THE POLITICAL

BUSH LEAGUES:

THE YOUNG
REPUBLICANS
From the

Vol. 4, No. 3 October 1975

by
Dan Durning
[Note: this is an article that I wrote in 1975 for the Arkansas Advocate, a monthly independent newspaper published in Little
Rock during the first part of the 1970s. It is a historical document that describes a much different time in Arkansas politics, the
era of Winthrop Rockefeller, and a time (1964-1970) when the Republican party was the progressive party in the state. Back
issues of the Arkansas Advocate are hard to find, so I am publishing this article for those who lived through this era of politics
who might find it enjoyable to recall the passions involved.]

"Teams in the majors, from the very outset, had to face the problem of what to do with the
young player of real potential who was almost totally inexperienced. Since the big leagues were
in the business of trying to win games, they could not gamble by placing a youngster with only
raw talent in their lineup. Out of sheer necessity, they hit upon the idea of "farming" him out to a
team in the lower professional leagues where he could work on fundamentals under the
guidance of experienced coaches."

George Sisler quoted in Bush League by Robert Obojski

Like major league baseball teams, political parties have a surplus of raw, unseasoned recruits, who
aspire to a future in politics. These people may range from 12 to 35 years of age, and most are not yet
ready to test their skills in the political big leagues because of their youth and inexperience. To
accommodate them, the political parties have established auxiliary "youth" organizations. Youth
organizations are seen by the parent party as, at the very least, a way of keeping a bunch of "kids" from
getting in the way of big league politicians, and more positively, a source of "grunt" labor for political
campaigns and an arena in which to groom and evaluate future leaders.

The state Young Republican organization, founded in the mid-1960s, serves as the farm league for the
Arkansas Republican Party. It offers political neophytes the chance to learn the game of politics without
endangering themselves.

"Politicians have many virtues that ignorant people take for vices. The principal ones are (1)
compromise of principles; (2) egotism; (3) mediocrity. In other men these may be vices; but for a
politician they are needed skills -- so much so that, if a politician is not born with them, he must
learn them; and if he doesn't not learn them, he will either fail himself or do harm to others, as
Eugene McCarthy did."

Garry Wills, "Hurrah for Politicians," Harper's Magazine, September, 1975.

As Garry Wills suggests, there are certain skills that a politician must have in order to be successful.
These include such things as vote swapping, compromise, personal persuasion, speechmaking, friend-
winning, influence-peddling, crowd-mongering, as well as techniques such as back stabbing, rumor-
spreading, power grabbing, intimidating, self-aggrandizing, and selling out.

As in the baseball bush leagues, these fundamentals must be taught, and everyone does not learn them
equally well. Those who learn fast have a bright future in big party politics; those who do not pick up
the skills quickly are likely to be retired to spectator status.
For those who wish to learn the fundamental techniques of politics, the Young Republicans offer two
types of bush league games: external and internal. The first involves the individual members in
campaigns against the Democrats. Playing minor roles and performing the routine labor necessary to
fuel a campaign, the YRs direct their energies and efforts, in a closely supervised manner, against an
external adversary, the Democrats. This is a game in which major political techniques are taught
primarily through observations.

The internal game revolves around a yearly convention which the Young Republicans hold to elect state-
wide officers and adopt a platform. At this level, the fighting is directed inward as the members create
issues and opposition. It is this game which really allows would-be politicians to unleash their talents
and perfect their political skills.

The internal game of the Young Republicans is a close simulation of the real world of politics. In this
make-believe game, there are fierce internal struggles for control of the YR machinery -- a most
insignificant and ephemeral reward. Since everyone knows one another, the struggle is highly personal
and emotions run high. The internal game could best be characterized as a monumental struggle for the
illusion of power. In this it resembles high school student councils, Boys and Girls State, and Jaycee
elections. All are essentially popularity contests which are camouflaged under the pretense of choosing
the "best qualified" candidate. These games require the participants to suspend their disbelief, at least
for a little while, and pretend that it really makes a difference.

"Let's Start Again to... Go and Grow." Ed Allison in the Young Republican Newsletter, February
13, 1969.

In the early years of the Young Republicans, the organization was almost entirely oriented toward the
external game. The YRs were born in Arkansas at the same time Winthrop Rockefeller was running
against Orval Faubus in 1964. The timing was no coincidence. Rockefeller was the midwife and wet
nurse of the YRs. His money financed the original organizational efforts, his employees did the
organizing. In the early years, the YRs functioned solely as an auxiliary of the Rockefeller campaigns.

The first five years, then, were ones of pragmatism and support for the Rockefeller establishment. The
enemy was outside. YR efforts were directed against it. The activities of the YRs centered on organizing,
as it tried to attract as many young Arkansans as possible into the organization. Indeed, large numbers
of young people were drawn by the Rockefeller crusade against the courthouse crowd. Much to the
horror of many parents, high school and college students enlisted in the Rockefeller effort as volunteers
in the Young Arkansans for Rockefeller or the Young Republicans.

Robert Faulkner and Bob Scott were chairmen of the YRs during the time that Winthrop was a candidate
for Governor. They also served on his campaign staff. After Winthrop's election, both dropped out of the
YRs in order to go to work in the administration of the "Era of Excellence." At this point, people other
than those on Rockefeller's paid staff were allowed to take control of the Young Republicans. Ed Allison,
a successful businessman then living in Blytheville, was elected chairman.

