the main themes of this sober gathering, as 800 Young Republican delegates survey the shambles left by Watergate and the `76 election. For the notoriously ideological Young Republicans there`s an air of determined pragmatism, much talk of better grassroots efforts, more emphasis on local races. Ideology does rear its head somewhat in the spirited struggle for the Young Republican leadership, which is the principal business of the Convention. But there`s a lot of talk of abandoning exclusive loyalties to this or that national candidate -- meaning the Ford-Reagan splits of last year -- and working together as a party force.

The Convention will serve another purpose: a place where you can watch the first moves of Republican Presidential hopefuls of 1980. President Ford is here today, playing golf this afternoon and addressing the delegates this evening. Senator Howard Baker -- we`ll see lots of "Baker For President" buttons when he arrives. And Ronald Reagan comes on Saturday. Tonight we look at the Young Republicans as they attempt to plant the seeds for a Republican revival. Jim?

LEHRER: Robin, the future direction of the Republican Party, of course, is not the exclusive property of the Young Republicans, and not all Republicans who qualify by age for the prefix "young" are even in Memphis, so we`ll also be getting the views of two others here in Washington, Congressman Dave Stockman of Michigan. A young thirty years old, he`s considered one of the Party`s bright new stars. His successful campaign as an unknown last year has been tagged a model by many Party pros. Also here, Alan Crawford, a conservative writer, formerly an aide to conservative Senator James Buckley, now the editor of a newspaper in Morgantown, West Virginia. But first, the view from Memphis. Robin?

MacNEIL: The real excitement here, Jim, is the election of a new leader of the Young Republicans with all the trappings of a nominating convention -- posters, buttons, hospitality sweets and endorsements. Since the Young Republicans have always had a reputation for being more conservative than their elders, it`s not surprising that both contenders for the chairmanship are former supporters of Ronald Reagan. One of them is Richard Evans, a twenty-eight-year-old car dealer from Owensboro, Kentucky. Mr. Evans was a Reagan delegate to the Republican Convention last summer but endorsed Gerald Ford after the nomination. His opponent, Roger Stone, at first agreed but later refused to take part tonight. He told me this afternoon, "Why should I give my opponent a platform when I`m 350 votes ahead? Nixon should never have debated Kennedy." Stone sent as his substitute David Keene, a southern coordinator for Reagan last year and recently a lecturer at the Kennedy Institute for Politics at Harvard. After his work for Reagan he also worked on the Re-Election for President Ford Committee.

First, to you, Mr. Evans, is Roger Stone 350 votes ahead of you? That`s a big lead, if he is.

RICHARD EVANS: Not unless he`s gotten some of the Territories and maybe Quebec, Saskatchewan in. We`ve had the momentum in this campaign for the last several weeks; we`ve still got it through this convention, and we intend to win.

MacNEIL: I don`t mean this impolitely, but why should anybody outside the ranks of the Young Republicans and those actually here at this convention care whether you or Roger Stone emerges as Chairman?

EVANS: I think it`s a question of effectiveness, I think it`s a question of departure from the past administrations that Roger Stone has been a part of. I think that we`ve got to get back to the grass roots effort to elect Republicans and pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. We`ve got to start electing people to the Congress, to the state legislatures, to the courthouse seats. This is where the future of the Party is going to be built and our future leaders are going to come from.

MacNEIL: And Mr. Stone isn`t interested in that? He says he is.

EVANS: Well, I think that this organization right now is, very truthfully, not affected, and I think that`s why I`m interested -- because I want to make it an effective force again in American politics and for the Republican Party. And it`s a change in direction.

MacNEIL: Are there dangers in a Stone victory, as far as you`re concerned?

EVANS: I think that Mr. Stone is going to have to speak for himself. I wish he were here to do that. But I have made a campaign on what I feel needs to be done in the Republican Party; I`ve talked about my background and the programs that I want to see implemented. And he`ll have to speak to his own problems.

MacNEIL: Let me ask you another question: both of you worked for Ronald Reagan; is there any real difference between you on the issues? Is there an ideological divide?

EVANS: Well, this is a nuts-and-bolts job, as I see it. It`s not a thing of ideology, it`s not a thing of personality. As I say, it`s a question of being an effective worker in the field for the Republican Party within our peer group. We`re an auxiliary of the RNC that`s supposed to produce voters and workers and candidates.

