From Direct Mail to 'America's Right Turn'

DATE December 15, 2004 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A
TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A
NETWORK NPR
PROGRAM Fresh Air

Interview: Richard Viguerie discusses his efforts to move
America further to the right
TERRY GROSS, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. My guest Richard Viguerie has been
called `the funding father of the conservative movement.' After the
conservative Republican candidate for president, Barry Goldwater, lost his
presidential bid in 1964, Viguerie pioneered a new form of political
fund-raising through direct mail. This proved particularly effective in
building the conservative movement that elected Ronald Reagan. Viguerie
helped create the Moral Majority and has raised money for many conservative
politicians and organizations. His ambition has been to move the Republican
Party and the country further to the right. In this past election, Viguerie's
company sent out an estimated 100 million pieces of direct mail. He accuses
the media, with the exception of talk radio, of having a liberal bias. Now he
has a new book, co-written with David Franke, called "America's Right Turn:
How Conservatives Used New and Alternative Media to Take Power." Direct mail
is one of the forms of alternative media covered in the book.

You point out in the book that there are several things that you think were
very effective about direct mail, above and beyond actually getting money.
You were able to reach people with your message who didn't read conservative
journals. You saw it as a way to bypass the liberal--the media that you
considered to be liberal and not interested in your message. And you saw it
as a way to bypass the Republican hierarchy. Why did you feel you need to do
that? What was the difference between the message you wanted to put across
and the message that you thought, you know, the Republican hierarchy, as
you've described it, wanted to put across?

Mr. RICHARD VIGUERIE (Co-author, "America's Right Turn: How Conservatives
Used New and Alternative Media to Take Power"): Well, back in the 1950s, the
1960s and well into the 1970s, and actually probably through until 1994, the
Republican leaders in the House of Representatives and in the Senate were not
conservatives, and they weren't conservatives in the White House until Ronald
Reagan was elected. Eisenhower was the Republican big government
establishment candidate. Nixon was a big government Republican.

So conservatives had to decide on--if they were gonna be politically
effective, they had to operate, of course, within one of the two major
parties, and we selected the Republicans as being closer to our point of view.
But we were a small, distinct minority in terms of the leadership, and so we
had to challenge the Republican leadership back in the '60s and the '70s, and
we used direct mail to communicate to the voters. In the '60s and the '70s,
we felt, again, that we were blocked from the microphones of the country.
Walter Cronkite would go to his CBS office in the morning, put down his coffee
cup, pick up his New York Times, and an hour later, he and he alone had
decided what was the news and information that would be told to the American
people that day that was important. So there were literally a handful of
gatekeepers, the three networks--NBC, ABC, CBS--The New York Times, Associated
Press, Time magazine, etc. Just a handful of people who basically had a very
similar world view, who belonged to the same clubs, socialized together, and
that did not include people with a conservative point of view.

So it was only by using direct mail that we could begin to communicate with
the American people that there was a different world view than they were
hearing from, not only the people in the media, but in the leadership of the
two political parties, the Republicans and Democrats.

GROSS: What was the difference between the--as you put it--you know, the
Republican leaders who weren't conservative and your conservative agenda?
What was the difference?

Mr. VIGUERIE: Well, the Republicans--and there's still those Republicans in
different positions of leadership today that--you know, we've come a long
ways, but we've still got a long ways to go. The Republican leaders in the
'50s and '60s and, as I said, even to this day, many of them have a big
government, corporate approach to governing. And we as conservatives believe
in keeping government as small as possible and as close to the individuals as
possible. We like government to be operated as much as possible at the local
level. And many Republican leaders are very comfortable with a big government
approach. One of the battles that we had to fight back in the '60s and the
'70s and the '80s was big business because big business was very
comfortable--many of them--with dealing with the Soviet Union, and they were
doing what they could to prop up the Soviet Union, do business with them, and
our goal was to bring down the Soviet Union, not to strengthen them, not to do
business with them. So that was a fault line in the Republican Party in
decades past between the conservatives, who wanted to bring down the Soviet
Union, and those who wanted to do business with it.

