The best symbol of the grassroots worker I can think of is the Republican Assembly… [NFRA’s] thousands of dedicated men and women are the ones who turn all those modernistic campaign devices into real votes.
“[NFRA] provides the nucleus of the Republican candidate’s volunteer work brigade. I know from personal experience. It’s hard to imagine my campaigns being anywhere near as successful as they were without the dedication of Republican Assembly members.
“I urge you to join today.
Like my precious friends Ronald Reagan and Charlton Heston, I am proud to be a member of the Republican Assemblies. There was a time when we in Hollywood fought Communism and believed in America. Now the liberals seem to run everything and want to destroy all that we fought for. But the NFRA isn’t afraid of that fight, and it grows stronger every day, and I am honored to be involved with people who truly understand what America is all about.
We are engaged in a social, political and cultural war, in our country and even in our own party. The Republican Assemblies are some of the most effective forces in that war, and I applaud your work.
The Republican Assemblies are unafraid, to stand up for principle or to stand up to the establishment.
The NFRA fights tirelessly to elect a strong, grassroots Republican Party leadership. The more they succeed, the more we’ll see real change in America.
Now is the time for Patriots to mobilize. The NFRA is a great vehicle for taking back our country.
If you picked up a Coke bottle and saw a rat’s head in the bottom, you’d never think about Coke the same way again. Republicans who vote for tax increases and bigger government destroy the Republican brand name in exactly the same way. It is the job of the Republican Assemblies to defend the brand Reagan built, and stop the people who are ruining it.
As a famous Californian once said, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.” That’s why, now more than ever, the National Federation of Republican Assemblies is looked upon as one of the preeminent guardians of Ronald Reagan’s legacy, providing a powerful, unwavering voice for conservative principles amid the pandemonium of modern politics. Their advocacy is vital to our party’s future.
When conservatives took back America’s largest Protestant denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, from the liberal leadership which had hijacked it, we used the same strategies and tactics that make the NFRA so potent a force today. Those strategies worked flawlessly then, and they’ll work as conservatives assert themselves in the Republican Party today.
In a political world of rapid changing institutions, the National Federation of Republican Assemblies stands as an anchor of principles on which conservative political leaders can depend. I am proud to be a member of the California Republican Assembly and to stand with Republican Assemblies all across America as they take back our party for true conservatives and stand for the values we hold dear.
The Republican Assemblies are truly a force for renewal within the Republican Party.
The Republican Assemblies are the conscience of the Republican Party.
Unlike too many other Republicans today, [the Republican Assemblies] stand strongly for the moral foundation of our Republic, which is that we are created equal and endowed by our Creator, not by our leaders, with our rights.
I am honored to stand with the National Federation of Republican Assemblies, one of the strongest voices for conservative values and a revitalized Republican Party in America.
If you want to see Reagan conservatives running the Republican Party, then the NFRA is where you need to be.
The NFRA can play a major role in the remaking of our Party. It can certainly be the organizational power behind the Tea Parties, working with those groups to give organizational effect to their outrage and passion.
The Republican Assemblies were the Tea Party movement before there was a Tea Party.
While many so-called Republican leaders would surrender the Culture War and sell out our sovereignty, the NFRA is a bastion of hope standing against them, and standing for a Constitutionalist America.
The NFRA endorsed me early, and it made a huge difference in the outcome of my race. Why? Because the Republican Assemblies are the real grassroots, the true conservatives, the soul of the Republican Party. And if you want more Marco Rubios, more Nikki Haleys and more Sharron Angles, getting involved in the Republican Assemblies is the way to make it happen.
The Republican Assemblies work tirelessly for conservative candidates and legislation.
The NFRA has never been more important than it is right now. We no longer have the luxury to nominate Republicans who, once elected, undermine the principles of individual freedom and limited government that define our party. Republican Assemblies across the country have kept the conservative movement alive and the future of our party and of our country ultimately depends on their success.
I’ve been a Republican all my life, was a precinct committeewoman for 16 years, president of the Illinois Federation of Republican Women for five years, attended every Republican National Convention starting in 1952, and served on the Platform Committee in 1984. I’m proud to be a charter member of the NFRA because I know it is doing the absolutely necessary work of restoring the Republican Party to its proper position of leadership for authentic conservative principles.
The NFRA is the flagship of constitutionalist conservatism within the Republican Party. It is intent on making sure the federal government has limited powers and the states have an independent sovereign place in our system of government. If we, the people, are to arrest the Obama march to collectivism, social democracy and an imperial presidency, we must swell the ranks of the NFRA and maintain its status as a principled defender of liberty.
