I keep hearing how "we need a viable conservative party." Why? What for?

[thucythucy]

18. Nixon didn't "only" resign because Goldwater asked him to.

That came at the end of a long, agonizing process during which most Republicans defended Nixon to the bitter end.

In the meantime the majority of the country turned against him. His hand picked vice president had to resign and was then criminally indicted and pled no contest. His attorney general also had to resign, and was also indicted and convicted. As were all his closest aides--Halderman, Erlichmann, etc. Nixon fired a special prosecutor, tried to fire another. And then tapes came out where he was heard in the Oval Office personally directing the cover up through bribes of the crimes he'd ordered carried out, crimes which he'd spent two years denying.

Then too, his taxes were being audited and it looked as though he might go to prison for tax fraud. So he brokered a deal wherein he'd resign but then be pardoned by Ford. If not for that deal I wonder if he would have resigned at all .

Even then there were Republicans still against him leaving. But at the end the firestorm of opposition all across the country rendered him unable to govern. THAT, and the threat of criminal prosecution, is why he resigned.

Then too, corrupt and ruthless as he was, Nixon did have a sense of shame. Besides which, the stress clearly got to him. So Goldwater appearing was the final straw, and offered him an out with some sense of dignity.

There was a huge amount of backstory that led to that "only" that you cite.