Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2019 Empire of Direct Mail: Media, Fundraising, aTankahdito C Morinyamsaervative Political Consultants Follow this and additional works at the DigiNole: FSU's Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected] FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES EMPIRE OF DIRECT MAIL: MEDIA, FUNDRAISING, AND CONSERVATIVE POLITICAL CONSULTANTS By TAKAHITO MORIYAMA A Dissertation submitted to the Department of History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2019 Takahito Moriyama defended this dissertation on March 8, 2019. The members of the supervisory committee were: Guenter Kurt Piehler Professor Directing Dissertation Brad T. Gomez University Representative Jennifer L. Koslow Committee Member Suzanne M. Sinke Committee Member Michael Creswell Committee Member Michael McVicar Committee Member The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members, and certifies that the dissertation has been approved in accordance with university requirements. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... iv Introduction ......................................................................................................................................1 Chapter One: The Rise of Political Consultants in the 1950s ........................................................15 Chapter Two: The Development of Political Direct Mail, 1946-1961 ..........................................53 Chapter Three: The Presidential Election of 1964 .........................................................................88 Chapter Four: After Goldwater, 1965-1972.................................................................................125 Chapter Five: Debates over Campaign Finance Reform, 1961-1976 ..........................................166 Chapter Six: The Formation of the New Right, 1974-1980.........................................................198 Epilogue .......................................................................................................................................255 Bibliography ................................................................................................................................265 Biographical Sketch .....................................................................................................................299 iii ABSTRACT This study examines the rise of modern American conservatism by analyzing the role that computerized direct mail played in the conservative movement from the 1950s to the 1980s. In the post-World War II years, the advertising industry on Madison Avenue developed direct marketing to reach out to prospective customers. As political consultants in New York City introduced the new advertising strategy into politics during the 1950s, direct mail became an important medium for conservatives to fight liberal media. Empire of Direct Mail focuses on conservatives in New York and Washington, D.C., such as Marvin Liebman and Richard Viguerie, narrating how direct mail contributed to right-wing organizations and politicians. Constructing the computer database of personal information, direct mail operatives compiled mailing lists of supporters, which provided conservative candidates, including Barry Goldwater, George Wallace, and Ronald Reagan, with nationwide networks of contributors. Right-wing messengers effectively employed direct mail by using emotion as a campaign strategy. They capitalized on rage and discontent in post-1960s America in order to court Southern Democrats, middle-class white suburbanites, and blue-collar workers. While liberal critics condemned conservatives for their emotionalism, liberals unintentionally brought about the ascendancy of conservative direct mail by enacting the 1974 Federal Election Campaign Act Amendments to prohibit big contributions. This research on direct mail fundraising is based upon an extensive range of archival sources that historians have ignored. By excavating not only messages from right-wing activists but also many replies from ordinary conservative Americans, this study indicates that direct mail politics created a grassroots activism as the mass of small contribution rather than the accumulation of local engagement. iv INTRODUCTION In fall 1978, Richard Art Viguerie invited a newspaper reporter to his office in Falls Church, Virginia. Viguerie rented three floors in a modern white brick office building in the sprawling suburb of Washington, D.C., where 300 employees worked in the Richard A. Viguerie Company (RAVCO). One of the floors had a computer room guarded by two security systems. The room contained two giant IBM computers, two high-speed printers, and ten tape units for distributing millions of letters. An adjoining room, which was protected by even more elaborate security precautions that changed a combination lock every few days, stored 3,000 rolls of magnetic tape that recorded the names and addresses of approximately fifteen million people who had been identified as likely donors to conservative causes. Grinning and pointing to the round cans of tape, Viguerie told the reporter, “If you’re conservative, your name should be in there somewhere.”1 The RAVCO was a consulting firm that engaged in political advertising and fundraising primarily for conservatism. Drawing upon a huge database of personal information, Viguerie sent out computerized direct mailings from his office in North Virginia to conservatives around the nation. His appeals urged Americans to join battles revolving around single issues such as the Equal Rights Amendment, abortion, gun control, school busing, labor law reform, and the Panama Canal Treaty. In election years, Viguerie’s solicitation letters also called on recipients to support right-wing candidates including Senators Jesse Helms of North Carolina, Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, and Alabama Governor George Wallace. Millions of citizens received letters with a simulating personal touch, and hundreds of thousands of them sent back 1 Nick Kotz, “King Midas of ‘the New Right,’” Atlantic, November 1978, 52. 1 $10, $15, or $25 checks in response to Viguerie’s letters. Grossing over $15 million a year, the RAVCO raised money to help conservative candidates and organizations in the late 1970s. The ten IBM magnetic tape units in Viguerie’s office incessantly spun, adding new names, deleting others, and selecting those who would be responsive to future campaigns. The room with magnetic tape was the nerve center of Viguerie’s direct mail empire. He claimed that it was “the most important room in America for conservatism.”2 Beginning in the early 1950s, conservative media activists like Viguerie propagated their anti-liberal discourse through various media outlets. Along with right-wing intellectuals, Southern Democrats, and conservative suburbanites in the Sunbelt, these media professionals forged the conservative movement from the 1950s to the 1980s. However, unlike grassroots activists who canvassed from door to door or prominent politicians who moved audiences in speeches, conservative advertisers mobilized people and lobbied lawmakers by sending messages from their offices in New York and Washington. This is a story of direct mail specialists who constructed conservative networks and created a new grassroots activism in twentieth-century American politics. The public and chroniclers have forgotten the impacts of political direct mail, which is overshadowed by other mass media such as the press and electric media. Newspapers and magazines remained crucial in providing information throughout the twentieth century. Radio became popular among Americans and conveyed political messages from the 1930s. Later by the early 1950s when many households purchased television sets, political campaigners began to use television as a key medium in elections. Academic researchers have examined the effects of 2 Rich Jaroslovsky, “New-Right Cashier: Mr. Viguerie Collects Funds, Gains Influence in Conservative Causes,” Wall Street Journal, October 6, 1978, 1. 2 media in modern American politics with attention first and foremost to television. In her classic work, Kathleen Hall Jamieson analyzed presidential campaigns in the latter part of the twentieth century by narrating how presidential candidates from Dwight Eisenhower to Bill Clinton employed televised advertising. While investigating various “spins” in presidential races ranging from Theodore Roosevelt’s publicity to Barack Obama’s use of the internet, David Greenberg also looked closely at the role of television ads in U.S. politics over the years.3 Similarly, the scholarship of conservative media has focused on mass media. When analyzing the role of media activists in the conservative movement, researchers have addressed largely conservative publishers, talk radio hosts, and television executives. Although scholars of right-wing media have dealt with various communication tools in politics, they accept a conventional wisdom that the press and broadcasting played critical roles in the United States during the late twentieth century, and more generally, that mass media was a central topic for political information campaigns.4 3 Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Packaging the Presidency: A History and Criticism of Presidential Campaign Advertising, 3rd