Back in the 1960s, conservatives – whether political candidates, policy groups, or activist organizations – had no way to get their message past the filter of the liberal mainstream media and into the hands of the American people.
At that time young conservative activist Richard Viguerie discovered that political candidates had to register their campaign donors with state offices – information that was in the public domain. Collecting those names and addresses by hand, state-by-state, was the beginning of what is now the largest lists of active conservative donors in the world.
Starting in 1965, Richard Viguerie grew his list from 12,500 conservative donors to 125,000 – a 1,000% increase – in just one year. Before long, Viguerie’s direct mail agency and lists enabled conservatives to bypass the mainstream media and connect with millions of Americans on a “personal level” on issues they cared passionately about.
Viguerie’s mailing lists soon played a major role in reshaping America’s political landscape.
As Viguerie’s lists continued to grow, they helped trigger major political upset wins for conservatives – most famously the 1980 Reagan Revolution, along with the 1994 conservative sweep of Congress, 2010 defeat of the Obama administration and Reid/Pelosi Congress, and the 2016 triumph of taking back the White House with the help of an aggressive campaign to rally the Catholic Voters nationwide to elect Donald Trump as our President.
Through his direct marketing agency, American Target Advertising, Inc., Viguerie was not only the first in political direct mail fundraising, but is still the proven leader at building large organizations rapidly and successfully with direct mail.