Race: The Missing Issue of 1980

In the months before the 1980 election when voters were asked what the number one issue was, they replied inflation/the economy. When they were asked what should be done, about half supported the balanced-budget proposals of Jimmy Carter, a little less than a third plunked for Kennedy’s wage and price controls, and only one out of seven supported the “supply-side” proposals of the man who went on to a landslide victory. How was this possible? And how, despite the continuous decline in public respect for big business, was the most pro-business Administration in half a century swept into office? Let us try to unravel these crucial anomalies by looking, first, at the influence of the Moral Majority and the National Conservative Political Action Committee (NCPAC) on the 1980 election.

The influence of such organizations as the Moral Majority has been more a projection of liberal fears than a reality. For those cosmopolitans who, in the all-too sincere words of a...