When Mitt Romney sought to help embattled senators in Utah and Arizona the issue went well beyond those preferences.

What was at stake and continues to be the major issue that Romney confronts as a Republican presidential aspirant in a party where a major ideological confrontation is in vigorous progress is the direction of the party.

The contrasting force to former Massachusetts Governor Romney is former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.  This confrontation, as in so many others, finds at least quasi-historical precedents.

A tenacious battle for ideological control of the Republican Party occurred in 1964.  This was a period when a prominent Eastern wing existed.  It was headed by New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, who waged a no-holds-barred battle for the Republican presidential nomination with Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater.

The surge of the Tea Party as a potential shaker and mover of the American political system is reminiscent of a movement from the sixties that became particularly popular in the bellwether state of California.

The John Birch Society became active and many grassroots members attached themselves strongly to the national political figure they saw as an agent for change, Republican Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona.

Forces quickly developed during the historic 1964 presidential campaign, which saw Goldwater ultimately emerge as his party's nominee against President Lyndon Johnson.  As the first southern president of the twentieth century, Johnson engineered a landmark legislative breakthrough with the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

A strong ideological battle emerged that pitted Goldwater against major senatorial figures from his own party such as the stalwart of the then eastern liberal wing, Jacob Javits of New York, and Republican Minority Leader Everett Dirksen of Illinois, who had actively supported and voted for the milestone legislation.

After Barry Goldwater lost the 1964 election to incumbent President Lyndon Johnson in one of history's great landslides a decision that would have far reaching implications was promptly made and implemented.

The 1964 battleground had been contested on ideological grounds that Johnson, a seasoned and skillful politician, used to his advantage.  The incumbent used Goldwater's strong right wing ideological base against him.  

Johnson seized the moment by appealing to the group that determines presidential elections, what historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. termed the "vital center" and made his challenger and supporters look like a third party and a disorganized one at that.  

The linkage was made easier after Goldwater in his acceptance speech used the phrase "Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice" while the Arizona senator's chief primary opponent, Governor Nelson Rockefeller of New York, repeatedly referred to his conservative opponent, even at the party's national convention in San Francisco, as "outside the mainstream of American political thought."

The part of Senator John McCain's life story that his campaign has not wanted to talk about while his Naval career and prisoner of war status were accelerated was how he came into possession of the money and influence that enabled him to start his political career culminating with the Republican presidential nomination.

It was John McCain who launched an extra-marital affair with a woman linked to a leading American fortune.  After John married Cindy his political career was given a rocket thrust by his father in law, a multimillionaire brewery distribution heir.  He left his first wife following her serious injury in an automobile accident.

So now it is John McCain along with his "do anything that I'm asked to do" running mate wearing Neiman Marcus and leading designer labels characteristically unlike her "Soccer Mom" self-cultivated image who endlessly shriek about Barack Obama and his roaring pursuit of socialism.

They were both senators from Arizona, Republican Party nominee Barry Goldwater in 1964 and John McCain in 2008.

Even a cursory look at the dynamics in play between the two races reveals the chance for the Democrats to emulate what President Lyndon Johnson's board of strategy achieved almost a half century ago, when the Democratic incumbent secured an overwhelming popular vote victory of 23 points with an overwhelming 61-38 % landslide.

Johnson later told interviewers that Goldwater lost all opportunity to become a credible candidate when, in his acceptance speech at the party's San Francisco convention, the Arizona solon made a statement that brought him his hottest, most resounding response of the night from his in person audience of zealots, including Ronald Reagan, but left a vast majority of voters cold in November.

Referring to the fact that Democrats were seeking to paint him as a right wing extremist, Goldwater took the bait in a personally harmful way and delivered one of the most memorable lines in convention history:

One of Karl Rove's toughest assignments was to juggle the elements of the so-called Bush Republican coalition by catering to the religious right at election time. Operatives needed to walk this potentially fatal minefield softly.  

While seeking not to upset the vital religious right constituency, other more moderate conservative types needed to be kept within the Republican fold.  Their support also needed to be retained to stand any chance of triumphing on the national scene.

A student of history, Rove certainly correlated this challenge alongside that perennially faced by his idol Richard Nixon when he sought the presidency.  As the saying then went, Nixon would "fly right for money and fly left for votes."

This was the game Nixon needed to successfully play given the existence at that time of a more progressive Eastern Republican wing that had to be placated alongside more conservative element in the Midwest and west, along with the then opening opportunities in the south.

Nothing prompts a change of course faster than anticipated failure.  This rule is maximized in the realm of political office seeking.

Recently in this column points of common interest were revealed concerning Richard Nixon in the seventies and George W. Bush currently.  Nixon concluded a Vietnam peace with virtually the same terms Lyndon Johnson was offered during the 1968 election campaign.  We now know from Anthony Summers and other sources that Nixon and foreign policy adviser sabotaged through dealing with the South Vietnamese government.

No sooner was the Vietnam albatross removed than the Watergate scandal occupied a vise-like grip from which Nixon could never extricate himself.  The politician known as "Tricky Dick" had, in his anxiety to make his last election for the presidency in 1972 his biggest triumph, secured a landslide victory but became ultimately undone through his own excesses in seeking to secure that result.

It is notable that when Nixon resigned his popularity rating stood in the abysmally low 30's.  George W. Bush is mired today at that same woeful figure.  It is a critical point  considering that, just as the hardcore right wing Republicans were the only supporters left in 1974 when Nixon resigned, the same holds true today for Bush.  

Elizabeth Holtzman has experience in the impeachment process as a member of the House Judiciary Committee in the case of President Richard M. Nixon, whose actions put him above the law and abrogated the Constitution.

Holtzman and enough of her Judiciary Committee colleagues believed that the Constitution had indeed been contravened and voted to impeach Nixon.  As reported in a previous column, Nixon was persuaded to resign by a powerful trio of Republicans led by Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona and the nation was spared an impeachment trial.

Elizabeth Holtzman believes that the time has come for George W. Bush to face impeachment proceedings.  As someone who called for impeachment proceedings after Bush and Dick Cheney took America to war on spurious grounds, and on that basis recommended impeachment four years ago, I concur in Holtzman's assessment.