GROSS: In your new book, you said basically that it's easier to raise money
if people are angry about something. You write, `People vote against long
before they vote for. People aren't interested in sending money for good
government. That's something they expect. They will give money quicker to
defeat someone who is opposed to their beliefs.' And I'm wondering how that
understanding affected the issues that you use to raise money around in your
direct mail campaign?

Mr. VIGUERIE: Well, Terry, that was true when I started in direct mail back
in the '60s, and it's true to this day, and it's not something that's unique
to conservatives or Republicans, but the Democrats certainly understand that.
But it's just a fact of life that people are motivated by anger and fear much
more so than positive emotions, and that's not all bad. You know, sometimes,
it's very good to have anger. Abraham Lincoln was very angry about slavery
and Martin Luther King was very angry about how minorities and
African-Americans were treated back in the `50s and the '60s. And even to
this day, there's a lot to be angry about and a lot of injustices out there.
And so when you speak to those injustices, you get people's attention more
stronger than you would if you speak in a more positive way.

GROSS: Well, the issues early on that you organized around--or at least these
are some of the issues that I think you would agree made people angry who you
were writing to were the end of prayer in the schools, the legalization of
abortion and homosexuality. You organized a lot around homosexuality. Did
you choose those issues because you knew that for a certain part of America,
it would hit people in their gut, that you could really make them angry with
this?

Mr. VIGUERIE: No. You chose those issues because that's what is your
passion, that's what causes you to get up in the morning. And I've spent all
my adult life trying to solve problems. My generation of conservatives,
Terry, almost entirely--in fact, the generation that came after me and the
generation before--before we were anything, before we were concerned about the
social issues or the role of government in our life, we were anti-Communist.
We were concerned about the evils of communism, and we saw them as a threat to
mankind.

And after the Soviet Union came down, we didn't have that threat to the extent
we did before. We began to focus on other issues. And many conservatives
these days feel that we have a--there's a war going on against Christians,
that there's the secular community here, many of the institutions of this
country are secular, and that there's an open war on Christians and our
beliefs. We are relegated to churches on the weekend, but that's it, and
we're not supposed to participate in the political process. The Democrats
have sent that message almost, that if you are, say, a practicing Catholic,
that you're not going to serve on the courts--in the federal courts. So a lot
of conservatives feel that there's--institutions in this country have declared
war on them. And whether it's Christians or people who want to educate their
children and inculcate them with certain views and values, they feel the
education establishment has declared war on them. So there's a lot of
problems out there that conservatives feel need addressing, and it
just--people might interpret it as being negative, but we feel that we're
trying to protect our values.

GROSS: My guest is Richard Viguerie. He pioneered the use of direct mail for
political fund-raising. His new book is called "America's Right Turn: How
Conservatives Used New and Alternative Media to Take Power." We'll talk more
after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: My guest is Richard Viguerie. He pioneered the use of direct mail for
political fund-raising. He helped create the Moral Majority and has been a
key figure in grassroots fund-raising for conservative causes. His new book
is called "America's Right Turn: How Conservatives Used New and Alternative
Media to Take Power."

You know, we were talking before about your comment that people are more
likely to send money when direct mail is about something that is opposed to
their beliefs. In other words, if you point out something that is opposed to
somebody's beliefs and then they get upset about this, they're more likely to
send money to your cause. So I'm wondering if you found homosexuality a
particularly effective issue to organize around? I mean, I remember some of
the direct mail of the '70s was about how homosexuals were going to be
recruiting, you know, in your neighborhood, and, you know, how to--that there
was a real danger to our youth because of homosexual recruitment. Now, you
don't really hear much about homosexual recruitment anymore, but that seemed
to be an effective fund-raising issue in the '70s, and I'm wondering
what--like, if that was effective because it scared people?

Mr. VIGUERIE: Terry, quite frankly, that wasn't the case then and now. I
can speak with firsthand knowledge that in the past year or so that we've been
dealing with the gay marriage issue, it has not been something that, quite
frankly, has worked in the mail. It is something that people feel very
strongly about, and they've expressed that opinion at the ballot box. But
from a marketing standpoint, there hasn't been much in the way of a successful
mail program by any organization that I'm aware of.

