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Paul Weyrich, 66, a Conservative Strategist, Dies

Paul M. Weyrich, the conservative thinker and strategist whose iron principles, articulate fervor and organization-building skills were instrumental in propelling the right wing of the Republican Party to power and prominence in the 1980s and ’90s, died Thursday. He was 66 and lived in Fairfax, Va.

Lee Edwards, a friend of Mr. Weyrich’s for four decades and a distinguished fellow at the Heritage Foundation, the conservative research group that Mr. Weyrich helped found, confirmed the death, at a hospital in Northern Virginia. The family did not release a cause, Mr. Edwards said, but Mr. Weyrich had many health problems, including diabetes. His legs were amputated at the knee in 2005, and he had broken his back in a fall some years earlier.

A writer, a lobbyist and an organizer on behalf of conservative causes and especially social conservatism, Mr. Weyrich (pronounced WY-rick) was one of the far right’s most unbending ideologues. He was widely credited with coining the phrase “moral majority” as a rallying label for social conservatives. It became the name of the religion-based political organization that was led by the Rev. Jerry Falwell.
Read entire article at NYT