the level or depth of support that they did amongst the party faithful, as the desire for electoral victory would have ostensibly overridden such trifling concerns. Both politicians proved capable of putting past history aside with other rivals, most notable Dewey and Harold Stassen's collaboration during the 1952 campaign, so what made their squabble so lasting and permanent? To fully understand the factional controversy, one must understand the underlying assumptions of both sides. Dewey and his advisers believed that the New Deal had fundamentally shifted American politics away from the conservative, pro- business elites who traditionally supported the GOP, and had given the working class and minority groups unprecedented levels of political power. While these latter groups could not control the outcome of an election on their own, their importance in the New Deal coalition indicated to Dewey that the Republican Party needed to modify its approach and its platform to compete with the Democrats on a primarily liberal playing field. This did not mean that Dewey or the "liberal Republicans" abandoned their political ideology entirely, but they did emphasize certain points at the expense of other, more traditional Republican ideas and policies. They attempted to recast the GOP as a progressive institution with a public image of moderate liberalism and sympathy for the economic hardships of the poor and downtrodden. In their view, the Republican Party would not be effective at drawing votes as a conservative or Old Guard institution, as they believed conservatism was an outdated ideology that had lost its appeal after 1929. Taft, on the other hand, thought that the New Deal was nothing more than a temporary aberration brought about by an economic crisis. Once the problems of the Depression had passed, the Ohioan thought that the political system would return to the principles of the 1920s. He believed that the American people generally supported