Go to the desk. Go in, go look at the art. Be in that museum. Flood the place. Start with that, and then the next thing is find out why you cant get on public wifi in this building. Thank you. Okay. [laughter] thank you, professor wallace. I also want to thank professor hendricks, professor cobb, professor marc lamont hill, and as importantly, want to thank all of you for attending here today. Certainly your comments, your attendance, your participation is fantastic. Thank you very much, well be having another panel coming up in about 20 minutes and have a great rest of the day. Thank you now. [applause] give all our panelists a big hand. Once again, our panelists a big hand. [applause] a few things. If you want to get a copy of this discussion, there are tapes outside about this discussion. Theyll be available a little bit later. So thats available. Also very quickly, very quickly, the authors will be doing book signings in the booksigning room. So weve got a book signing scheduled in the room. All right . And finally, the john oliver reading series is in our auditorium next door in the Edison Jackson auditorium next door. And finally, there are tickets left for the fund fundraiser to. Tickets are left for the fundraiser tonight if you want to attend. Just go to the front desk, and theyll let you know. Thank you so much. The National Black writers conference is produced by the center for black literature. For more information, visit centerforblackliterature. Org. Next on booktv, paul kengor presents his thoughts on what it means to be a reagan conservative. This is about an hour and 15 minutes. [applause] thank you, ashley. And thank you, andrew, andrew coffman, a Grove City College graduate. [laughter] one of, i think andrew was maybe in my first class i taught at Grove City College back in literally, right . I think he was. And thank you, too, pat coyle as well, ron robinson whos not here, but the Young Americas Foundation longtime executive director. And thank you for all that you do for young people, for campuses across the country and for conserving and preserving the reagan ranch and reagan legacy. Ronald reagan and reagan conservativism was about conserving and preserving as well, so thats something more on that in a minute. But also, too, thanks to cspan for being here. People often call cspan and they say thank god for cspan. Well, i echo that. I mean, theres not many sources out there as objective as cspan. They just put it out there, unedited, no commentary, met it speak for itself, and theres so many talks like this that go on all across the country. Thousands of times a year. And ill often when im home if there could just be a camera here to cap thur this and record it capture and this and record it and only cspan does it. So much appreciate it. My topic today, what is a reagan conservative. And as ashley said, its based on my new book, 11 principles of a reagan conservative. And this question, what is a reagan conservative, you hear if you do a Google Search right now or last time i did a Google Search on it on the words reagan conservative, it came up with over 30 million hits, all right . Of different people trying to define it and what exactly it means. And a lot of that is because so Many Republican candidates statewide, local races, nationwide, president ial candidates say over and over again when asked what they believe, theyll say, well, im a reagan conservative. But what is that . And i think in many cases they say this not so much because maybe they even necessarily totally know what a reagan be conservative is, but many of them want to emulate reagans political success, reagans political appeal. Think about this. Here was a man in 1980 who won 44 out of 50 states against an incumbent president , 44 out of 50 states. And one of the reasons i think that jimmy carter does so much is this lingering sense of rejection that he must have in 1980. [laughter] i mean, a good heart, too, i dont want to belittle that. But, i mean, that was i mean, think about that. For an incumbent president to lose 44 out of 50 states n. 1984 reagan was reelected by winning 49 out of 50 states. And the only state that he didnt win was minnesota which was the home state, right, of his challenger, walter mondale. And thats so reagan, reagan twice won states that the republicans today could only dream of winning. Won california twice, won new jersey twice, won massachusetts twice. People are laughing, saying that seems ridiculous. My home state of pennsylvania, he won twice. The second election he won the Electoral College by a vote of 52513. [laughter] so there was no need to recount florida [laughter] in that race. The combined Electoral College margin this these two president ial races was 1,01462. All right . So what republican wouldnt want to be like ray twang in this that reagan in that sense . The you think about it, too, Ronald Reagans presidency, its not just that he got elected, but when he left, he left office with the highest president ial Approval Ratings of any president since eisenhower. The highest gallup approval of any president since eisenhower. And if you go before be ray began, so he replaces a president who fails to get reelected, an incumbent who loses. That was jimmy carter. Prior to carter was gerald ford who never won the president ial election. Then prior to that you had Richard Nixon who, of course, resigned in disgrace. Prior to that, lbj whose presidency went so bad that he declined to even pursue his party renomination for pa partys renomination for president. Lbj replaced a president who was killed in office. If you go back before eisenhower, harry truman talked about the presidency like the great white jail, a prisoner of the presidency. Truman had the highest disapproval rating of any president , basically, until george w. Bush. Go back to the oh 20s to the 20s. Woodrow wilsons twoterm presidency ended in despair. He had two or three strokes in the final 1824 months of his presidency. Go after reagan. George h. West desw. Bush got en 1988 largely because as anybody in here over 30 would remember, largely because it was the best people could do, they thought, to get a third term of reagan, right . He won one term, that was it. He lost in 1992 to bill clinton. Clinton wins with 43 of the vote roughly. That was it. Because of the Third Party Candidacy of, who . Ross perot. Clinton this 96 in 96 didnt get over 50 of the vote. 2000 george w. Bush gets in without even winning a majority of votes. And then 2004 the second bush term, bush leaves office. Bush around 2007 had the worst gallup approval numbers of any president since harry truman. Barack obama, obama wins in 2008. 