Howard Phillips

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For the Nintendo employee, see Howard Philips.

Howard Phillips (born February 6, 1941 in Boston, Massachusetts) is an American conservative political figure.

A 1962 graduate of Harvard College (where he was twice elected president of the Student Council), Phillips is president of Policy Analysis, Inc., a public policy research organization which publishes the bimonthly Issues and Strategy Bulletin.

Jewish by birth, Phillips converted to evangelical Christianity in adulthood and has been identified with the Christian Reconstructionist movement.

Phillips and his wife, Peggy, reside in Fairfax County, Virginia.

Phillips' son, Doug Phillips, is president and founder of the Vision Forum, Inc., a publishing company based in San Antonio, Texas which publishes books, audio books and produces documentary films for the Christian family.

1 Republican years
2 Conservative Caucus
3 Constitution Party years
4 Writings
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Republican years

During the Nixon Administration, Phillips headed two Federal agencies, ending his Executive Branch career as Director of the U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity in the Executive Office of the President, a position from which he resigned when President Nixon reneged on his commitment to veto further funding for "Great Society" programs.

[edit] Conservative Caucus

Phillips left the United States Republican Party in 1974 after some two decades of service to the GOP as precinct worker, election warden, campaign manager, Congressional aide, Boston Republican Chairman, and assistant to the Chairman of the Republican National Committee. In 1978 Phillips finished third in the Democratic primary for the US Senate in Massachusetts. Paul Tsongas won the primary and defeated the incumbent, Ed Brooke, in November.

Since 1974, Phillips has been Chairman of The Conservative Caucus, a nonpartisan, nationwide grass-roots public policy advocacy group which has been in the thick of battles, in opposition to the Panama Canal and the Jimmy Carter-Leonid Brezhnev SALT II treaties in the 1970s, in support of SDI and major tax reductions during the 1980s, and in the vanguard of efforts to terminate Federal subsidies to ideological activist groups under the banner of "defunding the Left".

Other Conservative Caucus campaigns have involved opposition to NAFTA and the World Trade Organization, support for a national version of California's Proposition 187 (to end mandated subsidies for illegal aliens), as well as continuing efforts to oppose publicly-funded health care, abortion, and gay rights. Phillips is the host of Conservative Roundtable, a weekly public affairs television program.

During the 1970s and 1980s, Phillips coordinated efforts to build private sector support for anti-Communist "freedom fighters" in Central America and Southern Africa. He played an instrumental role in the leadership of the New Right, as well as in the founding of the religious right in 1977. Phillips has led fact-finding missions to Eastern Europe, the Baltic States, South America, Central America, Western Europe, and the Far East.

[edit] Constitution Party years

He is one of the founders of the U.S. Taxpayers Party (which changed its name to the Constitution Party in 1999), a third party associated with conservative, pro-life issues, and constitutional government ideas on both social and fiscal issues. He was that party's presidential candidate in the 1992, 1996, and 2000 elections for President of the United States.

Howard Phillips was chosen by an overwhelming majority of delegates at the National Convention of the U.S. Taxpayers Party, now the Constitution Party, in San Diego, California on August 17, 1996 to serve as its presidential candidate.

[edit] Writings

He has published three books: The New Right at Harvard (1983), Moscow's Challenge to U.S. Vital Interests in Sub-Saharan Africa (1987), and The Next Four Years (1992).