Smaller Victories Boost Future Success!

In 1990, I gave Bennett Johnston the U.S. Senate race of his life. I received almost 45% of the vote against the entrenched, 18-year incumbent (65% of the white voters in Louisiana).

It was one of the most widely publicized election campaigns in American history. The liberal media attacked me because I dared to say openly what we all say quietly.

• I was the first one to demand an end to the pervasive, anti­white discrimination called "Affirmative Action."



• I called for equal rights for all, special privilege for none! My Bill, passed by the Louisiana House of Representatives, was the first challenge by a legislative body to the tyranny of "Affirmative Action." (06/05/90)



• The media and establishment were shocked that I told the truth about the damage that forced integration has done to public education and our major cities. I stood for freedom of choice and association in America, and tax credits for private education.



• I spoke against the massive immigration that is remaking America into a Third World nation. I called for defense of our American borders and ports, and a 5-year moratorium on legal immigration.



• I said it was time for a Flat Tax (of 8-10%, not 17%!), and that it could be in the form of a sales tax which would eliminate the income tax and abolish the IRS.



• I advanced legislation aimed at getting drug users off the welfare rolls and making able­bodied welfare recipients work for their checks, and I pointed out that only by reducing the high birthrate of America's growing underclass, could America hope to reduce the spiraling problems and costs of crime, drugs, poverty, public housing, health and education.



• I warned that America was falling under the sway of the "New World Order." I fought NAFTA and GATT ­­ which is now damaging American companies (and their workers) that choose to stay at home in our own country.

Together, with my candidacy and your vote we showed the Republican Party the way to win over the American people and to capture congress. Candidates began to echo my campaign planks. Representative Joe Arnall of Florida recently filed a bill that would require drug-testing for welfare recipients and allow for the removal of druggies from public housing. Michigan State Representative David Jaye has proposed a constitutional amendment that would outlaw affirmative action in all Michigan state affairs.

Louisiana State Senator Mike Foster took up my proposal to allow the law­abiding to carry concealed firearms (not the goal, but a decent first step), and with our support became Governor of Louisiana. Foster's first official act as Governor was to start to dismantle affirmative action programs at the executive level..

It is often tempting to look at an election campaign as a total loss, as a wasted effort, if that campaign does not result in an electoral victory. After all, that is what we strive for when we endure paper cuts (from folding and stuffing campaign mailouts), blisters on our hands (from hammering campaign signs), sore feet (from walking door-to-door, parade routes, greeting people), dark circles under our eyes (from lack of sleep!), and sore vocal cords from canvassing on the telephones and on the streets. It's why we resign ourselves to perhaps fall behind in our "normal" work, and see less of our families for awhile. It's what we expect for our efforts, our money, and our emotional investment.

Out of my past campaigns — for U.S. Senate in 1990 & 1996, and for Governor of Louisiana in 1991 — we yielded a great deal of positive results. We did not score immediate electoral victories. The brass ring was not to be had, yet. What did happen was that hundreds of people who did not know one another, across the entire state of Louisiana, found like-minded people in their own communities, comrades and political allies they would otherwise not have known. Novices received a head-first political education, an exposure to myth-shattering new sources of information that the controlled, liberal media does not acknowledge. An invaluable infrastructure was laid, fresh blood infused into an ailing movement for conservative-nationalist principles.

That is why I ran in the early Republican primaries for President in 1992. It was not as if I thought I could beat George Bush, or that Pat Buchanan would not do an honorable job of opposing Bush; hundreds-of-thousands of people are reached through such a campaign, through media exposure and personal contacts. Average people, who are politically unaware, need to hear the truth.

Many people ask: Why do you go on those stupid TV shows with guys Sam Donaldson and Geraldo? Don't you know they're going to attack you? Yes, I know that whenever some liberal interviewer does a show with me, some of these same talking heads — who will sit across from mass-murderers, convicted rapists and child pornographers and have rational, low-key conversations — turn into hyper-aggressive, red-faced, reckless inquisitors. Knowing what I will face, I agree to take the abuse in order to make a point or two that will reach people.

I receive sacks full of mail following one of these broadcasts, asking for more information on something I said, complimenting me on my composure versus such a rude host. This affords an opportunity to contact these people by return mail, to put vital materials in their hands, to help them deal with the doubts they naturally have concerning the "official," media-approved "truth." We need to help people graduate up from the "Rush Limbaugh level" of superficial, economic-based, egalitarian neo-conservatism.

From our past efforts, we have helped many more up from the silly, empty proposition that opposes "quotas" because "race should not (or does not) matter." A "conservative" person who holds this point-of-view has accepted the false belief that there are TWO OPPOSING VIEWS: that affirmative action is good and necessary, to remedy past discrimination ("liberal"), and that affirmative action is not necessary because it undermines the goal of "color-blindness" and because now that discrimination is illegal, minorities should fully assimilate into the economic and social mainstream. One who accepts this bogus dichotomy, of course, is vulnerable to egalitarian appeals when equal, "color-blind" treatment results in unequal achievement. We have helped many see beyond mythology advanced by the Cult of Equality, and its dubious goal of "color-blindness."

Duke Campaign alumni today hold public offices, in and outside Louisiana. Since being introduced to rational arguments and evidence for ideas that are labeled "politically-incorrect," word spreads, exponentially. Publications, books, radio talk programs, and Internet pages today proclaim "new" truths — which are as old as time, itself. This, in part, from the efforts of those who cut their teeth on my "unsuccessful" campaigns for public office.

Unsuccessful? I disagree.