in 1978 to unseat longtime liberal Republican Senator Clifford Case in the 1978 New Jersey primary. Bell was defeated in the general election, but his unexpected primary victory was considered a turning point for conservative activist efforts against establishment Republicans. Political activity Viguerie became politically active at a time of change in the United States of America. Since the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt and World War II the Democratic Party had been dominant in Federal politics. With a majority "New Deal coalition" consisting of "blue-collar workers, urban voters, Roman Catholics and ethnics, Southern whites, blacks, intellectuals and the young." In contrast "The Republicans had strength only among the old, the North East, businessmen and white Protestants, and were very much the minority party." The dominance of the New Deal Democratic coalition began to unravel beginning in the 1960s when the growing liberalism of the national party, including on issues of race, alienated conservative Southern whites. Though they continued to support local Democrats they began to reject Democratic presidential candidates. This was evident by their support of Barry Goldwater in 1964. Texas Young Republicans In 1952 and 1956, as a young Republican, Viguerie volunteered for Dwight D. Eisenhower’s presidential campaigns in Texas. In 1960, when Republican John Tower ran for Senate against Lyndon Johnson, he served as Tower’s Houston campaign manager. Johnson ran for both the Senate seat and the vice presidency, and he won both. When Johnson vacated his Senate seat to become Vice President, Viguerie helped Tower in the subsequent run-off, which Tower won (becoming the first Republican Senator in Texas history). 1964 Goldwater support Senator Barry Goldwater publicly criticized the Republican establishment, including President Eisenhower (viewed by the American public as the World War II liberator of Europe). In 1960, Goldwater called Eisenhower's domestic program "a dime store New Deal." With ghostwriter L. Brent Bozell Jr., Goldwater published The Conscience of a Conservative, saying its purpose was "to awaken the American people to a realization of how far we had moved from the old constitutional concepts toward the new welfare state." The book, calling for a return to conservative principles and a harder stance on communism, inspired many young conservatives, including Viguerie. In July 1960, when it seemed that Richard Nixon's Republican Party nomination for president was a foregone conclusion, conservatives tried to shape the party's platform to influence him away from what they saw as Eisenhower