Americans are enormously tolerant. And the homosexual agenda--everything that
I read in the liberal press--acknowledges that the homosexuals have made
enormous progress that nobody could have predicted just years ago much less
decades ago, how much progress that they have made. But what has happened
recently is that the homosexuals, the activists, have really gotten much of
America's attention, that they have an agenda and they're coming forward to
promote that agenda, and it's an anti-religious agenda, and in many ways
they're mean-spirited. They have some really just tough, aggressive tactics.
They try to demonize people who disagree with them and say they're homophobic,
that they're bigoted. Many people feel that homosexuals are not being honest,
that their agenda is not whatever it is that they're talking about today
because every time that they've had a victory, they have now gone on to push
the envelope even more. And many of us feel that their goal is not to marry.
They don't really want that, very few homosexuals really want to marry. What
they really want is the destruction of marriage, some of us feel, and that
they would really--they feel that there is a moral equivalency between
homosexuals and heterosexuals, and we reject that.

GROSS: So let me see if I understand correctly. What you're saying is that
Americans who oppose homosexual rights are very tolerant people. It's the
homosexuals who are intolerant, mean-spirited and want to destroy marriage as
we know it.

Mr. VIGUERIE: Well, Terry, I think you said the homosexual rights. I don't
know if you think they have a right to marriage. I disagree that they have a
right to marriage. Americans are enormously tolerant. We just don't feel
that the homosexuals should be out there trying to reorder society. We have
lived a certain way for thousands of years, and we don't feel that we're
bigoted and mean-spirited because we want to continue practicing our religion,
our faith. They're saying if we believe the Bible, if we believe what our
religious leaders have taught us for thousands of years, that we're bigoted
and prejudiced, and we must be taken out of the political process, and let's
not have a role in politics. Well, we just reject that mean-spirited
approach.

GROSS: So, again, you're saying it's the homosexuals who are mean-spirited
and that people who oppose homosexuals either having certain jobs or marrying
or having civil unions, they're tolerant. It's the homosexuals that are
mean-spirited.

Mr. VIGUERIE: Well, there has been a great deal of mean-spirited homosexual
activity in the recent years. They go into our churches, desecrate--I'm a
Catholic--and they desecrate the Holy Eucharist, and they disrupt our
services.

GROSS: I'm sorry, how do they do that? How do they desecrate the Holy
Eucharist?

Mr. VIGUERIE: They go into St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York and take
communion and throw it on the floor and stomp on it. That's how they do it.

GROSS: I'm sorry. I'm not familiar with the fact that that was part of the
homosexual movement.

Mr. VIGUERIE: Well it's part of the homosexual activists--leaders act up and
others have desecrated the Holy Eucharist.

GROSS: You're talking about maybe one political protest that happened, but it
makes it...

Mr. VIGUERIE: Well, it's...

GROSS ...sounds as if it's all gays go into churches and desecrate communion
because they're gay.

Mr. VIGUERIE: No. All gays don't go in there, but there is in the
leadership, too many times, a mean-spirited approach. And it's interesting,
the liberals for each cause that comes along, they just have a hard time
understanding that all of America doesn't agree with them. But it's
interesting how now, liberals are lining up, saying, `Well, let's just drop
the gun issue. The Second Amendment battle is costing us too many elections.
We called these people all kinds of names in the '70s, '80s and '90s, and we
got hurt by doing that. Let's drop that. We've also done the same on
abortion. We've vilified the pro-life people, and it's costing us election
after election. So let's drop that issue.' And probably it will take a
couple elections before the liberals will see that trying to change marriage
as it's been established for thousands of years is probably not a good idea.
But the liberals are probably going to fight that battle for the next few
elections and pay a heavy price for it.

GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is Richard Viguerie, and he's
considered the king of political direct mail campaigns. He was very important
in the formation of the Moral Majority and in the first election of President
Reagan. And he has a new book co-written with David Franke called "America's
Right Turn: How Conservatives Used New and Alternative Media to Take Power."

