An idle pumpjack in West Texas.

Until I talked to political historian Jeff Roche by phone a few days ago, I thought I might be writing this column from Deaf Smith County, maybe with a boot propped on a rail fence at Diamond Cattle Feeders outside Hereford. Or maybe I’d be standing in the middle of a field of early planted bright-green wheat between Floydada and Matador, east of Lubbock.

I would be seeking the birthplace, the very epicenter, if you will, of America’s modern conservative movement. My instincts weren’t too far off. Roche, author of a new book called “The Conservative Frontier: Texas and the Origins of the New Right,” insists that West Texas is the place.

It’s a debatable thesis — Barry Goldwater, John Tower and Ronald Reagan are all non-Texans who were key to the transition — but the book is well written and readable. It’s seasoned with profiles of such notable Texans as the iconic Panhandle rancher Charles Goodnight and W. Lee “Pass the Biscuits, Pappy” O’Daniel, as well as one of my favorite temporary Texans, C.W. Post, the breakfast cereal magnate.

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Although Roche laughed at the notion of pinpointing an exact spot for the birth of conservatism, he said the offices of the Midland Chamber of Commerce might be a candidate. The Midland CofC is no doubt a fine organization, but its headquarters in a bland downtown office building on Wall Street seemed a bit less exotic than a Panhandle feedlot or a field with rows of newly planted wheat stretching to the horizon. That’s why I’m writing from home, where through the window I can see that Jesse the pup is digging a hole in........

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