Between 1944 and 1953, a power struggle emerged between New York
governor Thomas Dewey and U.S. senator Robert Taft of Ohio that
threatened to split the Republican Party. In
The Roots of Modern
Conservatism, Michael Bowen reveals how this two-man battle for
control of the GOP--and the Republican presidential
nomination--escalated into a divide of ideology that ultimately
determined the party's political identity.
Initially, Bowen argues, the separate Dewey and Taft factions
endorsed fairly traditional Republican policies. However, as their
conflict deepened, the normally mundane issues of political
factions, such as patronage and fund-raising, were overshadowed by
the question of what "true" Republicanism meant. Taft emerged as
the more conservative of the two leaders, while Dewey viewed Taft's
policies as outdated. Eventually, conservatives within the GOP
organized against Dewey's leadership and, emboldened by the
election of Dwight Eisenhower, transformed the party into a vehicle
for the Right. Bowen reveals how this decade-long battle led to an
outpouring of conservative sentiment that had been building since
World War II, setting the stage for the ascendancy of Barry
Goldwater and the modern conservative movement in the 1960s.