Correct me if I'm wrong, you were in on the creation of the Moral Majority,
and you--is that incorrect?

Mr. VIGUERIE: I missed that meeting, Terry.

GROSS: You missed the meeting.

Mr. VIGUERIE: I missed that meeting, literally. Some of my friends, Ed
McAteer, who just passed away in the last month or two, and Paul Weyrich and
Howard Phillips went down and met with Jerry Falwell in the late '70s. And
basically, when they left the meeting, they had formed the Moral Majority
there. And it's interesting and exciting for me to hear that Dr. Falwell is
reconstituting the Moral Majority.

But I was very involved with the whole formation involvement of the religious
right back in the late '70s and early '80s, and it probably did as much to
bring conservatives to power starting in the '80s as anything that I can think
of. Before the religious conservatives began to get involved in politics,
Republicans would win 43, 45, 47, 48 percent of the vote, but not very often
did we get 51, 53 percent. But in the late '70s, when we began to reach out
to the conservative Protestants, conservative Catholics and involve them in
the political process, starting in 1980, then we began to elect people and get
52, 53 percent or more. It's kind of like a three-legged stool. We had two
legs of the stool through the '50s, '60s and '70s, but the stool wasn't very
supportive. One leg of the stool was foreign policy, opposition to communism.
Second stool was economic, lower taxes, less government. And only when we
added the third leg of that stool did we really start winning elections, and
that was bringing the religious community into the local process.

GROSS: And what did that add? What was that leg exactly?

Mr. VIGUERIE: Well, it brought into the political process first off people
who were afraid in the late '70s that Jimmy Carter had an agenda to destroy
the Christian schools. The Christian school movement--Protestant school
movement was really starting to explode in growth, and they were starting
three, four or more a day new schools. And Jimmy Carter's commissioner of IRS
in the late '70s issued a ruling that if you had started a private school
after 1953, which was Brown vs. Board of Education, that you were presumed to
have started the school for racial purposes to avoid segregation--to continue
segregation and avoid integration; therefore, you would lose your tax
deductible status. Well, that was an outrage to people who wanted to practice
their religious faith, and so they saw it as a threat by government. And so
that's when people like Reverend Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell and others
began to pay attention to the political process, and that frightened them, and
they prevailed, and Jimmy Carter's IRS commissioner had to withdraw that
ruling. But then they began to look and say, `Well, we've got a problem with
abortion. We've got a problem with schools driving God out of the schools and
out of the public square.' And so it was a wake-up call for Christians back
in the late '70s.

GROSS: Richard Viguerie's new book is "America's Right Turn." He'll be back
in the second half of the show. This is FRESH AIR.

(Announcements)

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: Coming up, Richard Viguerie talks more about his efforts to move
America further to the right and the gut issues that have helped mobilize
conservatives. And Ken Tucker reviews the new solo CD by John Davis, formerly
of the punk pop group Superdrag.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross back with Richard Viguerie, the
pioneer of direct mail for political fund-raising. He was one of the key
figures in the growth of the new right. He helped create the Moral Majority
and has raised money for many conservative politicians and organizations. Now
he's co-authored a new book called "America's Right Turn: How Conservatives
Used New and Alternative Media to Take Power."

When the Moral Majority started, the founders of the group and the activists
within the group, yourself included, had a vision of what this might mean for
the present and for the future. So it's around--nearly 25 years later. How
much of your vision that began with the Moral Majority has been accomplished,
and what's left to be done?

Mr. VIGUERIE: Terry, it's a mixed bag. We've had successes, and we've had
failures. It's easy for us, quite frankly, to focus on our failures, but I
tell my friends, `If you think that things are going poorly for us, I don't
know a liberal out there that wouldn't trade places with us 'cause they feel
that we're winning everything, and we don't see it that way.' A major
conservative leader, a fellow named Morton Blackwell, who has trained over
40,000 young conservatives to be effective and active in politics and public
policy, said years ago that conservatives had three major challenges. Our
first challenge was to nominate somebody for president, and we did that in
1964, Barry Goldwater. And then our next challenge was to nominate and elect
a conservative to the White House, and we did that in 1980 with Ronald Reagan.
And now our third challenge is to nominate, elect and govern from the White
House, and we've not been able to do that so far. We've not had a
conservative who has governed from the White House. Hopefully, that will be
the present president, George Bush. That remains to be seen.

