Influence
YAF's indirect influence is felt through the number of conservative political figures who began their careers as members in college.
From its beginning as an outgrowth of the efforts to obtain the Republican vice presidential nomination for a conservative in 1960 up through its determined campaign to ensure that a conservative vice president was renominated in 1992, YAF was a major player in the politics of late 20th century America.
Karl Zinsmeister wrote the following about YAF:
| “ | The conservative activists who first organized themselves in the early 1960s were the force behind the rise of Barry Goldwater, the election of Ronald Reagan as Governor of California, the takeover of the Republican Party from the liberal wing that controlled it for decades, the election of Ronald Reagan as president, and the reversion of Congress to Republican control for the first time in 40 years. | ” |
Although YAF members and chapters were engaged in many projects to influence public policy and elect conservative candidates to office, the leadership of the organization was well aware that their goals and objectives were more long-term. YAF was recruiting, training and preparing young people to assume even more important roles later in life. YAF spawned many of the organizational elements of the 21st century conservative movement and provided the leadership and manpower to build those publications, organizations, and foundations into the significant elements of American society that they are today.
Read more about this topic: Young Americans For Freedom
Famous quotes containing the word influence:
“Important as fathers are, their influence on children shouldn’t be exaggerated just because they were ignored so long. There is no evidence that there is something especially good about fathers as caretakers. There are no areas where it can be said that fathers must do certain things in order to achieve certain outcomes in children. The same goes for mothers.”
—Michael Lamb (late–20th century)
“Imagination is always the fabric of social life and the dynamic of history. The influence of real needs and compulsions, of real interests and materials, is indirect because the crowd is never conscious of it.”
—Simone Weil (1909–1943)
“If the contemplation, even of inanimate beauty, is so delightful; if it ravishes the senses, even when the fair form is foreign to us: What must be the effects of moral beauty? And what influence must it have, when it embellishes our own mind, and is the result of our own reflection and industry?”
—David Hume (1711–1776)