Posted on 07/14/2017 2:05:37 PM PDT by Kaslin
Longley was center-right, a former Democrat. Arguably the best Governor until Paul LePage. Sadly, he died at just 56, barely a year and a half after leaving office (he didn’t run for a second term).
Actually, it would be fairly easy for the Dems to get voters to question Kid's loyalty to his Detriot roots and Michigan culture. All they need to do is put out ads showcasing his fascination of the neo-confederate cause and wannabe "redneck" image.
They’d do it, regardless. Neo-Confederate, neo-Nazi, “RACIST !”, yada yada yada. That’s all the Dems have left are slurs, because they have no positive policy offerings.
Good luck with that. He’s a favorite now.
So while they may hammer on it there is little traction to be gained there.
Full disclosure, I will be voting for Bob Young in the primary as I think he is the better man. If Kid Rock wins I will be voting for him in the general as he is better then Stab-me-now.
The attack angle the Dems would likely use against Bob Young is to scream "Oreo" at him and claim he's a puppet of the white man because he's not on the Dem plantation.
In any case, I don't buy the argument on this thread that you need to surrender to the Dems on abortion and traditional marriage to be "electable" in Michigan. Trump has actually been surprising good on a lot of that stuff and he moved much further to the right on social issues to win the GOP nomination, he didn't run as Dem-lite on those issues. The FReepers making these claims are screaming about how anti-establishment they are, but I attended the Illinois state party convention as a delegate last year, and the people making the arguements they're making now were as establishment as it gets. We thankfully defeated their efforts to water down the state party platform to make it Dem-like, and the candidates who agreed with them about parroting a "me too" message on social policy went down to defeat (Mark Kirk, Bob Dold, and their ilk)
My point is that I don’t object to his entering the race. If he proves impressive as a candidate (a la Trump), he deserves the nomination. If he stumbles and bumbles, then he won’t. If he runs as a pro-abort, that won’t sell, either.
Okay valid point there, let's wait and see if he's running a serious campaign before casting judgment. I thought Trump's campaign was a publicity stunt and of course I was proven dead wrong.
I think I got my threads mixed up. It was another thread where Kid said he didn't believe in banning abortion , a couple of "conservative" FReepers were going "well that's just what voters want, he needs to be pro-choice to get elected in Michigan" and I was responding to that BS.
In any case, if he does run as pro-abort, there's zero chance I'd support him in the primary even if he does prove to be a "serious" candidate and does a good job presenting his ideas on stage. We can do better in a GOP primary.
Rock?
Yes, as I said, if he’s pro-abort, it will get him nowhere. Look how well Willard’s mommie, Lenore *omney did in 1970 running as a pro-infanticide militant.
Interesting thing about the Ripon Society, I've always heard they are one of the oldest RINO organizations in the country, though they sound decent enough on paper. Seems like they were a GOP think tank created in the 1960s and named in honor of the city where the Republican Party was created (Ripon, Wisconsin). Their stated goals were working towards "national security, low taxes, and a federal government that is smaller, smarter and more accountable to the people" Their early history was supporting civil rights in the 1960s and opposing the socialist policies of LBJ after he took the country in a leftward direction following the assassination of JFK.
Apparently the Ripon Society were the original "Rockefeller Republican" wing of the party, but I'm not sure what odious policies/candidates they backed since that time. Sounds like some of their election year analysis is pretty good.
The basic idea behind their founding and their stated principles sound pretty good to me. If the organization has been infested with RINOs forever, conservatives ought to sign up for the "Ripon Society" and take it over from within. We could use a conservative "Ripon Society"
Impy and Bill, thanks for telling us about the Ripon Society. What were the main differences between the Republicans and Democrats, between 1950 & ‘70, other than the fact that a higher percentage of Republicans supported the Civil Rights Act of 1964? I used google, to find the answer, but that didn’t help.
Well, the longest-running difference was over the size and scope of the federal government. With the capture of the Democrats by the left, they wanted to have most decisionmaking processes done by Washington.
Business since the 1920s-—even since the 1800s-—was viewed as the party of business. All business, not just “big business.” They stood for sound money-—not inflation like the Dems-—in the 20s (unfortunately) stood for isolationism, which probably helped Japan and Germany move forward thinking we’d stay out, and they generally stood for tariffs and a national bank.
