The idea of ending slavery. The Republican Party began as an Abolitionist Coalition of northern quakes free soil democrats the American Party and other antislavery groups. At a meeting in ribbon wisconsin in march of 1854 abolitionists express their alarm at the spread of slavery into the kansas nebraska territories and they floated a name for new political party, the Republican Party. This was march of 1854. Just eight months later, the new party had taken over the house of representatives and many statehouses before as well. Pillars and you can probably rattle them off if you follow the mainstream media. They would say there are many of them. And president obama personified this viewpoint when he talked about small town americans who and i quote cling to their guns and religion or have antipathy for people who are not like them. But this isnt what conservative is about. It is isnt about people that refuse to embrace progress. The movement is about the people that hold tight to Core Principles and hold essential truths that are needed to save our beloved nation from tyranny. We know the Core Principles are. Two, the maintenance of the rule of law, three protection of liberty and forth is believe in a higher law above mans law. The idea that hold it together are rooted in mans most important values. These values are what the american nation was founded on. Freedom and a nation under god. This was an evolution rather than a revolution. In the book, contributions remind us of this. And the same pillars brought new generation into the maybement for decades. Movement a movement has to have some pillars we all agree on or the whole tent falls down. When leaders in the movement fall away from Core Principles, which they do, we must step back and reexamine our course and select new leaders. But what is . The personal impulse to defend and fight for ones more cherish convictions is natural and timeless. It is guiding for educational, social life and government is natural is ancient. The word conservative comes from the word with and combined means to keep, guard or safe. It is guiding something for the purpose of safekeeping. Perhaps because of association with guarding many people confu confu confu confuse conservatives with blindiblin blindly following tradition. But conservatives recognize that tradition maybe wrong or without meaning. Tradition maybe missing essential truth and moral substance. Tradition may need correction. Conservatives have reference and respect for tradition but are not inseparable from it. Actives have numerous reasons they fight. They want a government that functions according to the rights given to us according to the constitution and respect for our angloamerican political heritage. Conservatives want a government that is ordered and maintains the rule of law. Conservatives want government to protect freedom, liberty and property and not to chews chose wonnone winers and losers. They want to leave people alone and aallow them to use their fruits to build their livelihood. And conservatives understand there is battles that must be fought. Conservatives stand in stark contrast to the democratic slogan at the 2012 election government is the only thing we all belong to. If the American People start believing government is the only answer, it will be a wretched answer indeed for our great experiment. The modern active movement has emerged as a big tent with three folds. The idea of a big tent harps back to the conflict with the Republican Party saying our party is a big tent and week we can house many issues under many pillars. Conservatives is people with a wide range of new views on defense spending, national security, legalization of drugs, abortion, marriage, immigration and numerous other issues. We debate all of these issues among ourselves often clashing fiercely within our movement with those that disagree with us about policy. This vibrant debate within the conservative Movement Standing in stark contrast with those on the left who have no enemies they say. Special Interest Groups join in a grand coalition on the left. Each group gets legislation that benefits them in return for their support of other Coalition Members interest. This approach makes all of the groups on the left get a piece of their pie whatever it is going to cost the nation. Pt barn started the american circus. The travelling and tent that could be setup in town after town on american frontier. He added more poles and expanded the tend as the crowd grow. The conservative movement has taken that lead and enlarged the tent but the result is frequent confli conflicts that reveal the riffs between the people in the conservative movement. The conservative movement is a truly big tent. A big tent of people sharing common principles but with wildly different world views. The movement includes paleo cons and neo cons. Traditionalist and libitarians. The tea party. And the establishment members, too. Our conservative movement is noble in many ways. But in one way it is certainly falls very short. Many conservatives would rather burn heritage from different wins of the movement than gather together to fight the infidels who are tearing down our beloved countries. The conservative movement keeps other conservatives that dont agree with them at bay and the result is the movement often seems fractured and divided in the media and the poplar imagination. Over the course of history, the republicans have a hard time electing people because conservatives were never recommended by a single political party. Even today they are split. 19 of democrats selfidentify as conservative. 