Allison was a tireless worker whose devotion to the job of YR chairman bordered on the fanatical. On
assuming the chairmanship, Allison converted it to a full-time job. He turned over his printing, insurance,
and moving and storage businesses to other people to operate, while he spent his time organizing
Young Republicans.
Under Allison, the emphasis continued to be on building the organization, especially on the high school
level. During this time Allison has won a large, highly loyal personal following. The people loyal to Allison
-- some called it a cult -- were attracted by his personality alone, not for ideological reasons. Allison was
not an ideologue, but a pragmatic politician who took even the make-believe world of the YRs very
seriously. His philosophy was to allow each individual local club to have its prevailing ideological leaning,
but keep the state organization externally oriented -- organized to beat the Democrats.

Allison lost some favor with the Rockefeller organization when he requested that Clark Evans, the
Executive Director of the YRs under Bob Scott, be removed from his job because his salary was not being
paid by the Young Republicans, but rather by Rockefeller. Allison did not think that Evans could serve
two masters, and he wanted the YRs to be an independent organization. The size and devotion of
Allison's personal following also made the Rockefeller forces somewhat uneasy. Yet these tensions were
never allowed to develop into an open break.

After two years as chairman, Ed Allison decided to resign. Judy Petty, then employed in Winthrop
Rockefeller's Public Relations organization, was elected to replace him. Though an admirer of Ronald
Reagan, Petty tried to avoid any ideological conflict within the YRs. Following the pattern of Scott and
Allison, she tried to keep the member's energies directed toward the external game.

"Tom Dillard told the convention that 'we need someone who will stand up to this tin pot
Napoleon who is trying to use the [Young] Republican League for his own personal political
interest." A supporter said this was a reference to Ed Allison..." Arkansas Gazette, May 17, 1970.

"Ed Allison of Little Rock, a former state League chairman...spoke to the group after voting and
tendered his resignation...'What has happened will not be forgotten,' Allison said, 'and we are
fooling ourselves if we think it will be forgotten'." Arkansas Gazette, May 18, 1970

In Spring, 1970, however, the Young Republicans turned to the internal game with a vengeance. Within
a year and a half, the organization had been torn apart by factional feuding.
The beginning was innocuous enough. Tom Dillard, a moderate Republic long active in the YRs,
announced that he would be a candidate for the chairmanship being vacated by Judy Petty. Ed Allison,
the former chairman, tentatively moved to enter the race against Dillard. Allison stated his fear that
Dillard would let the High School Young Republicans, Allison's pet project, languish.

Both Dillard and Allison began to solicit support for their candidacies, ushering in a period of factional
maneuvering and vicious infighting. Eventually the battle lines were drawn between people who were
being backed (or, from an opposing point of view, manipulated) by the Winthrop Rockefeller Public
Relations office and those against control of the organization by Rockefeller people. Representing the
Rockefeller faction was Tom Dillard, strongly supported by Judy Petty. The opposing candidate, Dick
Drake, was backed by Ed Allison, still estranged and independent of the Rockefeller organization. Thus,
Allison and Petty, two tough and combative politicians, were pitted against each other, through
surrogates, in mortal struggle.

Judy Petty and Tom Dillard won. Ed Allison left the organization for good and took a number of his
supporters with him. Today he is still estranged from politics and is said to have no interest in becoming
active again. The recent career of Judy Petty, now a political celebrity, is familiar to most.

Another split in the Young Republicans developed in 1971. During the 1970 convention, while the
leaders were at each others' throats, the delegates, dominated by college-age kids, passed a platform
which shocked the senior party. It called for decriminalization of marijuana, liberalized abortion,
legalized gambling, removal of all censorship laws, and repeal of laws relating to sexual activities
between consenting adults. The Young Republicans had taken on a libertarian face, and not everyone
was happy about it.

When the Young Republicans met in Hot Springs during the Spring of 1971, the students were still in
control, but a deep split was evident: liberal and libertarian (college student) vs. conservative (non-
college delegate) YRs. At the convention, the college students captured every state office except one --
Judy Petty was retained as National Committeewoman.

Within three weeks, those conservatives who had been outvoted in the real convention held a "rump"
convention. The pretext for this convention was that the college groups had fraudulently padded their
membership lists, giving them the additional delegates they needed to control the first convention.
Since these older YRs, led by Judy Petty, Dick Drake, and Tom Dillard, had the time and money to be
involved in national Young Republican politics, and since their conservative philosophy was more in tune
with the prevailing philosophy of the national organization, the "rump" convention counted on gaining
formal recognition as the legitimate state group. The college YRs were not strong enough to challenge
the "rump" convention (held at the beginning of summer vacation), and, in effect, they abdicated power
and pulled out of the organization. Within two years, there were no active YR clubs on college campuses
in Arkansas.

The internal game had been won by the conservatives; the enemy within had been routed. The Young
Republicans had been so successful in exercising their political skills that they had torn the organization
apart and decimated its membership.
 "The Young Republican platform opposed all forms of national insurance as being 'dangerously
expensive, potentially corrupt and bureaucratically impractical'...endorsed tighter eligibility
requirements for welfare programs, supported a lower minimum wage."

Arkansas Gazette, April 22, 1975

As one can readily see from the platform adopted this year [1975], the conservatives are still in control
of the YR machinery. With their big league parent languishing in the political cellar, however, external
games provide Young Republicans with little chance for exposure these days, and the internal games
seem to have lost their zest. Yet the lure of politics is such that there is never a shortage of recruits
anxious to try out. If the Young Republicans can weather these uncertain seasons, their fortunes will no
doubt rise again, and the games can begin anew in the political bush leagues.

Dan Durning is a private consultant in Little Rock