In a policy area, Terry, we've had success, obviously, in foreign policy, in
the defeat of the Soviet Union, in terms of the role of government in our
life. It's a very mixed bag, and probably we're coming out on the short end
of that situation because government, obviously, is growing and becoming more
prominent in people's lives. And, you know, we probably would have lost more
ground there than we have if we hadn't have been active, but I think we're
losing the ground--the war in terms of battling the growth of government.

And we're also losing the cultural war. I think that we have suffered a lot
of setbacks. If you look at where the culture is now vs. where it was 30, 40
years ago, we're clearly losing that battle. The secular community is
stronger than ever, and the religious effect has less effect on the culture
than they did 10 years ago, 20, 30 years ago.

GROSS: You know, conservative are now--well, let's say Republicans 'cause
maybe you would and maybe you wouldn't agree that they meet your criteria for
a conservative. But the Republicans control the White House, the House, the
Senate. And talk radio is very conservative, as you write about in your book.
Parts of cable talk are very conservative. And so--yet you sound, really,
like things are getting worse for you in some ways.

(Soundbite of laughter)

GROSS: And I'm wondering like--it sounds like you still feel like you're part
of this embattled minority group when, in fact, the religious right has
gotten, like, so many victories in the past few years.

Mr. VIGUERIE: Well, Terry, we've had some successes at the ballot box, but
those haven't always been turned into policy victories. For example, we have
more abortions being performed now than we did 15, 20 years ago. We elected
Ronald Reagan president in 1980, but we didn't take control of the courts or
the Supreme Court. We have a majority of Republicans in the House and the
Senate, but that's not a majority of conservatives. We know that government
growth is out of control. Spending is, you know, just an embarrassment to
everybody. It should be an embarrassment to the Republican leaders. I hope it
is. But, anyway, we're winning some political victories, but we have not been
able to turn that into policy victories.

GROSS: I want to talk with you more about media. Your new book, "America's
Right Turn," is subtitled "How Conservatives Used New and Alternative Media to
Take Power." Let's look, first, at talk radio. You attribute the success of
conservative talk radio, in part, to the fact that in the '80s the FCC's
fairness doctrine, which required stations to give time to different points of
view politically--that doctrine was abolished. How do you think they end of
the fairness doctrine helped create an environment for the success of
conservative talk radio?

Mr. VIGUERIE: In 1987, Ronald Reagan and his Federal Communications
Commission abolished the fairness doctrine. The fairness doctrine had been
set up in 1949 to try to ensure that all views were carried on the media, and
it didn't have that effect, quite frankly. It kept media--views from being
aired because if you wanted to have a program that carried a liberal message
or a conservative message, you would have to give equal time to someone with a
different point of view. And no radio station could go out there and give
away half of their time and stay in business. So the fairness doctrine was
really misnamed. And when it was abolished in 1987, it allowed people with
different viewpoints, whether you're conservative, moderate, liberal, to go on
the radio and communicate those views to the American people. And Rush
Limbaugh started literally the next year, in 1988.

And it's been a godsend, I think, for conservatives because, for whatever
reason--and I've got some thoughts on that--liberals have not had much success
on talk radio, and conservatives have had a great deal of success. And
without talk radio, we probably wouldn't have had a Republican Congress
elected in 1994.

GROSS: So what are some of the reasons you think conservatives have been more
successful at it?

Mr. VIGUERIE: Well, first of all, talk radio is an emotional medium. It's
something that people evaluate very quickly, and you come to a conclusion
about how you feel on something very quickly. It's a populist medium. And
most of these gut populist issues are conservative issues, not entirely but
mostly. It's hard to say why we need higher taxes in a few seconds on the
radio and convince people. People think that we should have traditional moral
values and we should have a strong national defense and we should have a tough
law-and-order policy and program in America. So most of these kind of gut
issues are conservative issues, and so they're going to do better on
television and radio.

