Conservatives have reason to smile.

Conservative Republican candidates Bob McDonnell in Virginia and Chris Christie in New Jersey, swept the gubernatorial races in November last year. Republican Scott Brown, once tailing his liberal opponent Martha Coakley by 30 points, won the special election for the contested vacant Massachusetts senate seat by 5 points in January. And in New York, Doug Hoffman, an out-of-district third party conservative candidate, nearly won the day against a liberal opponent. Indeed, the driving force behind the success of conservative candidates stems from the vast support of the populist movement that has captivated America. Responding to the dangerous policies and practices of moderates, liberals, socialists and an ever-intrusive federal government, average American citizens have sounded the call to return to America’s founding principles and to recapture President Ronald Reagan’s values and policies.

It would be an understatement to say that Reagan and his example are inseparable from the tea party movement. Conservatives have good reason to be wary of Republicans, who, although described as the Party of Reagan, have not always adhered to his brand of conservatism. And because of that, there is a loud cry for a conservative third party or even an independent candidate to head a de-facto third party. But this is not a recent call.

The move for independent parties has long been a fixture in American politics. It is important to note that the conservative movement championed by Barry Goldwater and William F. Buckley, a movement that took shape within the Republican Party, gained mainstream exposure through the 1960s. It was a mantle picked up and carried by Reagan through the 1970s and into the election of 1980.

When Reagan became the Republican nominee for president, liberal Republican John Anderson entered the presidential race as an Independent. Anderson garnered 6 million votes. “The day of the independent candidate–as opposed to the third-party candidate,” writes Andrew E. Busch, “had fully arrived. Anderson’s 1980 run, devoid of even the pretense of a party, paved the way for Ross Perot’s 1992 effort.” Now, independent candidates are viewed as third party candidates since they are unconnected to either major party and not perceived to be linked to establishment politics.

Both major parties have become emblematic of what is popularly known as “Washington elitism”—an establishment of disconnected politicians, so long in Washington and in the realm of power that they have fallen out of touch with their constituencies. Reagan, who had become disillusioned with the liberal and elitist turn of the Democrats, left the party in 1962 and became a Republican. Reagan now had to stop conservatives from abandoning the Republican Party as it became more liberal, all the while giving conservative Democrats a home.

Reagan was confronted by the strong possibility of a third party when he addressed the Conservative Political Action Conference in 1977. He respected the supporters of a third party, but adamantly disagreed with their objective. In his speech, Reagan confronted  the issue head-on: “…I believe the political success of the principles we believe in can best be achieved in the Republican Party. I believe the Republican Party can hold and should provide the political mechanism through which the goals of the majority of Americans can be achieved.” It was a daring statement then as it is now.

Why would Reagan support the Republican Party despite its liberal bent? “For one thing,” Reagan explained, “the biggest single grouping of conservatives is to be found in that party. It makes more sense to build on that grouping than to break it up and start over.” So if there was to be no new third party, what was to happen? As Reagan put it, “Rather than a third party, we can have a new first party made up of people who share our principles.”

But the Republican Party had been–and is today–tied to establishment politics and the sense of elitism that ensnares the entire political field. How can that be overcome? “The New Republican Party I am speaking about,” said Reagan, “is going to have room for the man and the woman in the factories, for the farmer, for the cop… and the millions of Americans who may have never thought of joining our party before, but whose interests coincide with those represented by principled Republicanism… not by simply “making room” for them, but by making sure they have a say in what goes on in the party.”

The principles Reagan championed are manifested in the populist movement in the nation today: People want their voices to be heard, and they want their representatives to be held accountable. New Republican conservative candidates, said Reagan, “must be willing to communicate with every level of society, because the principles we espouse are universal and cut across traditional lines.”  Listening to the people, and finding “tough, bright young men and women who are sick and tired of clichés and the pomposity and the mind-numbing economic idiocy of the liberal in Washington” would prove to be a sound method.

Make no mistake about it. The tea party movement has a home in the Republican Party. Their values and principles are self-evident and cut across the traditional lines that Reagan transcended. Conservative Republicans in Virginia, New Jersey, and now Massachusetts, are the product of the populist sentiment. The Republicans still offer the best hope of changing the tide of politics. Of all the lessons gleaned from Reagan, perhaps the  most important for today is: Rally, don’t disassemble.