Shelf Life

What fun it would be, the young conservatives mused, to found a Conservative party to balance the Liberal party and, by conferring or withholding endorsements, bring heavy pressure to bear on the GOP to pick candidates they could support.

George Marlin’s new book, Fighting the Good Fight, is an insider’s exhilarating account of how they did exactly that. In the ensuing 40 years their new party not only became an official party in the state of New York, coexisting amiably with a Republican party that at first did its best to destroy it, but ran William F. Buckley Jr. for mayor of New York City, elected his brother James to the U.S. Senate (on the Conservative line alone!), and in 1994 provided the winning margin for the Republican candidate for governor, George Pataki, who had wisely requested its endorsement. The party has richly earned Ronald Reagan’s salute: “The Conservative party has established itself as a preeminent force in New York politics and an important part of our political history.”

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Conservatism

New York

William F. Buckley Jr.

What fun it would be, the young conservatives mused, to found a Conservative party to balance the Liberal party and, by conferring or withholding endorsements, bring heavy pressure to bear on the GOP to pick candidates they could support.

George Marlin’s new book, Fighting the Good Fight, is an insider’s exhilarating account of how they did exactly that. In the ensuing 40 years their new party not only became an official party in the state of New York, coexisting amiably with a Republican party that at first did its best to destroy it, but ran William F. Buckley Jr. for mayor of New York City, elected his brother James to the U.S. Senate (on the Conservative line alone!), and in 1994 provided the winning margin for the Republican candidate for governor, George Pataki, who had wisely requested its endorsement. The party has richly earned Ronald Reagan’s salute: “The Conservative party has established itself as a preeminent force in New York politics and an important part of our political history.”