35 of independents selfidentify as conservatives. And 30 of republicans dont, my friends. To have the opportunity to govern the conservatives have to come together as a political movement. As a practical matter, conservatives rely on the Republican Party and they rely on it to get conservative politicians elected and this usually involves c the conservative movement and the Republican Party a closely aligned it is an uneasy partnership. Conservatives claim the Republican Party doesnt recommend the tenants of the Republican Party. And the Republican Party finds conservatives groups focus on ideas and they are problematic for the party. There is an emerging narrative leading up to the 2016 election that is being advanced by the media and the Republican Party. The narrative holds that tea party and social and National Conservatives are ruining the chances of the Republican Party taking the whitehouse possibly eve ever again. At the most basic level, these conservatives groups pose a challenge to the Republican Party because these groups are focused on ideaology rather than party politics. But you know, as i do, at times these socalled groups include everybody in the big tent except the Republican Party loyalist themselves. Many grassroots actives fear that america is facing an empireral president and tyranny is more possible than at any other time in history. This position is probably one of the hardest for progressives to understand. And the hardest for the Republican Party to deal with. Another tough issues is social conservatives. The media and some other actives attack social actives and attack them hard when they express views inconsistent with their liberal world view. Whatever the elites might think of social conservatives, they represent the core of the Republican Party. The Republican Party cannot win elections without them. Evangelica evangelicalswere 27 of the electorate in 2012. With other types of religious conservatives contributing an additional 1012 . You might recall the up roar over the comments by phil robert son. The outrage led to him being suspended but the support from all wings of the conservative movement resulted in him being taken off suspension. This shows when the broad conservative movement depends the statements of conservatives the conflict dissipate and the media backs down. This strands in contrast to republican races murdoch and akin. They were abandoned by many wings of the conservative movement and Republican Party. The question is are they different because of the statements made . Maybe. But it is also possible the main difference was that they were candidates for office and robertson wasnt. Other sections didnt like him and fought hard against him. When the opportunity arose, these other wings came out against the candidates in hopes of replacing them with candidates that represented their ideas better. Many of the worst public divisions result from conservative wings fighting each other in the primaries and political arena. For conservatives to win the right to govern three core groups of the Movement Foreign policy, Economic Policy and the Republican Party will have to Work Together or simply lose. There will continue to be many freak show moments when the interest of the different pole s are happening. The circus was so poplar that he could not even get his stars through the show as much as he would like. He solved the Program Posting a hine saying to the exit. The conservative movement remains a movement of ideas. But ideology victory maybe what we need. It is the role of the conservatives to generate ideas but they need to join together to get the policies implemented. Only by winning the right to governor can we bring liberty to our nation. Core principles cant be violated. But policy differences need to be tolerated. Governing according to principles allows the nation to prosper. That is the contribution the conservative movement can make to the world. I want to thank you for being with me in the big tent. [ applause ] we will be glad to take question. When we pass the microphone we ask you to identify yourself. How could you have ever thought of the circuses and come to washington, d. C. . I am amazed. One other quote, of course, famous among conservatives is we always gather the wagons the trouble is we shoot inwards instead of outwards. Questions from the audience. He could not have told you everything. He tried, but he couldnt. A lot of conservatives, like myself, we are looking around thinking the tentacled use more people and who do you think from their coalition we should be reaching out to . We saw Something Interesting happening with one of the c contribut contributors to the book. We have 17 in the book by the way. Rand paul is one of them. He gave a speech at sea pack and got a standing ovation. Same speech at berkeley and got a standing ovation. We need people like that that can cross over and get invol involvement from a broader spectrum. That is a perfect example of that. Next question. Thank you very much. If i could just make a correction. I work for ringing brother circerous and you cannot contain a lion. You can only train a lion. I went to sea pac was encouraged and i am wondering if you can give us a message that encourages us to reach out to the big tent. The real message the four Core Principles and we should talk about that rather than policy details and getting bogged down on fighting each other over that. I mentioned to a member of congress. Steve king happened to use this in a speech yesterday and he was told the four Core Principles resinate with the number of people. The Congress King used it. He is not a contributor to the book. We went through all of the 17 people from michael balloon to don rumsfeld and we found these principles flowed through all of them. Even iran brook. These Core Principles resinate. And i think we get too caught up in trying to fight each other over policy differences. You said the American Revolution was more of an evolution than a revolution. I think kirk said something similar. Are your thoughts on the declaration and is that something the people should be united on . That is a good question. My wife is an attorney a believes in black letter law. That is a question beyond my ability. But i will tell you we live in two nations almost. Pew research, a great organization, did a piece of work recently and asked people what they felt about abortion in almost all cases. 