How did the Democratic Party--party of JFK, LBJ, and civil rights--fall from glory? How did Texas become Bush territory? What do politicians on either side need to do today to get our country back on track? Ben Barnes has the answers. Barnes had a front-row seat through it all. He won a seat in the Texas Legislature in 1960, at the age of 22, and four years later became the youngest Speaker of the House since the Civil War. In 1968, he helped Congressman George H. W. Bush get his son into the National Guard. How did his party lose its place in Texas, and the nation? Here, Barnes takes readers inside the rise and fall of the party he loves. He uses lessons learned in the Texas trenches as a guiding light for a new generation of lawmakers and political hopefuls, and calls for a return to bipartisan consensus building.--From publisher description.