I was in the heart of the conservative revolution as it was getting started. So far I've never seen the history written.
I became president of the San Francisco Young Republicans in early 1963 the year before the presidential campaign with Goldwater versus Rockefeller. San Francisco had the largest Young Republican chapter in the US with over 4,000 members. The SF Young Dems had only 400 members.
San Francisco was 100% for Rockefeller and had both a Republican mayor (George Christopher) and Congressman (William Maillard). During my time as a Republican activist, I worked on the Nixon campaign for Governor, the Rockefeller campaign for the Republican presidential nomination* and for Milton Marks an SF Assembly candidate.
I
regularly went as a delegate to the California Young Republican
conventions from 1962 to 1964 which was the time during which the
Conservatives took over the party. The designation at the time was
Conservative and Liberal Republican.
There were no issues, just the terminology and personalities. The Conservative movement came out of Orange County and San Diego. They had come to life because California in 1958 had passed a state referendum ending 45 years of cross-party voting that had produced endless Republican Governors and Senators.
The
return to strong political party politics was entirely pushed by the
Democrats and the growing government unions. The consequence was the
rush by everyone to control the parties with the Conservatives slowly
winning on the Republican side. Their candidate, who eventually carried
the nation, was Ronald Reagan who developed a political philosophy with
its own new policy elements........ along the way
.
The Republican Party as early as 1962 was using the term: 11th Commandment. The 11th Commandment was that Republicans never attack other Republicans publicly. That cohesive dogma, forged after 30 years out of national Congressional office, has been a guiding light for Republicans ever since.
Reagan always included in his California cabinet and National cabinet many of my Liberal San Francisco colleagues including Caspar Weinberger.
*I've seen the Rockefeller loss mischaracterized by historians in print. Rockefeller lost in the last week in California after gaining momentum with an Oregon win, when his campaign sent out a 'Don't let Goldwater push the nuclear button' flier that infuriated moderate voters.