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Conservatives: Mobilize!

By Bryant Lewis

In the Eighth District of Indiana, political observers will tell you that voter turnout means all the difference in our elections. It's not the media advertisements, the flyers, or the televised debates. In this district, nothing means more than mobilizing your ideological supporters to vote. It may sound a little cliched, but it's absolutely true.

In the 1980's, Frank McCloskey controlled the Eighth District seat despite never having received more than 60 percent of the vote. Why did this happen? Simply, his political base was mobilized. Election after election, liberal labor union agenda supporters turned out to cast their votes for him. Did these people make up the majority of 8th District residents? Absolutely not! But he and his campaign was effective at turning out his base of support, and his opponents were equally ineffective in increasing their turnout.

Flash to 1994: Bill Clinton is our president, and voters are fed up with the liberal agenda. Our current Congressman, John Hostettler, is challenging McCloskey and upsets the incumbent by a slim margin. Why did this happen? The answer lies in turnout. Liberals were not motivated, while conservatives (such as pro-life, pro-gun, and anti-tax groups) greatly mobilized and led the Republican revolution of 1994.

Now it's 1998: Nationwide, labor unions are hiring hundreds of political organizers to encourage their members to vote against conservatives. Their mission is to derail and reverse the conservative gains of the last four years and replace them with the liberal agenda of Bill Clinton, Dick Gephardt, Barbara Boxer, and Ted Kennedy. Part of their strategy is to elect liberals with similar agendas -- liberals such as Gail Riecken.

In this election, much like in the others, Riecken is trying to mobilize the labor unions and liberal activist groups. The question for conservatives is whether we will allow these groups to control the election. We as ideological opposites must equal and exceed their turnout, and encourage everyone we know to vote for the conservative choice. Perhaps more so in this Congressional district than almost any other, we have to show up at the polls en masse to counteract the opposition and win.

Therefore, to continue to send conservative, common sense voices to Washington DC, here are three easy things you can do:

  • Email all your conservative or Republican-leaning friends and remind them that Tuesday November 3rd is Election Day!
  • Call your family members and tell them to vote! (And tell your grandparents that Republicans do indeed want to save Social Security!)
  • And finally, GO TO THE POLLS AND VOTE! Don't throw away your vote by not casting it at all!




Eric Seymour


Robert Schiener


Joel Corbin


Bryant Lewis


Rush Reagan