Democrats were for agrarians, labor unions, immigrants, inflation, and, when convenient, civil rights. They were for a somewhat more interventionist foreign policy-—though the leading anti-Vietnam war guys were all Dems.
Republicans were protectionist until U.S. businesses realized that free trade would benefit them, and Democrats were free traders until unions and farmers began to demand that competition be eliminated.
As for the 1950s through the 1970s, “law and order” was one of the big issues that held Republicans together.
Although a number of ethnic urban Democrats were able to exploit the “Law and Order” issue. In Philadelphia, Frank Rizzo was ostensibly to the right of his Republican opposition, Thacher Longstreth (in 1971) and Tom Foglietta (in 1975) (along with an Independent Black candidate taking the Black vote). Foglietta would switch to the Democrats 5 years later to get his House seat and was on the extreme left. Rizzo switched to the GOP in the mid ‘80s after he could no longer win in the Democrat primary with White voters and almost beat the disastrous Wilson Goode in 1987.
The GOP went thru a lot of changes from the 50s-70s, as Goldwater was the first unapologetically conservative GOP nominee for President since the 20s.
I wasn't alive during that era, but my understanding is that there was always a liberal wing of the GOP in those days, and a conservative wing of the RATs, but as a rule of thumb for most of the 20th century, the GOP was the party of entrepreneurship and business friendly policies, whereas the RATs were the party of the labor unions and rural farmers. The GOP promoted capitalist free market ideas and the RATs promoted government regulations and a social safety net, so the two parties overall message really hasn't changed much in well over a century. I would say the two party system as we know it today pretty much solidified about the time of the McKinley vs. Bryan election of 1900.
Anyway, Fieldmarshaldj brought up the Ripon Society. I didn't know much about them, but my understanding is they were always considered the "RINO, Inc" organization of the Republican Party in the pre-Reagan era. I'm curious what exactly made them ground zero for Rockefeller Republicans, because on paper their founding and stated policy goals sound pretty decent and something any mainstream conservative could endorse.
On the flip side, the supposedly "extreme right-wing" organization of the pre-Reagan era was apparently the John Birch Society, and they were considered fringe wackos, like the 1960s-1970s equivalent to today Paulbots. But again, on paper, they sound pretty decent to me. Apparently the Birchers were started as an outspoken "anti-communist" group whose stated purpose was "opposing wealth redistribution and economic interventionism" . Sounds pretty good to me!
With the Birchers being pro-American and strongly anti-communist and the Ripon Society being a proponent of "national security, low taxes, and a federal government that is smaller, smarter and more accountable to the people." , I would be proud to endorse either goal as representing mainstream conservative values.
Though I'm sure both groups go beyond those basic statements.
FRANK RIZZO IS A NATIONAL TREASURE!!!!!!
Although remember that Wallace was really a rank opportunist when it came to political ideology. He was a disciple of Big Jim Folsom in Alabama, a liberal. When he ran for Governor in 1958, he was a racial “moderate.” The sitting Attorney General, the young John Patterson, ran with the Klan support and painted Wallace as a dangerous left-winger and “nigger lover.” Patterson defeated Wallace in the primary and won the election in November.
That was when an enraged Wallace, who thought his racial liberal stances would get him the win, vowed never to be “outniggered” (not “outsegged”, as the “clean” version in the history books claimed) again and turned into Mr. Segregationist. It’s funny that despite running on that Klan support, Patterson became quite close to the Kennedys (of course, despite historical revisionism, they were not the Civil Rights heroes) and was there to offer the bases in Alabama as a staging area for the Bay of Pigs in his last year of office (1962). 56 years later, ex-Gov. Patterson would support Obama in the 2008 elections (he never left the Democrat party). He turns 96 this year.
I think had Wallace become President (had he not been shot, he probably would’ve managed to get the Dem nomination before long), he would’ve just been another Carter. Carter really stole his (and Lester Maddox’s) entire schtick (he also successfully used the Wallace play in 1970 running as an anti-Black candidate against moderate ex-Gov. Carl Sanders in the Dem primary) and the Republican that ran against Carter in 1970, Hal Suit, was to Carter’s left.
By Wallace’s last (4th) term (in 1982), he was just another “New South” Democrat liberal and getting large percents of the Black vote. Now, had he lived to the 21st century, he might very well have switched parties (he did endorse Bob Dole in 1996 for President, 2 years before his death), but that only because AL became a Republican state. Hence, always the opportunist.
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