Paul M. Weyrich - president, Free Congress Research and Education Foundation; president, the Right Channel - (TV on the Web); president (April 1991- October 1997), NET - Political NewsTalk Network, now America’s Voice, a public affairs cable channel; former host, Direct Line, a daily talk show on America’s Voice; founding president, The Heritage Foundation, 1973-1974; national chairman, Coalitions for America; advisor, numerous U.S. Senate, House and presidential candidates; ordained Deacon of Melkite Greek Eparchy of Newton; listed in Who's Who in America and Who's Who in the World; member of the board, The Campaign for a Color-Blind America, and National Council for Democracy; member, Board of Directors, The Roe Foundation of South Carolina; publisher, The New Electric Railway Journal; member, Board of Directors, National Railroad Passenger Corporation (AMTRAK) 1987-1993; co-author, Conservatives and Mass Transit: Time for Another Look?; columnist; national chairman, Free Congress PAC; vice chairman, Committee for Effective State Government; chairman, Board of Sponsors, Indochinese American Voters General League; recipient, Thomas Jefferson Award for Servant Leadership, Council for National Policy; winner, 1996 Crystal Ball Award, Washington Post, for correctly predicting the outcome of the 1996 elections; father of five; three grandchildren. Spouse - Joyce. Washington, D.C.

 For better or worse, I have had three opportunities to make input into the selection of the vice president over the years. I will describe them briefly and tell you what lessons I think can be drawn from them.

The first occurred in 1968. I was a staffer on the Hill for a member of the Senate leadership.

Jim Lucier, Sr., was working at that time for Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina.

Strom Thurmond had made a deal with Richard Nixon. In return for Strom Thurmond’s support for Richard Nixon for the nomination, part of what Thurmond got from Nixon was the following agreement:that he would have a veto over the selection of the vice presidentand that he would have input on the naming of the first two Supreme Court justices that Nixon would appoint

Strom Thurmond’s support was absolutely critical. If Thurmond had gone for Ronald Reagan, Reagan would have been the nominee in 1968. Many delegations were ready to shift.

There was a great dissatisfaction with Nixon. People do not understand how close that convention was. It was the last open convention that we’ve had. All the rest of them have been orchestrated, but that one in 1968 could have gone either way.

Jim Lucier came to me and said that Harry Dent, who had been on the staff of Senator Thurmond for many years, had gone to work for Richard Nixon. And that Dent was the go-between for the selection of the vice president.

Lucier said Dent was coming to visit with Thurmond, at which point they were going to discuss who would be acceptable to Thurmond for the vice presidency.

It was very clear that Nixon wanted to name Mark Hatfield, the Senator from Oregon, as his vice president. This was not acceptable to Senator Thurmond, who made that clear. As a result, although the Nixon people tried very, very hard to persuade Thurmond to set aside his objections, Thurmond simply said, "Hatfield’s too liberal. I don’t accept him."

It was clear that Nixon was looking for somebody who was sort of liberal, but who would not be anathema to conservatives. He misunderstood the feelings about Hatfield, which were the result of Hatfield’s opposition to the war in Vietnam. Nixon thought that because Hatfield was a religious person, an evangelical and so on, that he would be acceptable.

Well, anyway, Lucier and I were going to meet with Dent. Lucier kindly let me in on this meeting, which was to discuss who might be acceptable.

I have to confess this. I came up with the name Spiro Agnew. He was the governor of Maryland who had been very tough on the dissenters at the University of Maryland. Agnew had also said some things which indicated he was a pretty good father and parent at the time of the revolt then going on against all parental authority.

I pointed out that Agnew had been elected as a liberal. The conservative in the Maryland governor’s race was a guy by the name of Mahoney, who was an independent candidate. So Agnew was the liberal candidate, endorsed by the liberal media. I suggested that, maybe, he would be acceptable.

Senator Thurmond was very reluctant to accept Agnew. He said, "I don’t trust him. I don’t. I think that his new-found conservatism is phony."