And, also, liberals deal with a lot of nuances. They say, `Well, on the one
hand, there's this. Then we must consider this.' And nuances don't work on
the radio. Radio works for people who take strong positions and can do it in
a few words or soundbites, if you would.

GROSS: Now you're obviously glad that conservatives dominate talk radio, and
you think that that's happened, in part, as a result of the end of the FCC
fairness doctrine. You criticized the media for being liberal, and yet you're
glad that the fairness doctrine doesn't exist because now conservative radio
isn't obliged to give other points of view. So is what you want conservative
media?

Mr. VIGUERIE: No.

GROSS: In other words, would that be the goal?

Mr. VIGUERIE: No. We want the marketplace to work. And back in the '50s and
the '60s when I was getting involved in politics, the marketplace didn't work.
You had a handful of gatekeepers, literally, people like Walter Cronkite, who
controlled all the news and information that went out to people's homes. And
when you abolish the fairness doctrine and then with technology, the average
person literally has hundreds, if not thousands, of news sources available to
them. Now with hundreds of TV channels with public policy news on them, the
direct mail, the Internet, with thousands of bloggers out there, talk radio,
people can search and find whatever news and information that they want out
there. And it's the marketplace.

People didn't say, `Hey, there's this really smart, clever conservative named
Rush Limbaugh. Let's put him on the air.' They put Rush Limbaugh on the air
because he could sell advertising. And Sean Hannity, Ollie North,
others--they could sell advertising. And the--talk radio is available to
liberals. They're just not able to convince the American people to listen to
them, and, therefore, they can't sell advertising. Liberals have a problem
with the American people. They don't have a problem with conservative media.
It's just the public doesn't like their views on the issues.

GROSS: My guest is Richard Viguerie. He pioneered the use of direct mail for
political fund-raising. His new book is called "America's Right Turn." We'll
talk more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: My guest is Richard Viguerie. He pioneered the use of direct mail for
political fund-raising. He helped create the Moral Majority and has been a
key figure in grassroots fund-raising for conservative causes. His new book
is called "America's Right Turn: How Conservatives Used New and Alternative
Media to Take Power."

You argue in the book that a lot of, you know, the mainstream media is
actually biased; it's actually liberal. And you include in that the broadcast
television networks, public radio, some newspapers. Make the case for us.

Mr. VIGUERIE: Where do I start, Terry? Every poll that I've ever seen for
the last 25, 30 years, I guess, that polls people in the national media about
their views on issues--who they voted for in recent elections; how do they
identify, as conservative liberal, Republican, Democrat--something in the area
of 90 percent identify themselves as Democrat, liberal, voting for liberal
candidates, taking a liberal position on issues. So that is well-established
out there.

The Pulitzer Prize author David Halberstam wrote a wonderful book called "The
Powers That Be" talking about how a handful of media properties dominate
American politics. And he said that the bias in the media comes primarily not
in lying or distorting things but in the selection of the news story. So over
the years when the Walter Cronkites and the Dan Rathers and Tom Brokaws would
talk about problems in the government, they would see problems in the
military: the waste, fraud and abuse in the military. They almost never saw
waste, fraud and abuse in social problems, in liberal programs. So it was
very subtle, but it was very definitely there; that they would address these
issues from a liberal perspective and not a conservative perspective.

And once the public had an outlet, once the fairness doctrine was abolished
and we had thousands of conservative talk radio programs and then many
conservatives on cable television and the Internet, people went to the
conservative position because they felt they had been denied that point of
view for decades prior to that.

GROSS: You said earlier in our interview that a lot of Christians feel like
there is a war against them in the country. And then you also said in the
interview that you feel there is a war in this country. And I'm wondering if
you feel like, as part of the conservative movement, that you are waging a
war, waging--or whether you--if you see yourself as waging the war or being
the victim of war 'cause you also said that there's a culture war. So, like,
who's initiating the war, in your eyes? Like, who's...

Mr. VIGUERIE: Well, we didn't start the war.

