Where are the Barry Goldwater, John Rhodes, and Hugh Scott in the Republican Party?

[kentuck]

<snip>
On Aug. 7, 1974, U.S. Sen. Barry Goldwater, R-Ariz., U.S. House Minority Leader John Rhodes, R-Ariz., and U.S. Senate Minority Leader Hugh Scott, R-Pa., made it clear to the embattled Nixon that he faced all-but-certain impeachment, conviction and removal from office in connection with the Watergate scandal.

Nixon announced his resignation the next evening, effective at noon on Aug 9, 1974.

Over the years, Goldwater, Rhodes and Scott have been lionized for their often exaggerated role in precipitating Nixon's exit.

In his 2006 book "Conservatives Without Conscience," former Watergate figure John W. Dean wrote that the Capitol Hill trio "traveled to the White House to tell Nixon it was time to resign." A Los Angeles Times headline over Rhodes' 2003 obituary recalled that the longtime representative from Mesa "helped persuade Nixon to resign." A 2007 Politico column recalled the episode as "When the GOP Torpedoed Nixon."

Actually, Goldwater, Rhodes and Scott did not try to persuade or urge Nixon to resign in their meeting in his "working office" in the Old Executive Office Building. They just confirmed to the doomed president the extent to which his support on the Hill had evaporated.


https://www.azcentral.com/story/azdc/2014/08/03/goldwater-rhodes-nixon-resignation/13497493/

[Hortensis]

1. Their sort were purged in the takeover. nt

[ProfessorGAC]

2. Check Percy. Everett Dirksen

IL had R senators for a lot of my life. Seems like one D and one R was common.
But, IIRC, the Rs were never the lunatic fringe.
When Rs lost their way for this state, we've been double D for years.

[JHB]

3. Anyone who might be was purged in the Glorious Conservative Revolution

Over the last 40 years anyone deemed insufficiently conservative, anyone who strayed too far from the Party Line, anyone who would trade horses with Democrats to get things done, was branded a "RINO" and was primaried. Primaries where the biggest turnout was by the most obsessive.

Not all were unseated, but the ones who survived were chastened. And even those, over time, died or retired, and were replaced with more Conservatively Correct successors.