We argued that no, it seemed to be out of conviction, and so on. The Senator reluctantly accepted the notion of putting Agnew down on the list of people who would be acceptable to him, and the rest is history.

In the 1970s, we had formed a group of people who used to meet at Richard Viguerie’s house all the time. We would strategize these things. We formed a group of people who had been part of Reagan’s core supporters, with the notion of letting Reagan know who was or was not acceptable for vice president in 1980. Because the vibes coming out of the Reagan campaign, from the very word go, were that they were worried about liberal Republicans.

First of all, Reagan himself had been very traumatized by the Goldwater experience, when the liberal Republicans walked out.

Second, Congressman John Anderson, whom you will recall had been involved in the Republican primaries, had left the Republican Party, had gotten on the ballot and was running as an independent presidential candidate.

They feared John Anderson. They thought he would get a substantial vote. In fact, polls at the time were showing that Anderson was getting upwards of 18-20 percent of the vote.

The Reagan campaign was looking at this, and they said, "This is right out of our hide. This is disaster." And so on. So the word got out that they were considering Howard Baker, then the Republican minority leader in the United States Senate.

At the time, Richard Viguerie was the publisher of Conservative Digest, and one John Lofton was the editor of that magazine. The cover of the June, 1980 issue of Richard’s magazine ran a drawing of Howard Baker in a dunce cap. And on the cover it said, "Why Howard Baker flunks the Reagan VP test, and no, it’s not just the Panama Canal."

That issue ran interviews with every known conservative leader, and some who weren’t known, all saying why Howard Baker was unacceptable.

A few of us also said Bush was unacceptable too. But most of the people didn’t say anything about Bush. This was deliberate on Lofton’s part. Lofton actually liked George Bush, because he had been editor at the Republican National Committee of something called First Monday at the time that George Bush, Sr. was the Republican National Chairman. So they had this sort of friendship. Perhaps Lofton today might deny this.

In any case, we conveyed this message to the Reagan people.

At the convention, when the situation sort of became unglued, the Reagan people had to make a decision. They had a meeting with a group of conservatives.

I had gone to the Detroit convention, but I went back home because I had been on the road for about two weeks. Back home, I got a call about this meeting.

We had a terrible thunderstorm, and I got stuck circling Detroit. In fact, that’s the only time in my life I’ve ever had a police escort, because they wanted to get me to this meeting.

Well, I got to the meeting just as everybody was coming out. And it turned out that at this meeting everybody said Howard Baker is unacceptable. And the Reagan people asked about Bush. They asked whether people would walk out if Bush were selected.

And nobody said, "Yes, we’ll walk out." They said, "We don’t like Bush." But nobody said, "You select Bush, and we hold a press conference pulling the plug on you."

If that had been said, Bush would not have been the nominee. It was not said.

I was prepared to say it, but I was up in the plane, circling Detroit.

Finally, the 1988 choice. We have an inside/outside meeting every week where we connect Members of Congress with outside groups. Congressman Ernest Istook is nice enough to help with that meeting, and is a regular attendee. That meeting has been going on for a long time. It was actually initiated by Newt Gingrich in 1983.

In 1988, we got a call from a high official in the Bush campaign, asking if we would survey all the members of the coalition on one Senator Dan Quayle.

And I said, "Why?" They said, "Never mind. Just survey. What do they think of Dan Quayle?" So I dutifully saw to it that Eric Licht of my staff called everybody in the coalition and asked, "What do you think of Dan Quayle?

We got a virtually unanimous report back. Nobody was enthused about him. People were asking, "Why are you asking this question?"

Then the Bush people asked the magic question: "Did anybody say they would walk if Dan Quayle were selected?" I reported, "No, nobody said they would walk at all."

Let me tell you what I draw from those experiences.

Number one, there is always a fear on the part of these candidates that, once they get the nomination, some faction or other of the party is going to revolt. That fear drives the selection of the vice presidential candidate.

 I saw considerable support here at this meeting for the position that I hold, that John McCain would be an unmitigated disaster as vice president.