MacNEIL: Does that mean that there is no ideological difference to speak of and it`s a battle for who`s the best and most pragmatic and efficient administrator?

EVANS: That`s what I base Ty campaign on.

MacNEIL: What is your own prescription, Mr. Evans, for the salvation of the Republican Party?

EVANS: I think that the Party can`t come from the top down, it has to come from the bottom up. People have to be brought in at a grassroots level.

MacNEIL: The kinds of people who have not been brought in much up till now?

EVANS: I think that, speaking of the YR specifically, it`s been an organization that has been of rather exclusive membership, and we`ve got a lot of talented people. I have seen in my travels and my campaigning that we`ve got the people who are willing to lend their talents to the Republican Party and they want to; and they need to be shown and they need to be involved, and this organization was once effective in doing that. And I think, as Dave will agree, in the past we`ve seen some good leadership come out of this organization, but for the last five or six years we haven`t seen that.

MacNEIL: Okay. Mr. Keene, as the stand-in for Roger Stone, why would Mr. Stone make a better leader of the Young Republicans than Mr. Evans?

DAVID KEENE: Well, I hate to be described as a stand-in. I`m really here primarily...

MacNEIL: You`re here instead of an empty chair.

KEENE: That`s true, but I`m here also to discuss the future of the Party, which I think questions of that are reflected in this convention. Frankly, as Rich indicated and as you`ve indicated, he was a Reagan delegate to the Kansas City Convention; I think both Rich and Roger are conservatives. The Young Republicans have -- in recent history, at least -- been a conservative organization and I think as an organization they will continue to be. I really think that Roger could do a great job, primarily because I got to know him during the Reagan campaign. And you may remember during the primary season we spent most of our time trying to find out where our next dime was going to come from. In many of the primary states, particularly Texas and Indiana, we confronted a situation where we had to rely primarily on young volunteers to put our organization together and to carry the real burden of the campaign for a long period of time. And Roger was during that period our National Youth Director, and delivered, and did an excellent job. We won those primaries, and I don`t think we could have done it without the young people, the young volunteers. And if we`re talking about an ability to put together that kind of an organization, to put together and draw in young people so that they will assist and be interested in and work within a campaign organization or a political organization, I know that Roger has a proven track record in the area and I think that does make a difference. And I don`t mean that in derogation in any way of Richard`s talents, but I have worked with Roger and do know that he can do it.

MacNEIL: Roger Stone, under a pseudonym, was identified by the Senate Watergate Committee as one of the figures, albeit a minor figure, in the so-called "dirty tricks" campaign that came under the general umbrella of Watergate. Since the whole Watergate thing is such an albatross around the Party`s neck, would it be wise for the Young Republicans to put as their leader somebody who has that identity?

KEENE: Well, it wouldn`t be wise to put somebody who was in the burglars or anything of that sort, but Roger wasn`t in a situation like that. He was a nineteen-year-old kid who worked for the youth arm of the Committee to Re- Elect the President; he did a couple of stupid, not illegal, things, and as a result he`s suffered seriously, as did a lot of people, many of whom didn`t do anything, many of whom suffered primarily because they were associated with that campaign. In some cases, of course, there were people who committed crimes, and they should have been and in most cases were punished. But one of the reasons that when we put together the Reagan campaign I knew a little bit of Roger`s talents and felt that we ought to give him an opportunity was because I don`t think that somebody who does something that`s stupid, if he has recognized it -- and he did, and in fact assisted the investigators at one point in the investigation -- I don`t think that he should be required to carry that as a burden for the rest of his life. I don`t think that`s very good for him, nor is it good for our society to require it.

MacNEIL: I asked Mr. Evans this; I`ll ask you: what do you think the Republican Party needs to do to resuscitate itself?

KEENE: It has to talk to the people. By all indications on most of the issues, the American people in vast majority tend to agree with the kinds of approaches that we as Republicans are willing to and want to take. But they don`t realize that they agree with us, because we have frankly been either negligent or incapable or unable to communicate with them effectively. I think in many cases we`ve talked in terms of some issues that are more issues of the past than issues of the present and the future. I listened to those Presidential debates during the last campaign, and Mr. Carter and Mr. Ford really could have been debating in 1952 or 1956; and it seems to me that we have to take our principles and apply them to the kinds of problems we have in this country today and the kinds of problems that are emerging if we want to be successful. And I`ve always found that if you talk to people they`re a lot more intelligent than some people think they are and that you`ll do all right.

