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If the idea of a successful Conservative Party in New York seems hopeless, George Marlin has a word for you. Fighting the Good Fight is a copiously researched book that describes how a group of persevering conservatives overthrew the ultra-liberal Rockefeller-Javits-Lindsay triad that maintained a stranglehold over New York in the 1960s. Founded in 1962, the Conservative Party of New York aimed to save the Empire State from domination by the big-spending Republicans Governor Nelson Rockefeller and Senator Jacob Javits. How could such a successful grassroots conservative movement have been born amid Gotham’s stifling liberalism? It was precisely because the Empire State had gone so overboard with tax-and-spend policies and scorn for traditional values that a Conservative Party became not only possible but desperately needed. As early party organizers wrote in a statement of purpose: "Perhaps in no other state has the conservative voter been more completely disenfranchised." The "founding fathers" of the Conservatives included Kieran O’Doherty, Charles Edison (son of Thomas), and J. Daniel Mahoney, as well as William F. Buckley Jr. Buckley supported the nascent party in the pages of the flagship conservative publication National Review, and his legendary run for New York mayor in 1965 brought national prominence to the motley party of disgruntled Republicans. A year later, the Conservatives destroyed Rockefeller’s presidential ambitions by holding him to a dismal 43% plurality of the gubernatorial vote. In 1970, the Conservatives elected their own senator in James Buckley, and won final victory against the Rockefeller machine by toppling its stubbornly liberal ideological heir, Jacob Javits, in the 1980 Republican primary. By then, the Conservative constituency, although small, was organized enough to wield significant clout in almost all New York GOP races and a few conservative Democrat ones as well. Marlin’s behind-the-scenes account of the Conservatives’ rise, and his quotations from little-known conversations, memoranda, and speeches are the best part of the story. The Conservative Party has accomplished much in the service of New Yorkers, and George Marlin’s history is yet another labor of love from its ranks. (St. Augustine’s Press, 2002, 383 pps, $28) |
Throughout the Conservative Party’s history, Marlin says, it "has been the guardian of working- class New Yorkers, men and women who subscribe to the belief that to be good citizens it is essential to love family, neighborhood, country, and God, and just as important to respect an ethic of hard work."
