( CNN ) -- If presidential hopeful Rick Perry should awaken one night in a cold sweat with the Ghost of Republican Past hovering by his bedside , the apparition will likely take the form of Sen. Charles Percy , who passed away on Saturday after a long struggle with Alzheimer 's disease . Percy 's political career ended when he lost his Illinois Senate seat in 1984 , the same year that future Texas Gov . Rick Perry won his first election to the Texas House of Representatives as a Democrat . Charles Percy 's fall from GOP wunderkind to party outcast offers a vivid illustration of the Republican Party 's mutation from a vibrant and diverse coalition to the dogmatic cult of conservative ideology that it has become today . In 1968 , political gossips buzzed about the possibility that the rich , handsome , `` All-American '' Charles Percy might run for president . The New York Times called him `` the hottest political article in the Republican Party , '' and Richard Nixon worried that Percy would be his most formidable competitor in the primaries . Percy was a moderate-to-liberal Republican from the Rockefeller wing of the party who had made his name promoting affordable housing and combating urban poverty . Such positions were seen as positive political attributes in 1968 . Four years earlier , Barry Goldwater 's libertarian presidential campaign had proved a disaster , and Republicans were not eager to repeat the experience . But Percy chose not to run and instead endorsed his colleague Nelson Rockefeller , who lost to Richard Nixon . Over the next few years , Percy clashed frequently with Nixon over defense spending and Supreme Court appointments . During the Watergate scandal , he again defied Nixon by demanding an independent investigation . With his popularity and national name-recognition peaking , Percy might have had another shot at the presidency in 1976 , but he deferred to the incumbent , Gerald Ford . There would not be another chance , for the Republican Party was moving away from Charles Percy . In the mid-1970s , a group of conservative insurgents known as the New Right began plotting to extinguish the party 's liberal wing . They despised men such as Percy and embraced a fanatical brand of social conservatism . One of their leaders , Paul Weyrich , founded the Heritage Foundation and recruited Jerry Falwell to lead the Moral Majority . One by one , the New Right knocked off the liberal Republicans , either by defeating them in primaries or fatally weakening them in general elections -- names now barely remembered such as Clifford Case of New Jersey or Edward Brooke of Massachusetts . In 1984 , New Right leaders backed a primary challenge against Percy . When that failed , they endorsed his Democratic challenger , the liberal , bow-tie wearing Paul Simon . One of the leaders , Richard Viguerie , explained that Percy 's defeat was more important to conservatives than retaining Republican control of the Senate . When the voting was over , the Republicans kept the Senate , but they lost Charles Percy . The drive for ideological purity has continued ever since , with tea party groups and fundraisers such as the Club for Growth targeting moderate conservatives after the liberals went extinct . In recent years , they helped force out Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania , Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island and Charlie Crist of Florida . Perry , the front-runner of the Republican presidential field in polls , is a deep social and fiscal conservative who would never have had a shot at the presidential nomination in 1968 . But in 2012 , it 's the liberal Charles Percy who would n't have stood a chance . Even Goldwater 's refusal to embrace the religious right would doom his candidacy were he to run today . Yet perhaps Perry would still be wise to pay attention to the Ghost of Republican Past . He might get to see the old Democratic Party advertisement showing a disembodied pair of hands ripping apart a Social Security card . That advertisement helped turn the tide against Goldwater , who like Perry had challenged Social Security . Conservative activists have succeeded in driving American politics far to the right , but there may still be limits . The opinions in this commentary are solely those of Michael Wolraich .
Michael Wolraich : - Le développement de la technologie des smartphones pliables est Emerging New Right toppled Percy and other liberal Republicans , he writes . Wolraich : Percy 's career shows how a diverse GOP became lock-stepped in ideology .