MacNEIL: Okay. We`ll pursue those ideas further in a moment. Jim?

LEHRER: Yes, Robin. Now I want to talk to Alan Crawford here in Washington. You`ve expressed a lot of concern over the possible election of Mr. Stone. Why? What bothers you about him?

ALAN CRAWFORD: I`m less concerned, really about Roger`s Watergate connections, although those are a consideration, than I am by his ties to a style of politics which has been promoted by a Virginia fundraiser named Richard Viguerie and the forces around Mr. Viguerie. This is a new kind of conservatism...

LEHRER: It`s called the new right.

CRAWFORD: The new right, and they tell us that there are two basic kinds of issues that face the American people. They tell us first that there are economic issues and that there are social issues and that if conservatives are to forge the true majority which is out there sufficient to sweep them into power, then they have to compromise on what they call the economic issues and play up the social issues. For the social issues some examples are busing, abortion and gun control, whereas the economic issues are rising taxes, inflation, unemployment. Now, the problem here is that the Viguerie group has said that if we are to do this we`ve got to compromise the economic issues, we`ve got to surrender this, in a sense, so that we can bring in the blue-collar worker who really wants a kind of middle-class welfare. In other words, we would be distributing wealth not from the top to the bottom but from the top to the middle.

LEHRER: And Stone stands for that, is that right?

CRAWFORD: Well, Stone isn`t here to say whether he does or not, but he has been treasurer of the Viguerie group called the National Conservative Political Action Committee, which has been very heavy into the direct mail business, and as an example, it`s my contention that these are basically opportunists. They`re not conservatives; they`re perhaps populists, but let me give you one example: in the years 1975 and `76 the organization which Roger was treasurer of raised $2,334,426, ostensibly to elect Congressional candidates. Of that, 9.6 percent, or $224,000, was actually contributed to candidates. Now, this isn`t really unusual; two other large Viguerie operations had a similar batting average. And what this tells me is that they`re more interested in milking a conservative constituency by continued fundraising which goes largely for overhead, and it tells me, once again, that since these issues that are being stressed in order to raise money are largely cutting issues such as abortion, busing and gun control to the exclusion of what I consider more substantive issues, then they`re basically issues which are being used to stir up hostilities among what they perceive to be their constituents rather than benefiting these people. They`re playing on their fears.

LEHRER: And then, to take your theory the next step, if the Young Republicans were to elect a man who is identified with this new right philosophy as you defined it, that would mean the Young Republicans would also become identified with that, right?

CRAWFORD: Well, that`s certainly possible, and that is what I fear.

LEHRER: All right. Thank you. Congressman, let me ask you: first of all, how important do you feel it is to the Republican Party as a whole as to who becomes the new chairman or the new head of the Young Republicans?

Rep. DAVE STOCKMAN: I`m certainly supportive of the Young Republicans` movement, but to be frank with you, I don`t think the outcome of this particular election will make a great deal of difference. I think you have to remember there`s a very long history with the Young Republicans` organization per se as opposed to young Republicans in the Party generally, and that`s a long history of intramural warfare between very narrowly activist factions who square off once a year and have a battle of this sort. But I`ve been involved in politics for a few years and in Republican politics, and it`s been my observation that in terms of practical Republican politicians like myself who are officeholders, it hasn`t made a great deal of difference as to what`s happening in the Young Republicans. I think that if you talk to grassroots Republican activists who work in their precinct caucuses or county or state caucuses there will be very little awareness of what`s going on in Memphis today. And certainly when you get down to the rank and file Republican voters that we can count on in most elections, I think there`s almost no visibility or profile for this particular battle or this organization. So we need to find ways to encourage younger voters to participate in the Party; that`s obviously one of the main concerns I have. But I don`t think the Young Republican organization per se and the kind of pitched battle that`s apparently occurring down there this week will really make a very large impact on the future.

LEHRER: What about this point that Mr. Crawford just raised, the new right versus the old conservatism?

STOCKMAN: To the extent that the Stone campaign represents that impulse I think it worries me as much as it does Alan.

LEHRER: Why does it worry you?

