delegates greeted Senator-elect Hatch as a conquering hero. A conservative Democratic congressman lamented that his party had been taken over by “out and out socialists.” William Rusher said that Reagan “blew the chance” for a conservative victory in 1976 by sticking with the Republican Party. Phillips promised “a guerrilla battle at the grass-roots level,” suggested the creation of a national network of conservative newspapers, because “media is in the hand of the enemy,” and announced the Conservative Caucus’s intention to form a shadow cabinet. Congressman-elect Mickey Edwards noted the
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