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on the status quo was far different from Carter's. In the opening months of 1977, he addressed important conservative organizations to explain his vision for a “New Republican Party.” First, in January, he addressed the annual dinner of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, and then in early February he spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). Reagan told his young listeners to look beyond the simple math of the two parties and instead focus on the disparity between self-identified conservatives and liberals. During his CPAC address he noted that “on January 5, 1977, by a 43–19 plurality those polled by Harris said they would ‘prefer to see the country move in a more conservative direction than liberal one.’” 44
    Reagan called for bringing into the Republican fold those Democrats concerned with “social issues—law and order, abortion, busing, quota systems—[that] are usually associated with the blue-collar, ethnic, and religious groups.” 45 In short, he proposed a fusion between those mercantile and economic interests long associated with the GOP, who were mostly concerned with government regulations, and social conservatives, who believed the fabric of society was also threatened by big, intrusive government.

    He told the conservatives to join him in creating a “new, lasting majority. This will mean compromise. But not a compromise of basic principle. What will emerge will be something new, something open and vital and dynamic, something the great conservative majority will recognize as its own, because at the heart of this undertaking is principled politics.” 46

    Then Reagan took on the GOP, telling his CPAC audience that the party “cannot be one limited to the country-club, big-business image that … it is burdened with today. The ‘New Republican Party’ I am speaking about is going to have room for the man and woman in the factories, for the farmer, for the cop on the beat.” 47

    He closed his groundbreaking speech by telling the assembled conservatives:

    Our task is not to sell a philosophy, but to make the majority of Americans, who already share that philosophy, see that modern conservatism offersthem a political home. We are not a cult; we are members of a majority. Let's act and talk like it. The job is ours and the job must be done. If not by us, who? If not now, when? Our party must be the party of the individual. It must not sell out the individual to cater to the group. No greater challenge faces our society today than ensuring that each one of us can maintain his dignity and his identity in an increasingly complex, centralized society.
    Extreme taxation, excessive controls, oppressive government competition with business, galloping inflation, frustrated minorities, and forgotten Americans are not the products of free enterprise. They are the residue of centralized bureaucracy, of government by a self-anointed elite.
    Our party must be based on the kind of leadership that grows and takes its strength from the people. Any organization is in actuality only the lengthened shadowed of its members. A political party is a mechanical structure created to further a cause. The cause, not the mechanism, brings and holds the members together. And our cause must be to rediscover, reassert, and reapply America's spiritual heritage to our national affairs.
    Then with God's help we shall indeed be as a city upon a hill, with the eyes of all people upon us. 48
    Reagan received a resounding ovation from the young conservatives gathered at CPAC. The “True Believers” understood Reagan's call. The former governor was not only taking on the established order in Washington, he was also continuing the fight against the dug-in and hostile interests inside the GOP. His followers understood that Reagan was distrustful of the concentration of governmental or corporate power. Reagan believed in a “natural aristocracy” of men who climbed to their highest ambitions without the