GROSS: You didn't start the war.

Mr. VIGUERIE: The other side started the war, and we either choose to
participate or lose the war; same with the Soviet Union. We didn't declare
war on mankind--starting maybe with Karl Marx and Lenin and others, and they
said that there was a war going on and that they were going to be the wave of
the future. And for many years, the West did not engage in that war, and we
were losing once we got engaged. Beginning after the Second World War, we,
you know, began to make some progress at some point. So you have to recognize
that if someone else has declared war on you, you'd better participate or
you're going to lose.

And the secular community here in America has declared war on Christianity, on
traditional moral values, Judeo-Christian views and beliefs. And they're
trying to radically change America. And those who take a traditional
Judeo-Christian viewpoint are late to join the battle, but I'm optimistic that
we will prevail, as we have throughout recorded history. But things are not
going well for those with the traditional moral values and views here in the
last few decades.

GROSS: Now you make it sound like evangelical Christians are the victims of a
war and they're under attack, but, I mean, you've--evangelical Christians have
been doing quite well politically right now. And a lot of people feel that
it's the other way; that evangelical Christians want their point of view to be
the only point of view that prevails politically or, you know, in the courts
and Congress. And I'm wondering if you're aware of the fact that there are a
lot of religious leaders in the Catholic Church and Protestant denominations
in Judaism who are very religious, are very schooled in their religion and
have different points of view on many cultural and religious issues; that
there isn't one religion and there isn't one way even within religions of
thinking of things; that there's diversity, and this is a diverse country with
many different points of view and many different interpretations of Scripture.

Mr. VIGUERIE: Absolutely, Terry. But that doesn't mean because you make that
point or make that case that, therefore, people who have a different view than
the national media, different view than Hollywood...

GROSS: I'm just talking about the country.

Mr. VIGUERIE: Yeah.

GROSS: I'm talking about priests and rabbis and nuns.

Mr. VIGUERIE: I understand.

GROSS: I'm not talking about the media.

Mr. VIGUERIE: I'm just saying that it doesn't mean that we should withdraw
from the war that's been declared on our moral values. It's interesting that
the people in the media, the establishment, did not have a problem back in the
'60s and the '70s when liberal religious leaders were very involved
politically, particularly in opposing much of the opposition to the Communists
in Central America and other places. They thought that was very good that the
religious people would get involved. But now that the conservatives are
coming to the forefront and getting involved, people see a lot of danger, a
lot of threat there.

Yes, the conservative religious community has had some political victories
lately, but that has not translated into culture victories. I think most
people would acknowledge that the views of Hollywood predominate in this
country, and they, the liberals, have been winning the culture war. And it
has not been the conservatives.

GROSS: You've made the comparison between the war against communism and the
culture wars now. Do you see the people who you describe as liberals as being
as grave a threat as you saw the Communists as being?

Mr. VIGUERIE: In some ways. As the Bible says, `What profited a man if you
gain the whole world and lose your soul?' So that if our country loses its
souls, if individuals lose their religious values, that is very threatening.
Yeah, `Man does not live by bread alone.' And, yes, it is very, very
important that we reclaim the culture, that we reclaim our traditional
Judeo-Christian values.

GROSS: You've explained on the show that--talking about gut issues have
helped conservatives catch on in the radio because liberals are too nuanced
and that, you know, gut issues and that getting people--about things that
upset them are very effective in fund-raising campaigns. And so I'm wondering
if the language of war that you've used to describe, you know, the culture
wars and the attack that Christians are under--I wonder if that, in part,
comes from your knowledge of fund-raising and that language like that sells?

Mr. VIGUERIE: Well, I and everybody that I am involved with in trying to
reclaim the culture and move America back in a small government, traditional
moral values direction doesn't think of it from a marketing standpoint. We
think of it as to how we can get up in the morning and improve our country and
our world and bring it back in the direction that we would like to see it. We
have come late to recognize that people have declared war against us out of
Hollywood and many of the secular institutions in this country. And we're
late to this contest, but we're engaged now. And based on our track record, I
think that there's a good chance that we will prevail in the final analysis.

