Turning Right in the Sixties: The Conservative Capture of the GOP

by Mary C. Brennan

Ideologically divided and disorganized in 1960, the conservative wing of the Republican Party appeared to many to be virtually obsolete. However, over the course of that decade, the Right reinvented itself and gained control of the party. In Turning Right in the Sixties , Mary Brennan describes how conservative Americans from a variety of backgrounds, feeling disfranchised and ignored, joined forces to make their voices heard and by 1968 had gained enough power within the party to play the decisive role in determining the presidential nominee.

Building on Barry Goldwater's short-lived bid for the presidential nomination in 1960, Republican conservatives forged new coalitions, began to organize at the grassroots level, and gained enough support to guarantee Goldwater the nomination in 1964. Brennan argues that Goldwater's loss to Lyndon Johnson in the general election has obscured the more significant fact that conservatives had wrested control of the Republican Party from the moderates who had dominated it for years. The lessons conservatives learned in that campaign, she says, aided them in 1968 and laid the groundwork for Ronald Reagan's presidential victory in 1980.

Genres: History, Politics, American History, Nonfiction

Paperback

First published October 16, 1965

Reviews

[Craig Werner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like John Andrews' "The Other Side of the Sixties," Brennan's book focuses on the evolution of conservative political thinking and action during a decade that's usually given over to the left. Where Andrews focuses on the role of the Young Americans for Freedom (essentially the right's answer to SDS), Brennan's primary concern is with electoral politics. As a result, the key players in her story are Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon and their liberal nemesis Nelson Rockefeller. Emphasizing the internal tensions and squabbling with the Republican Party, she makes a strong case that, from a conservative perspective, Goldwater's drubbing by LBJ in the 1964 election shouldn't be seen as a failure. Rather, in a year when it was unlikely that any Republican could have defeated a Southerner with a reputation more conservative than his actions and the memory of the martyred JFK, the Goldwater candidacy was an opportunity for the right to make mistakes it would learn from and to consolidate its hold on the party machinery. Toward the end of the book, Ronald Reagan comes on stage as the figure who will ultimately fulfill the conservative dreams.

In comparison with Andrews densely-detailed (but more limited) study, Brennan's book is an overview. Although the notes indicate that she spent a fair amount of time in various archives, there's not much really new or surprising. But, especially for readers who aren't familiar with the deep division between Eisenhower's "modern Republicanism" and the conservatism of the National Review, this is a good introduction.