Viguerie would later write about the divisive atmosphere in the Republican party after Goldwater's defeat. Conservative members like himself were "Angry...about the criticism verging on sabotage Senator Goldwater received from the Republican establishment" and "insulted...over the personal attacks...received at the hands of establishment Republicans". Meanwhile, "The long knives of the Republican establishment were out for anyone who had supported Goldwater or who questioned the 'go-along, get-along' attitude of the party's congressional leaders whose failure to stand for conservative principles had assigned Republicans to what appeared to be the status of a permanent minority on Capitol Hill. Plenty of conservatives then, and throughout the early years of the rise of the modern conservative movement, thought that the only way to advance the cause of conservative governance was to form a third party." Among those calling for a third party was the author Ayn Rand, the main voice for remaining within the party was William F. Buckley a policy Viguerie shared, "we had a sense that even though Goldwater had lost the election, his grassroots support demonstrated that millions of Americans thought he was right on many issues. ...We saw the establishment leadership of the Republican Party as intellectually bankrupt, and we believed that if we could just get the message out, we could [win]." Viguerie reflecting on the 1964 campaign later recalled that "although Goldwater lost, we attracted 27 million conservative voters who shared our values." Goldwater had "cleared the way for one of his strongest supporters, actor Ronald Reagan, to make an electrifying television speech, 'A Time for Choosing.' That speech refreshed conservatism’s appeal and led to former Democrat Reagan entering Republican politics to become governor of California and eventually America's first conservative president of the modern era." Direct-mail company Though Goldwater lost, Viguerie gained knowledge of the direct-mail strategy and would later become expert in it. In early 1965 he went to the clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives which by law had a record of every donor to a presidential campaign that gave over $50 which it made available for public inspection. Viguerie copied by longhand 12,500 donors that had given to Goldwater's 1964 campaign. This was the beginning of a grass-roots conservative mailing list that would continue to grow throughout Viguerie's career. Viguerie, holding that the mainstream news media was biased, later stated that this strategy allowed conservatism to bypass two obstacles, "Thanks to direct mail,