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Description
This book is about political change as it evolved in one of America's largest and most important states during the tumultuous seventeen-year period between John F. Kennedy's assassination in Dallas and Ronald Reagan's ascension to the presidency in 1980. Partisan realignment is the most obvious aspect of that change. Texas was once as solidly Democratic as any state in the nation. By the end of the twentieth century, it was among the most solidly Republican. A simplistic analysis of this transformation based in large part on the perception that Texas has always been a conservative place, might suggest that—as Ronald Reagan, the preeminent icon of modern conservatism, once similarly quipped—Texas didn't leave the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party left Texas. However, the political changes that gripped Texas during the last decades of the twentieth century resulted from a more complex mélange. This book analyses this in detail.
Publication Date
2010
Publisher
The University Press of Kentucky
Place of Publication
Lexington, KY
ISBN
978-0-8131-2576-3
eISBN
978-0-8131-7371-9 (pdf version)
eISBN
978-0-8131-3959-3 (epub version)
DOI
https://doi.org/10.5810/kentucky/9780813125763.001.0001
Keywords
Texas, Ronald Reagan, Democrats, Republicans, Democratic Party, Dallas, Political change
Disciplines
American Politics | Political History | United States History
Recommended Citation
Cunningham, Sean P., "Cowboy Conservatism: Texas and the Rise of the Modern Right" (2010). Political History. 27.
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_political_history/27
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