If conservatives fail to convey to the Bush people that they will not accept him on the ticket, McCain may well end up on the ticket, regardless of any personal feelings and concerns about loyalty and everything else.

You have to be very up front, very public and make it clear that, "If you select so and so, we’re out of here."

So much for stopping people that you don’t want.

Point number two is about promoting a candidate.

If movement conservatives were to come out in favor of a candidate, if we were to organize something, it would be the absolute kiss of death.

The running mate surfaces through somebody who is very trusted at the highest level of the campaign. In the case of Spiro Agnew, it was Strom Thurmond who made that deal. He had that trust because he had delivered all those Southern convention delegates for Nixon. Nixon had to satisfy him.

Nixon, in that sense, was a man of his word. If he gave you his word on something like that, he would keep it. And he had to satisfy Thurmond, or there would have been big trouble. He knew that. So Thurmond was in a position to help bring about that selection. Practically nobody else was.

Where did Dan Quayle of Indiana come from?

Dan Quayle came from one of George Bush’s first supporters in the country, somebody who got on Bush’s bandwagon very early when he began running against Ronald Reagan. That particular individual was Governor Bob Orr of Indiana. It was Bob Orr’s idea that Quayle would make a splendid vice president. He was young. He was articulate. He was full of life and everything else.

This got sold to Bush by Orr, a trusted individual. Then it was vetted, and, as I told you, they found out that nobody would walk if they picked Dan Quayle.

Quayle suited Bush, because nobody would leave the party as a result of his nomination.

Mind you, Reed Larson was saying, if you nominate Jack Kemp, the National Right to Work Committee will be buying caskets by the boatload.

Pro-life people were saying, "If you nominate a pro-abortionist, we’ll get you." And so on. Nobody was saying anything bad about Quayle.

He also suited Bush because he was no competition. That’s another reason why Jack Kemp did not get the selection: Jack Kemp would have been competition. If he had been vice president, he would have had his own constituency. They wanted somebody who would be loyal and who would have no constituency.

And believe me, Dan Quayle had no constituency. So he fit the bill.

Can we negatively affect who George W. Bush will select? Yes, we can.

Can we positively affect who George W. Bush will select? No, in my opinion.

What if we have somebody whom we think would be in Bush’s interest?

Now remember, we have to think of who would be in Bush’s interest, not in our interest. It would be a nice coincidence if someone were in our interest and Bush’s interest. But if we have somebody we think would fill the bill of what Bush is looking for, what we have to do is to go to someone or some people who have been high up in the circles that Bush listens to. We must persuade them and let them carry the message.

It cannot be done in any kind of public way, because if it comes out that, say, John Engler is the choice of the conservative movement, that would be the end of him.

I just picked Engler’s name out of a hat because he’s a Catholic, and they need a Catholic. Maybe that’s a good idea, but I just picked a name.

We cannot have any name, one we think is a good idea, publicly surfaced as the conservative candidate. It is the kiss of death. What we can do is to go to somebody whom we know Bush listens to. That’s a rarified atmosphere, believe me.

Go to that person. If we can make the case to that person, maybe that person could be persuasive with the nominee.

So those are the lessons that I’ve learned. I have a lot of repentance to do for my sins in connection with these activities.

QUESTION: Paul, did you leave one out from 1988? I don’t want to go where you don’t want to go, but a certain senator from the West, Wyoming, Alan Simpson?

MR. WEYRICH: Oh, well, in the negative sense.

They were considering Alan Simpson. This was before we were asked to vet Quayle. Simpson was a particular favorite of George H. Bush. They just clicked. And word got to me that they were considering Simpson.

I did a somewhat famous interview, at least Simpson considers it such. He always brings it up whenever I see him. I won’t be as uncharitable now as I was then.

In any case, I made it clear that he would not be acceptable, and it torpedoed Simpson’s campaign. So it fits in with the description that we can have a negative effect. They did not want conservatives to walk out.

They were very worried. Former President George Bush has always had trouble with conservatives. They did not want conservatives to walk out of that ’88 convention.

