Last year, for the post-election issue of NRODT, I wrote a story on how conservatives positioned themselves for success in the late 1970s:
The sources of Reagan’s victory were many, from Carter’s poor performance to Reagan’s impressive political skills. Yet the Gipper also owed a great deal to conservatives in the House of Representatives, especially Jack Kemp. Instead of behaving as powerless members of a vanishing minority party, Kemp and his allies helped create the conditions for Reagan’s success. They pushed an agenda of supply-side tax cuts that redefined their party’s economic principles and shifted American politics rightward. Much of their achievement was rooted in the particular circumstances of the late 1970s, but their accomplishment also suggests that today’s GOP — battered by the blows of November 4 — is far from helpless if it will only show the determination to turn its current dilemma into a new opportunity.
Nowadays, conservatives often ask themselves how they can duplicate the success of Reagan. Perhaps they first need to concern themselves with duplicating the succeess of Kemp.