When I was a high school student, Phyllis Schlafly’s book, A Choice, Not an Echo, was an important influence on my political direction. Today I support the NFRA for that same reason. The Republican Party must be more than just a cheaper, slower echo of the Democrats: it must be a distinct choice, for conservative values and for a future of freedom. If you long for that choice, then you should join the NFRA.
We need more people like you [the Republican Assemblies] who truly believe in the Constitution, in liberty and in standing up to an establishment that believes in neither.
The loyal patriots of the National Federation of Republican Assemblies…stand for the enduring principles that have made our Nation great. I thank the NFRA for standing at the ready to defend freedom and liberty no matter what the cost. Real hope is alive in the NFRA.Obama’s Cabinet of Cronies
Much has been written so far about the choices that President Barack Obama made for his second term cabinet. His new appointees—Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) as secretary of state, White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew to Treasury, and former Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) as secretary of defense—are people who have played a key role in Obama’s election or first term administration and are close friends of the president.
This is a sharp contrast to the genesis of his first term, when Obama likened his Cabinet appointees, and welcomed comparisons, to those of Abraham Lincoln, who chose several political opponents and opposite numbers—hence the term “team of rivals,” from the eponymous title of Doris Kearns Goodwin’s prize-winning book, which gave rise to the current hit movie “Lincoln.”
So far, President Obama’s Cabinet in 2013 is shaping up most like that of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933—namely, a “cabinet of cronies.” As president-elect, FDR picked a cabinet exclusively composed of people who were closes associates from New York or politicians who had helped him win his fight for the Democratic nomination or the general election in 1932.
Roosevelt defeated nine opponents for the Democratic nomination on the fourth ballot at the Democratic convention in ’32. With the exception of Roosevelt’s selection of John Nance Garner as his vice presidential running mate to break the convention deadlock, none of the other Democratic hopefuls would hold any position in his administration.
“Brilliance it lacks completely”
Much as Sen. Kerry came out for Obama over Hillary Clinton at a critical point in the 2008 nomination battle and played Mitt Romney in mock debates with the president last year, Sen. Cordell Hull (D-Tenn.) came out early for New York Gov. Roosevelt for the Democratic nomination and was a player in his winning Southern states at the convention. Hull became secretary of state, but, as the late Steve Neal wrote in his book “Happy Days Are Here Again,” he was “not the major architect of foreign policy; Roosevelt kept that role for himself.”
Other political allies awarded with Roosevelt Cabinet posts included Connecticut’s Democratic National Committeeman Homer Cummings, who had lined up New England delegates for FDR, as attorney general; Utah Gov. George Dern, who helped deliver the Rocky Mountain region’s delegates to Roosevelt at the convention and wanted to be his running mate, as Secretary of War; Daniel Roper of South Carolina, a national campaign strategist coordinating the South for Roosevelt, as Secretary of Commerce; and New York State Democratic Chairman James Farley, FDR’s national campaign manager, as postmaster general — then a Cabinet position.
Industrialist William H. Woodin, a major contributor to the Roosevelt campaign, served for nine months as Secretary of the Treasury until poor health forced him to resign in December of 1933. The president then turned to his close friend and next-door neighbor in Hyde Park, N.Y., economist Henry Morgenthau, for Treasury.
Like Obama did in underscoring that Republican Hagel is being tapped by the Democratic president, Roosevelt proudly noted that he was tapping Republicans Harold Ickes of Illinois and Henry Wallace of Iowa to be Secretaries of the Interior and Agriculture, respectively. Like Hagel, Ickes and Wallace were major irritants to most of their fellow Republicans. Both were from the liberal wing of the party and both were “Republicans for Roosevelt” in 1932.
In contrast to Obama in his Cabinet-making at this point, FDR had no gender gap. In fact, he started gender consideration in Cabinet appointments by naming Frances Perkins, his commissioner of industrial relations while governor of New York, as Secretary of Labor and the first woman Cabinet member. Roosevelt also considered Florida Rep. Ruth Bryan Owen, daughter of three-time Democratic presidential nominee William Jennings Bryan, for the job but instead named the daughter of the “Great Commoner” as ambassador to Denmark—the first woman to be a U.S. ambassador anywhere.
Having a “cabinet of cronies” did not really affect whether Roosevelt’s “New Deal” would get through Congress. In 1933, Democrats held overwhelming majorities in both the House and Senate and would do anything the new president wanted. President Obama, of course, faces a very different situation on Capitol Hill.
“Generally speaking, it is an average group of presidential advisers,” Arthur Krock wrote in the New York Times in 1933, assessing the new president’s team, “Its composite trait seems to be diligence. Brilliance it lacks completely.”
Editor's Note: We have reprinted the full text of "Obama's Cabinet of Cronies" by John Gizzi from Human Events. We encourage you to visit the original.
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