And anybody we said was unacceptable would be unacceptable. But it turned out we did have a role in the selection of Quayle.

And by the way, I made a hundred bets at the convention in New Orleans, that Quayle would be selected. Every reporter I ran into asked, "Who do you think it’s going to be? Is it going to be Dole? Is it going to be Elizabeth Dole?

And I said, "No, it’s Dan Quayle."

"Dan Quayle? You’re out of your mind!"

I wish I could have collected, but they are no good on their word.

QUESTION: I know this is such a very, very important subject here. I would only add one thing to what Paul said.

Yes, Paul’s right, we can’t surface a name as our candidate, that would be the end of that candidate, and would hurt the ticket. But there is one thing, one message, we should get out to the Bush people, and that is that Ronald Reagan’s first decision was to unite the party. So that everybody, all wings of the party, all elements, all parts of the coalition, felt they had a stake in the election. George W. needs to do the same thing.

I remember 1960, when Nixon sold out one September evening to Nelson Rockefeller. We were disillusioned, and we didn’t work hard for the ticket. Or in 1976, after Ford had betrayed us and selected Rockefeller as his vice president. As in 1992, 1996, 1998, if conservatives are not on board and enthusiastic for the ticket, this ticket is not going to win.

Conservatives certainly got excited in the last few weeks about George W. Bush, between him and John McCain. But he does not represent our wing of the party.

We are the majority wing of the party, and he has to select someone who can unite, excite and get the conservatives enthusiastically on board, which hasn’t happened for some time.

QUESTION: Mr. Weyrich, I am from Arizona, and I have been involved with the Arizona Republican Party for many years. I am not a McCain supporter.

I do know that our governor has come out and supported Bush over McCain. My question to you is, how much feeling do you really have that the Bush people will select McCain to be the vice president?

MR. WEYRICH: I think, ordinarily, they would not accept McCain, because there is bad blood generated by this campaign, things that were said that were hurtful and so on.

But if his pollsters come to Bush and say, "You have two choices: You can select X, and you lose. Or you can select McCain, and you win" -- in my opinion, they will select McCain. They’ll put aside their feelings. They’ll put aside reservations. If that ticket should win, McCain would probably be isolated, probably be locked in the basement of the White House or something.

But they wouldn’t hesitate, if they believed that that would be the critical thing for them. Here’s what we have to do, in my opinion, if we don’t want McCain. And I don’t. I know this man. I’ve known him since 1973. I consider him dangerous, and he is absolutely opposed to everything that the people in this room stand for.

If we don’t want him, we’ve got to make it clear that it will cost George Bush. He may think that he can pick up these Independents, but he’s going to lose the base of the Republican Party.

If we make that clear, he will not be selected.

QUESTION: Paul, let’s not make the mistake we did in 1980, and keep our list to one person. I think we need to give serious thought to this, and expand it with some very, very serious possibilities.

Bob Novak says he thinks the Bush strategy is to put Colin Powell on the ticket.

For my money, I think Colin Powell should be right alongside John McCain as not acceptable.

On the other hand, Congressman Istook has suggested that we come out as a movement and endorse Christie Todd Whitman, thus putting the kiss of death upon her.

And I got another note from the congressman that says take another look at J.C. Watts. Anyway, we’ve got to move quickly.

It’s been said, in some of the pieces that I’ve read, that George Bush has a hard time putting two sentences together, and in the debates, Gore will really have a lot of fun with him.

What would you think of the most articulate speaker out there, the one that has the integrity, and the support of conservatives, what do you think about Alan Keyes?

MR. WEYRICH: Well, I love Alan Keyes. Alan Keyes is an extraordinary individual. It won’t fly, because Alan Keyes is much too much of an independent individual to fit in the Bush context.

I know enough about the relationship between the Keyes people and the Bush people, and all of that. In my opinion, that would not fly -- unless their pollster said, "Unless you name Alan Keyes, you’ll lose." I don’t think they’re going to do that. It’s a fine idea in theory.