type: timeline_event
Paul Weyrich begins hosting official coalition meetings in Washington, D.C., establishing the systematic coordination infrastructure that will unite the emerging conservative movement across economic, social, and libertarian dimensions. These regular meetings bring together leaders from multiple conservative organizations, funders like Joseph Coors and Richard Scaife, political operatives including Richard Viguerie, and policy intellectuals to coordinate strategy, share resources, and align messaging across what Weyrich terms the "New Right." Unlike traditional conservative elites, Weyrich's coalition intentionally reaches across to grassroots activists on issues including anti-busing, tax resistance, defense spending, parents' rights, private school funding, and energy policy, creating a broad populist-elite alliance that will prove far more politically effective than earlier conservative efforts. The coalition meetings provide the coordinating mechanism that connects Heritage Foundation (founded February 1973), ALEC (founded September 1973), and other emerging institutions into a unified network advancing Powell Memo objectives. This represents deliberate architecture rather than organic evolution - Weyrich consciously building the institutional infrastructure and political coordination that will enable conservative dominance over the next five decades.