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.The State of Obama
Here's what has to be understood. It's all about him.
A State of the Union speech normally is about relating a president's public policies to conditions in the country. An Obama State of the Union speech is about one thing: the Obama project.
It would be unfair to say that everything and everyone else in a complex world are irrelevant. But let's be clear about the priorities: Congress, the Cabinet of courtiers, the press, the people and indeed the national problems described in that State of the Union speech—it's all brick and mortar in the future Obama monument.
That we are all just riding in Barack Obama's sidecar should have been obvious from day one. His 2008 Denver acceptance speech enveloped nearly everything. The vast, sweeping goals he then laid out in January 2009 are virtually the same ones he described Tuesday night—the climate cleansed, education for all, social justice achieved and the drowning middle-class saved.
The Washington Post's Ezra Klein, an Obama admirer, commented without irony right after the State of the Union: "In some ways, what was most noticeable about the speech was what wasn't in it: Nothing."
Commentary from right to left after the speech noted the mismatch between its goals and money available in any conceivable federal budget. So why is he doing this? More to the point, what have we gotten ourselves into with this president?
Well, it's big. Mr. Obama by his own statements has made clear that he's at the center of something larger than the mere here and now.
In a 2011 CBS interview he said, "I would put our legislative and foreign policy accomplishments in our first two years against any president—with the possible exceptions of Johnson, FDR and Lincoln, just in terms of what we've gotten done in modern history."
On another occasion: "Around the world, Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, what they did was hard. It takes time. It takes more than a single term."
Again in 2011: "And now that King has his own memorial on the Mall I think that we forget when he was alive there was nobody who was more vilified, nobody who was more controversial, nobody who was more despairing at times."
An unprompted remark at a fundraiser with NBA stars last year: "It is very rare I come to an event where I'm like the fifth or sixth most interesting person. Usually the folks want to take a picture with me, sit next to me, talk to me. That has not been the case at this event and I completely understand."
Johnson, FDR, Lincoln, Gandhi, Mandela, Martin and Michael. What the rest of us do is bear witness.
"It is our unfinished task to make sure that this government works on behalf of the many," he said Tuesday, "and not just the few." Has anyone noticed how much of the Obama agenda is endlessly "unfinished"? The climate, great schools in every neighborhood, even real economic growth—it's always just over the horizon.
Whether any of these laws and spending ideas—Fix-It-First, an Energy Security Trust, Paycheck Fairness—come to life, much less work, doesn't matter. That's not their first purpose. For Mr. Obama, the main thing is to join one or two real achievements, such as ObamaCare, to a laundry list of grandiose intentions and hope future historians conclude that what little he did and all that he dreamed made him a great man. Some might say it's delusional. He'd say that history will judge.
As to the American population, beset with anxieties over low growth and persistent unemployment, they're expected to gut it out with their inspirational president. In year five, he's proposing 15 "manufacturing hubs" that he says will be "global centers of high-tech jobs." Anyone who has seen "Annie" on Broadway knows the translation: "The sun will come out—tomorrow."
Coverage of the speech described how he'll now "hit the road to sell his ideas to audiences in North Carolina, Georgia and Illinois." It seems normal until you notice he spends little or no time trying to sell any of this to Congress itself. Most of his past high-visibility proposals have underachieved or disappeared in Congress. He prefers instead the wand of solo executive authority. Even Bill Clinton, no stranger to the admiration of crowds, spent presidential capital building support one-on-one with key members of Congress. Hillary or Joe Biden would have done the same.
Not this president. It's about him and history. Everything is a function of mobilizing the base on behalf of the Obama project. The now-famous Obama campaign media operation in place the past four years has now reincarnated as Organizing for Action, essentially a mega-flack machine for selling the project.
And that's a danger. Barack Obama is indeed in sync with the public will, so much so that he has largely dismissed and devalued the rest of the system, specifically Congress and the courts. In the next four years, that could prove to be a problem.
Editor's Note: We have reprinted the full text of Daniel Henninger's column "The State of Obama" from the Wall Street Journal. We encourage you to visit the original.
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