STOCKMAN: Because I`m basically a classical conservative; I believe in the free market system, I believe in limited government, I think we need to substantially roll back the size of the public sector we have today and we need to restore a better distribution of power in the federal system. But the new right, it seems to me, emphasizes some very different things. It emphasizes the social issue and kind of inflaming passions and sentiments among certain components of the electorate, and although I`m obviously opposed to busing I think some of the other social issues -- I wouldn`t take great disagreement with the new right-type activists on their position, but I don`t feel that we ought to ride these issues as the major components in our plank and we certainly shouldn`t stir up the kind of antipathy that they would with the kind of inflamed rhetoric that they often use.

LEHRER: Finally and quickly, Congressman, the Viguerie group, however, as Mr. Crawford said, raised over two million dollars; how they spent it is another question, but Viguerie says he`s going to raise even more the next time. There have been three special elections since that election, two of them won by Republicans with an awful lot of Viguerie help and money. It is a potent force, is it not, for a practical Republican politician?

STOCKMAN: It may be, but I think there are many other ways to do it. I raised $200,000 in my campaign all from grassroots Republicans in the Fourth District of Michigan. I think with the proper organization, with the right kind, of fund-raising activities at the grassroots level, many other Republicans can do the same thing. They really do not need the services of these national or direct-mail-house fundraising organizations.

LEHRER: Thank you. Robin?

MacNEIL: First of all, Mr. Keene, since you`re here tonight speaking for Roger Stone, to what extent does he represent the so-called new right and the Viguerie way of going, and is that where he would like to lead the Young Republicans?

KEENE: If he were a representative of the kind of new right that Alan describes I think Alan knows that I probably wouldn`t support him. I`ve probably been as vocal as anyone in my opposition to that kind of politics.I think Dave Stockman`s initial remarks there pretty much described the kind of conservative that I am. However, I think that at this point in political evolvement with the right, if you will, that we`re perhaps a little out of date because what the Viguerie group has never recognized, in my mind, is that these are not antagonistic viewpoints; that the economic and the social and the cultural approaches are complementary or should be complementary. I`ve said that your opposition to busing should not be simply for the basis of attempting to get the votes of the parents of people who are going to be bused, but it should be based on an opposition to government involvement and interference with the family and individual life. And those can be distinctive different reasons for opposing it, because there are people who are merely attempting to exploit one feeling or another. I`m against that. I think Roger Stone is against that. I think that Alan in a sense correctly describes a part of the new right, but I don`t think he correctly describes either Roger`s position or the organization that Roger has been with. It`s true that the National Conservative Political Action Committee has been a client of the Viguerie company:..

MacNEIL: NCPAC, as it`s called.

KEENE: NCPAC -- for fundraising purposes; it`s not true that it`s a Viguerie group -- and there are some Viguerie groups. It`s also not accurate to use the figures that have been thrown about in terms of the ineffectiveness of NCPAC. The figures are drawn from federal reports. The fact is that a lot of NCPAC`s activities and a lot of their contributions go into state races. Last year they gave another $750,000 in in-kind services and contributions to state legislative races.

MacNEIL: Well, I`m a bit confused about this new right business; I`d like to clarify it in a moment, but I just want to bring you in, Mr. Evans. Are you not, as a Young Republican leader -- whether the leader or just a candidate at the moment -- rather distressed by what the Congressman had to say about "it doesn`t really matter" and you guys have been so quarreling among yourselves for so long that you aren`t regarded as very effective by the sort of "real" Party and the voters?

EVANS: Well, you know, I was a Senior Party County Chairman at the age of twenty-one, and my background has been in grassroots politics. I agree with a lot of the things that the Congressman says, and that`s why I say that we need a break with the past in the YR`s and we`re talking about some different things. I think we`re talking about a different philosophy of politics, not of ideology but a philosophy of politics. Are you going to go out and try to involve people in the Republican Party, or are you going to have a close-knit workshop that`s iconoclastic and just serves itself? Now, just to take the Kentucky delegation, it has several elected officials on it; it has a county judge, it has a state representative on that delegation, and if these people didn`t think that I represented an effort to get grassroots involvement these people wouldn`t be on my delegation and they wouldn`t be supporting me. They know what I`ve done.

