ABSTRACT
On the day after the presidential election of 1964, James Reston of the New York Times wrote that Barry Goldwater not only lost the presidential election yesterday but the conservative cause as well. He has wrecked his party for a long time to come and is not even likely to control the wreckage. The 1964 election was barely a pause in the growth of American conservatism. Goldwater had helped define it; he had given it direction, realigned its voting base, and uncovered its leaders. Goldwater's campaign also redefined the Republican Party for the remainder of the twentieth century, and probably well beyond that. The conservatives had taken control by purging the northeastern moderates: the political power structure that had wrested control of the party in election after election since the 1930s. Before Goldwater, the Republicans had found their center in the Northeast, among the Wall Street establishment moderates and liberals.
