Republican Ascendancy: American Politics, 1968-2001 / Edition 1

by Michael Schaller

Overview

Schaller (history, U. of Arizona) and Rising (doctoral candidate in American history, U. of Arizona) argue that the Republican party has achieved success in recent American politics by continuing efforts at wooing key groups of voters disenchanted with liberal ideas and policies and splitting them off from the Democrats. Analyzing the process as a series of four stages, they examine Nixon's strategy of winning Southern Democrats with conservative positions on race, late 1970s efforts to bring economic conservatism and anticommunist nationalism to the fore, Newt Gingrich's attempt to transform the country into a right-wing bastion, and George W. Bush's electoral attempts to distance himself from conservative ideologies. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Product Details

ISBN-13:	2900882959701
Publisher:	Harlan Davidson, Inc.
Publication date:	01/28/2002
Series:	American History Series
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	210
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 1.25(h) x 9.00(d)

Table of Contents

	Foreword	VII
	Preface	XIII
Chapter 1	Republicans in a Democratic Age, 1932-1968	1
	Republican Party Dominance before the New Deal, 1860-1932	3
	Republicans against Roosevelt, 1933-1945	6
	The Cold War, the Red Scare, and Republican Resurgence, 1946-1952	11
	President Eisenhower's Republican Interlude, 1953-1960	13
	Revitalizing Conservative Thought in the Postwar Era, 1945-1964	16
	Liberalism, Backlash, and Republican Revival, 1961-1968	20
Chapter 2	Richard Nixon and the Paradox of the "New Republican Majority," 1969-1974	27
	Continuity of Liberal Domestic Policy	31
	The Southern Strategy: Building a Conservative Bloc	35
	Nixon's War: Vietnam and Foreign Affairs	41
	The Road to Watergate and Ruin	45
Chapter 3	Stagnation, Malaise, and Conservative Revival, 1974-1980	54
	Watergate's Legacy, Political Reform, and Carter's 1976 Election	56
	Economic Stagnation: The End of the Postwar Boom	59
	The Growing Conservative Movement	62
	The Decay of the Democratic Party and the Backlash against Liberalism	68
	Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, and the 1980 Election	77
Chapter 4	Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and Republican Ascendancy, 1981-1992	83
	The "Reagan Revolution"	84
	Reagan's New Cold War, 1981-1986	88
	The Reagan-Bush Economic and Social Record	90
	Reagan's 1984 Reelection and Second Term	100
	George H. W. Bush, Michael Dukakis, and the 1988 Election	105
	The End of the Cold War and Bush's "New World Order"	112
	George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and the 1992 Election	114
Chapter 5	New Democrats and Republican Revolutionaries, 1993-2000	119
	Republicans versus Clinton, 1993-1994	120
	Newt Gingrich, the 1994 Elections, and the "Republican Revolution" of 1995	127
	The End of the "Republican Revolution" and Clinton's 1996 Reelection	132
	The Impeachment of William Jefferson Clinton	138
	U.S. Foreign Relations during the Clinton Era, 1993-2000	145
	George W. Bush, Al Gore, and the 2000 Election	149
	Conclusion: The Rise and Fall of Republicans' Conservative Strategies, 1968-2001	155
	Republicans and the "Party System" of 1968-2001	155
	The Decline of the Republicans' Conservative Strategies in the 1990s	157
	A Permanent Republican (or Democratic) Majority in the Twenty-First Century?	165
	Bibliographical Essay	170
	Index	189

Editorial Reviews

Schaller (history, U. of Arizona) and Rising (doctoral candidate in American history, U. of Arizona) argue that the Republican party has achieved success in recent American politics by continuing efforts at wooing key groups of voters disenchanted with liberal ideas and policies and splitting them off from the Democrats. Analyzing the process as a series of four stages, they examine Nixon's strategy of winning Southern Democrats with conservative positions on race, late 1970s efforts to bring economic conservatism and anticommunist nationalism to the fore, Newt Gingrich's attempt to transform the country into a right-wing bastion, and George W. Bush's electoral attempts to distance himself from conservative ideologies. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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