Let`s talk about the future of the Republican Party. The Republican Party right now is in a situation where it`s got to do a lot of things right. And my belief is and my experience has been in my involvement in campaigns that people move to a party -- they move from Democrat to Republican, Independent to Republican -- mostly because they can relate to a local officeholder. We may pick up some disenfranchised Democrats in a national race, but those people aren`t going to leave their party and move to the Republican Party, or Independents aren`t going to be attracted to the Republican Party, unless they feel that the guy that`s running for the county seat is reflecting their point of view and their needs in the community, and this is where the future of the Party is.

MaCNEIL: Okay. I just want to pursue with you and the gentlemen in Washington for a moment or two this so-called "new right" and how it differs from what any politician who`s been in a losing party would say -- "We`ve got to go out and get more people" -- and what you would like to see as your conservatism. Are you all agreed -- and I think you are all conservatives of one stripe or another -- are you all agreed that the Republican Party has got to be a conservative party? Is that what you`re saying?

EVANS: I think that when you go out and start recruiting young, articulate candidates on a grassroots level that you can`t first go to them and ask them for a litmus test on their philosophy. I think that you have to go to people on the basis that "we as a party are open to you," and they`ve got to feel that they`re going to be representative of their community. And each community has different needs.

MacNEIL: Mr. Crawford in Washington, has the Republican Party got to be a conservative party?

CRAWFORD: Well, I think you have to remember that we have a fair idea of what the Party is like on the grassroots level, that the more conservative of the two candidates, Ronald Reagan, gained more popular votes than Gerald Ford during the primaries and swept twelve primary victories. And I think if we`re going to be tuned in to the grassroots the grassroots has already spoken. I would say yes.

LEHRER: Would you agree, Congressman?

STOCKMAN: I would agree with that, but I wouldn`t put an ideological connotation on the word "conservative." I think it has a very practical meaning that I described before. People don`t want solutions that are stamped "Made in Washington." They`re looking for ways to use state and local government, we`re looking for ways to revitalize the private sector, we`re looking for ways to mobilize the voluntary initiatives of the people of this country, particularly in the energy area. You`re going to see some very clear differences between the practical conservative Republican approach and what the Democratic Party will be offering.

LEHRER: Congressman, for instance, Ronald Reagan, Robert Dole and others have recently said that the Republican Party must go out and recruit more blacks into the Republican Party. How are you going to do that with a straight conservative line?

STOCKMAN: I think that we can do that. There is a high receptivity, I would think, among middle-class blacks in particular, to the idea that the taxes they`re paying today, the limitations that they have on their opportunities to get into business or professions or even in the trade unions, for instance, are a function of government controls, government restraints of the kind of government that we`ve had for three or four decades in this country. And we`re finding in Michigan, for instance, that that kind of platform is very appealing, at least to the middle-class black segment, which is growing.

MacNEIL: Excuse me, gentlemen, I didn`t see any blacks today at your National Committee Meeting of the Young Republicans. Were there any, whom I just missed?

MANS: Frank Hardy from California is a newly elected National Committeeman, I think the first or second black to be elected to ...

MacNEIL: I didn`t mean to make a big issue of it, I just didn`t happen to see any there. Jim?

LEHRER: Yeah, I just want to come back to you for a second, Mr. Crawford. You really believe that a strictly conservative Republican Party can have a rebirth and can eventually elect a President and over come what happened to it last November?

CRAWFORD: Well, if they steer clear of the problems they had last November, if they put down the Watergate past and if they are truly conservative.

LEHRER: Does this mean to say no to the Javits, to the Rockefellers, to the Mathiases and those people, stay out of the Republican Party?

CRAWFORD: No, not to say no to them, but you have to remember that there is so little of that strength that we cannot bend over backwards to accommodate those people if; their strength is minimal within the Party. You have to listen to the larger voice.

LEHRER: Mr. Keene and Mr. Evans, are the Young Republicans interested in recruiting moderate-to-liberals within the Party?

MacNEIL: Are you, Mr. Keene?

KEENE:I am. I think that I said a few minutes ago that one of the problems I think we`ve had is that we talk in terms of issues of the past. I think that`s been a serious problem. If you sit down

with the average moderate Republican these days you find out that his differences with the average conservative Republican aren`t as great as you thought they were.

LEHRER: Mr. Keene, I`m sorry, we`ve got to go. Thank you in Memphis. Good night, Robin. Thanks very much in Washington. Good night.