DBWI: Conservative Faction takes over Republican party?

The Conservative faction has been quite strong in the GOP, but a vocal minority as it may be, it is a minority nonetheless. It's peak came with Goldwater in 1964. However, Goldwater became little more than a sacrificial lamb who lost 1964 handily, and the Conservatives have never recovered since.

The question becomes, what if the Conservative faction took over the Republican party, whether as the super-majority or as the (nearly) sole faction? Frankly, I'm curious how the Liberal and Moderate Republicans would cope, especially the Liberal/Moderate dynasties in the party such as the Rockefellers and Bushs and Romneys.
 
There's always Ronald Reagan. I don't know too much about the guy TBH, but I heard he had some pretty conservative ideas (indeed, Goldwater was his political Mentor) and Reagan was quite popular in California, while he was governer.

I see 1968 as his best chance, if you can get Nixon out the way (I know he was known for challenging Ford in the 1976 Primaries, but whoever won that election was almost doomed to be a one-termer). If you get Reagan in office in 1969, there's a good chance he'll be reelected in 1972, giving him 8 years to implement his agender.

Alternatively, you could always prevent Ford's victory over Carter in 1976 (the election was painstakingly close anyway and in the circumstances of 1976, Carter really should have run away with it).

After 4 years of Carter and the Dems in control, they'd get the blaim the Republicans had to saddle IOTL. If you can get the right (pun intended) candidate nominated in 1980, you could be looking at a conservative dominated GOP by now.

Question is, who could run in 1980? Jack Kemp perhaps? How about John Connally or Phill Crain?

Maybe (and admitedly this is a stretch given his age), Ronald Reagan could clinch the nomination and serve 2 full terms, from 1981 to 1989?
 
Don't forget about the Paul's dynasty. The Libertarian movement became quite popular in the mid 1990's due to the concern of high taxes and excessive social programs. That being said, it is the social conservatives that are a minority with the Republicans which is fine by me. Most of those people were able to move to the Democrats by changing their platforms regarding race while keeping their religious views since a lot of their needed voting bloc were Black American churchgoers.
 
Well, you probably wouldn't end up with the Democrats being the 'party of two camps' and re fighting the Civil War every four years with their primary. I mean 1996 was just an embarrassment with Trent Lott vs Jesse Jackson, white supremacist vs black supremacist is not exactly a pretty sight.

Although I guess its always good political theater to have the social liberal wing of the Democrats going at it physically with the social conservative 'Dixiecrats' as we saw in the 2002 budget 'battle royale.' :rolleyes:

But that's the whole problem there in a nutshell, the Dems, the fiscally liberal party in this country is the party of extremes, while all the Reps ever have to worry about are the Libertarians, who aren't exactly rabble rousers like the Dixiecrats.
 
Maybe the conservatives would have had more of a voice in the GOP if Nixon campaigned on a "Southern Strategy" in 1968 instead of campaigning on his Peace With Honor theme.

Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed as Nixon wanted to be viewed as acceptable to all wings of the party while courting the blue collar vote. He picked Governor Jim Rhodes as his running mate (and to think that he almost chose Spiro Agnew who turned out to be a crook).

When Rhodes realized how much influence he had as a Vice President (which was very little), he decided to run for the Senate in 1970. He resigned the Vice Presidency shortly after his election to the Senate.
 
Top