GROSS: Richard Viguerie, thank you very much for talking with us.

Mr. VIGUERIE: My pleasure.

GROSS: Richard Viguerie's new book is called "America's Right Turn: How
conservatives Used New and Alternative Media to Take Power."

Tomorrow we'll hear from journalist David Brock, who used to be on the right,
grew disillusioned and moved to the left. He's written a new book called "The
Republican Noise Machine: Right-Wing Media and How It Corrupts Democracy."

Coming up, rock critic Ken Tucker reviews a new CD by John Davis, formerly of
the punk pop group Superdrag. This is FRESH AIR.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Review: John Davis' new self-titled album
TERRY GROSS, host:

Singer-songwriter John Davis led the punk pop group Superdrag for more than a
decade. After leaving the group and dealing with some personal problems, he's
back with a solo album that rock critic Ken Tucker says manages to be frank
and autobiographical without being maudlin or self-aggrandizing.

(Soundbite of song)

Mr. JOHN DAVIS: (Singing) Every night is a Saturday night, and it makes me
sick. Every night I'm a meteorite on a one-way trip. Can't admit the truth
staring me in the face, and my heart's all over the place. I know it's just a
question of faith. It follows me around. Nothing gets me down today. It's
pushing me around. Get it out of my way.

KEN TUCKER reporting:

John Davis' press release for his solo album doesn't waste much time in
telling you that the former Superdrag leader is a recovering alcoholic, who
found strength in religious faith to bring some peace to his life. The best
thing about his self-titled album is that it's anything but peaceful. It's
full of boisterous songs that offer grateful hymns to the Lord but can pass
muster as pure pop music with the secular among us as well.

(Soundbite of song)

Mr. DAVIS: (Singing) If the supernatural seems a little out there, maybe
there's a prayer or two somebody ought to say to you. The same God has been
an instant ...(unintelligible) into my class, opening my disembodied eyes,
going where the spirit never dies. Said, `You'd better listen. You're too
far out. Don't get too far out. You win some, you lose some. You live
without ...(unintelligible) your life ...(unintelligible). Are you in or out?
Thank you, Jesus, Abba Father. All things are possible with you.

TUCKER: John Davis sounds like the kind of guy who's appreciate the irony in
the fact that the final Superdrag album was titled "Last Call for Vitriol."
Then, by his own account, in the full throes of alcoholism, Davis turned his
free-floating anger at the world and himself into a revelation. That led him
to a spiritual breakthrough and a return to his hometown in rural Tennessee.
Sobered up and saved, he wrote the considerably more reflective songs on this
album and recorded them in Nashville.

As is often the case in any sort of pop culture, the more blatant the message,
the weaker the art; thus the song "Jesus Gonna Build Me A Home" with lines
like `Satan overjoys in deceiving' and a guitar line that sounds left over
from Eric Clapton's "Layla" is heartfelt but watery gospel music. Better is
the simpler, more stark confrontation with demons dramatized in this song,
"Tear Me Apart," with its mournful line, `I'm down here on my knees, and I'm
weakened by disease.' This is set in neat counterpoint to the rock-hard music
that symbolizes Davis' will to live vibrantly standing on his own two feet.

(Soundbite of "Tear Me Apart")

Mr. DAVIS: (Singing) Speak to me. Why don't you speak to me? Lord, break me
down and set me right. Glory be, it ain't no mystery, transfigured darkness
into light. Well, I'm down here on my knees, and I'm weakened by disease. I
want you to hand me your heart. I can't...

TUCKER: It's always tricky to talk about one's own torment or conversion
experience without seeming the opposite of what you intend--that is,
self-absorbed and proud--when you mean to be humble and eager to share what
you believe is an answer to a lot of people's pain. John Davis has pulled off
an album that, more often than not, succeeds not only as conversion work but
as the meticulous chronicle of one man's journey into a light that we can all
bask in.

GROSS: Ken Tucker is film critic for New York magazine. He reviewed the new
self-titled solo album by John Davis.

(Credits)

GROSS: I'm Terry Gross.
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