2012 obama actually is the first president in history though he was the first democrat, i believe, since lbj to get over 50 of the vote. But in 2012 he was elected with, first president , first president to do this, elected with less popular votes and Electoral College votes in his reelection. Reagan won 49 out of 50 states. His reelection, obama won 26. Bare majority. And if you look at a map of counties, right, under reagan it was a sea of red. Under obama it was still a sea of red. If you look, if you look at counties. And speaking, speaking of obama, there was a poll done in 2013 after the 2013, after the second inaugural which asked americans if Ronald Reagan were to run today against barack obama, who would you vote for . They said reagan by 58 over obama. And thats right after obamas reelection. In 2013. Heres really fascinating. How was obama elected principally . The youth vote, right . The youth vote. That same poll they asked people ages 1834 who would you vote for, reagan or obama, they picked reagan. They picked reagan. Up like the gallup unlike the gal line up, gallup does a president s day poll every president s day, annual president s day poll. Theyve been doing this 13 times since 2001. Reagan placed fist among the American Public as far as question whos your alltime favorite president. Reagan got it in 2001, fife 2005, p. R. N. , 2012 2011, 2012. And reagan usually finishes in the top three. Typically beats lincoln. [laughter] imagine that, imagine that. There was in june 2005 a poll done by aol and time warner. Aol online which surveyed americans, and they didnt give them a choice. They asked them to put in whichever name they wanted, who is the greatest american of all time. Not just the greatest president , whos the greatest american of all time . 2. 4 Million People responded which any statistician will tell you is far and away a representative sample. I mean, you only need maybe 500 people to do some of this polling. And reagan won. Greatest american of all time. So what republican wouldnt want to be like reagan, right . Who wouldnt aspire to that success . You now have republican groups all over the country, county, state groups, theyve been holding these annual lincoln day dinners for years. Theyve been changing the names of many of those. Lincolns birthday is in february, and its also the month of Ronald Reagans birthday, and now many of these republican groups they have, in a sense, reagan replacing lincoln of all things. All right. So i get asked all the time by media people and others which candidate is the like reagan. Where would reagan stand on this issue or that issue. And it begs the question then of what did Ronald Reagan believe. Be this poster boy, this face of conservativism, the sort of standard bearer and icon of the republican party, what did he believe . What did he actually believe . All right. So with that reagan, reagan never really gave a definition of conservativism. I think he was afraid to try. As soon as he tried to do this, hed get all sorts of create ings and so forth. But february 6, 1977, which was his 66th birthday, and he spoke at cpac. Reagan spoke there, i think, 13 times. I give the day da in my book. Every year of his presidency reagan spoke to cpac. And here in this particular address which this the back of the book i have the full february 1977 reagan cpac speech, its a gem. He said conservativism can mean Different Things to those who call themselves conservatives, and it can. Really the essence of conservativism if you want a kind of definition from me and then ill give you sort of reagans definition, conservatives seek to conserve and preserve the timetested values and ideas that they believe best serve the country, citizens and people everywhere. Right . The ideas that over time have proven to work, have proven to be the best. And, in fact be, give you a recommendation, thats pretty consistent with the definition given by russell kirk who was one of the philosophical spokesmen for conservativism. His book, roots of american order, some of the books he wrote in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s. But reagan said this in the cpac speech of 1977. Conservatives, the common sense and common decency of ordinary men and women working out their own lives in their own way. This is the heart of american conservativism. Conservative wisdom and principles are derived from a willingness to learn not just from what is going on now, but from what has happened before. What has happened before. What chesterton called the democracy of the dead. The idea that our ancestors have something to say, right . We should stop and heed and think about what they learned before us. Which doesnt can mean that everything that was done 200 or 400 or 500 years ago was right. Remember, the definition is the timetested values that have endured over time. The issue is so dominant in all of these discussions and thats the case right there where the conservative position on that is it to is and to try to be mean and tell to two people that love each other they cant come together. The conservative believes theres something to learn. In 1993 the entire Democratic Party and liberalism and the clintons defined marriage between a man and a woman and now 20 years later anyone that disagrees they get called all sorts of names. A conservative would say hold on a second. Just 20 years ago you were all aware we are now on this and now we are