Among my collection of books on Wisconsin’s famed Progressive Party and the family of “Fighting Bob” La Follette is one by professor Patrick Maney, an acclaimed historian and accomplished author who grew up in Wisconsin and recently retired from the history faculty at Boston College.
The book is simply titled “Young Bob,” an extraordinary account of the life and political career of Robert M. La Follette Jr., “Fighting Bob’s” son, who took his dad’s place in the U.S. Senate after the famed politician’s sudden death in 1925.
Young Bob’s story is an intriguing one. He was at the forefront with his brother Phil, then Wisconsin’s governor, in leaving the Republican Party of his father to form the Progressives in the 1930s. Bob moved back to the GOP after World War II, only to be beaten in the 1946 primary by the notorious Joe McCarthy, ending his 21-year Senate career…