Rule and ruin : the downfall of moderation and the destruction of the Republican Party, from Eisenhower to the Tea Party / Geoffrey Kabaservice.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 459-465) and index.

The widening gyre: the Republican party at the 1960 convention -- Things fall apart: Advance Magazine and the decay of the moderate establishment, 1961-63 -- The center cannot hold: the republican primaries of 1964 -- The blood-dimmed tide is loosed: the GOP and the Goldwater campaign, 1964 -- The ceremony of innocence is drowned: moderates attempt to regain control of the GOP, 1965 -- Full of passionate intensity: from rat finks to Reagan, 1966 -- The best lack all conviction: moderation's zenith and George Romney's rise and fall, 1967 -- Mere anarchy: moderate half-victories and the agonies of 1968 -- Some revelation is at hand: Richard Nixon's first year in office, 1969 -- The rough beast: Nixon and the breakup of the moderate Republican movement, 1970 -- Darkness drops: moderate Republican decline from Nixon to Ford to Reagan, 1971-80 -- Slouching toward Bethlehem: the collapse of the moderate republicans, 1980-2010.

Explores the origins of the Republican Party's shift from a party of moderation to one of extremism, beginning in the early 1960s with President Dwight Eisenhower's farewell address.