the radicals . So the conservatives say lets stop and look back and see what we know about this through experience. Where youre going with that idea is not timetested. So they told of them also that the lines dividing social and economic conservatives were disappearing. And he did with a social and economic and Ronald Reagan was both. He was the total complete conservative. Not just conservative on some issues and tax cuts and so forth, but on both social and economic issues. So as i said in this book i laid out 11 principles of conservatism and i dont know how i came up with a leading other than i laid out principlee principles and i stopped and counted id have to combine th them. So we got 11 principles. Here they are now. Make sure you take the notes quick. That is the other cheek sheet in the book. The sanctity and dignity of human life and american exceptionalism, the founders wisdom and vision, lower taxes, limited government, peace through strength, anticommunism and a belief in the individual. At some point you will have to drag me off the stage but i dont have time to go through all 11 so i will just take a few. The first of these, freedom. Over and over and over again the time for choosing speech which he gave on behalf of Barry Goldwater october 27, 1964 said that in kind from the swamp to the stars has above all struggled to be free. And by their reckoning, people everywhere needed freedom. At that time in 1964 they talked about a person that was peacekeeping castros cuba and he said how lucky he is he had a place to a scape to and he said if we lose freedom here in america, there is no place to a scape. This is the last stand on earth. Ronald reagan felt that americans needed to understand this. They needed to understand this. Its a beautiful speech written and that, also is one of the speeches written in the back of this book. Ronald reagan talked about a freedom man and i will quote here he said he has become increasingly pensive in the last few weeks as he prepares to leave washington. He prepares to go back home to california to about 40 minutes up the road and he talks about looking out the white house window. Ive been thinking of that window and reflecting on the past eight years and what theyve meant and the image that comes to mind is a novel called one. A small story about a big shift in the refugee and a sailor. These were the vietnamese people that had escaped communism after the fall of saigon and vietnam became communist and you had thousands of people fleeing the country like you did in cuba as well. The sailor was hard at work on the carrier midway which was patrolling the South China Sea. Crammed inside were refugees hoping to get to america. They sent a launch to bring them to ship safety. The ship safety. As they made their way through the seas, one spotted the sailor on deck and he stood up and called out to one of the refugees as he held out his hand he yelled hello american sailor freed a man. So imagine that at this moment hes more than just he is more t person coverage is the spokesperson for freedom. Hes a spokesperson for american exceptionalism as Ronald Reagan was at that moment. You would get an assembly more profound and deeper than the South China Sea. He doesnt look up and say hello military man, hello american sailor, hello freedom man. A small moment with a big meaning he couldnt get it out of his mind, and when i saw it neither could i cause thats what it meant to be an american in the 1980s. We stood again for freedom. Thats what it meant to be an american again in the 1980s. Now, freedom has so many manifestations and you will hear the concerns but in some ways i try to express this to my students it can mean regulatio regulations. Its easy to open a business and in some countries you cant. If 50 of your income goes past thats 50 less of your income. Money that you could use to do landscaping to pay off a student loan to pay down a mortgage and buy a new dishwasher to any number of Different Things. The more the government takes away especially as you have an evergrowing government to feed the more you lose that your personal freedom. Freedom in america can be the freedom to educate your children in the school where you would like to send them to a private school, to homeschool. Ronald reagan talked about the freedom of religion, religious tolerance. We have the first amendment. Speech, assembly, religion. The freedom to immigrate. Think about that. You couldnt go over the iron curtain. The secretary of defense told me any time that i ever mentioned the iron curtain to an audience he said youre going to be around longer than me anytime you mention the berlin wall ask your audience this one question enriched or action that they point their guns . East on their own people he said youre talking to a former secretary of defense bill to keep an enemy from invading. This was a wall to keep people that wanted to be free from leaving. It had a barbed wire over top of it. Peter watson said he flew over the military when he was preparing to write the speech and there was gravel and it was therwastheirs at the footprintse seen in the mind befor light bee one of the german guards that are relative to look for are to be held responsible for what in the person go free. So freedom has many manifestations. Only when people are free to worship, create and build only then did the societies become dynamic and prosperous. He talked about the freedom to extract oil and energy. Do you know how much would be extracted right now by the entrepreneurs if the government allowed them to do so . And it was the exclusive domain of americans but it is one of the noblest aspirations of the human spirit. Conservatives need to be Freedom Fighters. They need to be keepers of the flame of liberty. The second principle. Faith. So, consistent with Ronald Reagan was constantly conservatives that talk freedom, freedom, but what he understood and what conservatism is about is freedom means faith. One is dependent on the other. Faith is like the moral freedom. If you have freedom it