The right path

Joe Scarborough--former Republican congressman and insightful host of MSNBC's "Morning Joe"--takes a nuanced and surprising look at the unexpected rise and self-inflicted fall of the Republican Party. Dominant in national politics for forty years under the influence of the conservative but pragmatic leadership of Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan, the GOP, Scarborough argues, is in a self-inflicted eclipse unless it recovers the principled realism of the giants who led the party to greatness.

"Although it can be difficult to remember now as they seemingly glide towards ideological and demographic irrelevance, from the mid-1960s to the middle of the first decade of the 21st century, the Republicans enjoyed a reign whose duration and scope rivaled those of Jackson, Lincoln, Wilson, or even FDR. Opening with the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 and ending with the disillusionment that characterized the final months of George W. Bush's presidency, Scarborough ultimately takes today's Republican party to task for squandering opportunities to attain and hold power. By revisiting Eisenhower's understated diplomacy, Barry Goldwater's fierce rhetoric and Reagan's gift for channeling and connecting with voters, The Right Path vividly demonstrates how today's GOP has undermined its own cause and in doing so, fails the nation"--