It was the winter of conservative discontent. Barry Goldwater had gotten only 38 percent of the vote, and his party had suffered its worst thrashing since Alf Landon fell to FDR in 1936. Democrats held 295 House seats, Republicans 140. They held 68 Senate seats to Republicans’ 32, and 33 governors to the GOP’s 17. Democratic registration was twice that of the GOP. The liberal press was gleefully writing the obituary of “The Party That Lost Its Head.” Decades might pass, it was said, before the GOP recovered from its fatal embrace of right-wing radicalism and foolish rejection of the … Continue reading Lyndon Baines Obama