There would have likely not been much of a conservative movement without him as catalyst. The audience for sweaty appeals for isolationist anticommunism was shrinking with every passing month. The fight against Reuther, on the other hand, was one that everyone who owned a business—and everyone who aspired to owning a business—could understand. And the timing was propitious. In the South, the struggle against the civil rights carpetbaggers was also turning moderates into conservatives.
