The Conservative Mainstream

In his recent study of American politics, liberal columnist David Broder pays unexpected homage to an upstart band of young conservatives.

Picking a series of pivotal events in our political history, Broder focuses on the September 1960 conference in Sharon, Connecticut which spawned the conservative youth group, Young Americans for Freedom. YAF was little noted at the time, and has often been derided as a cadre of “young fogies” in the interim. Despite all that, in Broder’s view, it has managed to produce a generation of effective leaders with continuing impact on the nation’s politics.