75 of people in the northeast said abortion should be in almost every case. 60 of people in the south disagreed with that. Gay marriage 62 of northerners. 61 of southerners not for it. And it is just fascinating to see how we are really two nations. If you really Pay Attention to the declaration of independence you could go there. It is shocking and i have lived up both nations. I used to live in new york and now i am in south carolina. We have two different cultures and two different countries. It is getting harder and harder to bring that. I dont know how we do it. Kirk wrote something many years ago that i think it so important to look at today and he talks about the four cities that are absolutely important to western civilization. He talks about jerusalem giving us true law or divine law. Talks about athens giving us the bases of social order. Rome with the idea of republic and the separation of powers. London the universal law applied fa equally to all and talks about it coming together in philadelphia, which i think it has, with the american experime experiment. And i think we are loosing those four key principles and i think this administration is helping us lose them faster even. I worry about that. By the way the first chapter in the book is by al reagan and he talks about that at Great Lengths and it is in the book and interesting to read. In light of these comments, and the Division Within the country, maybe we could focus on your great concept of attacking the infidels before he burn the heretics even within the conservative movement. Any thoughts on how we can do that . Tough. Not really. I think it is a matter of continuing to talk about what are our Core Principles and working together on that. I think that is one of the hardest things to do. And the example i give with mur dock and akin and ruand paul showing everyone is trying to elect their guy. The left is far better organized. I worry about this daily. What i like to think about is something that reagan is credited with talking about the person that agrees with you 80 of the time is a friends and ally, not a 20 trader. We have to remind people of that. In the book, ed mese from the Heritage Foundation contributed a chapter and he talk said about that and there is a lot there to be said. I dont know how we keep reminding people. Maybe we tattoo it on other state legislators hand or something. I dont know i dont know how we do it. As i understand it, you are teaching at sit doll . I will be teaching at cambridge next year as well. My question relates our observations about young people over the years. Have you seen changes in their behaviors and attitudes that either encourage or discourage you with regard to conservatisms . That is a great question. Our president said he wants colleges and vocational schools to train people for jobs for our society. I am waiting for a college of kids to come back telling him they are being trained to be baristas. I think they are recognizing that given what is happening in our society. And they scy youngsee the young and see you need free mact markets and individual liberty to keep this going. I think they have seeing that. I see the rand paul statement at berkeley. I cannot be a social conservative gets a standing ovation of a general crowd at berkeley. I think we are doing something and seeing something happen that is very good. I think it bodes well. But with all of these changes that are being made and i believe illegal changes, unconstitutional changes by the legislation, it will be hard to unwind these things. Ab i know that is not a great answer but hope it answered a little bit. I think it goes to the last comment about the young people and how we are attacked and vulnerable. I think the three things you talked about the one being social issues that are the biggest divider and you spoke about north and south divided on social issues. And i think where rand paul got his standing ovation was that he is a libber libertarian and as long as the social issues are something people dig heels in about i dont think government needs to tell us what to do about social issues. I dont think they have any business in that area. So the Democrats Use that because they know we are divided on it and they ram that between the conservatives to pry them apart. And the reason rand paul got the standing ovation and all of the young people i know who have conservatives dont have problems with the social issues just feel the government should butt out of them. I agree. But i would like to come back to history. In 76 the first evangelical president was elected, jimmy carter, who got 66 of the vote. They ended up getting mad at him and four years later he lost with Ronald Reagan carrying 64 of the evangelical vote. Social conservatives have to be kept within the big tent structure or we will lose unless we completely reformulate and i dont know had you that is going to happen. But i agree with you and i cannot speak for senator paul he is a social conservative to the best of my knowledge but that is not an issue he tries to ram peoples throat. I agree with you. That is important. My name is ken hagerty. A concept i didnt hear in your presentation which i think might be useful is the ask about the concept of american exceptionali