[Laissez-faire capitalist]

Could JFK get the Dem nomination today?

[nhwingut]

Republicans are so radical these days that Reagan couldn’t even get nominated.

Except of course they have nominated Republicans far to the left of Regan - like Dole, McCain and Romney.

[cripplecreek]

Ooh I’m taking that question to twitter.

[cotton1706]

Hell, George McGovern couldn’t even get the democrat nomination today! Let alone JFK or a Hubert Humphrey.

They trot out old Bob Dole because Gerald Ford is now dead. And in ten years they’ll ask Mitt Romney if he could get the “nomination today” when he shouldn’t have gotten it then, and that was just last year.

Bob Dole should never have been the nominee of the Republican Party. He was forced upon us as John McCain and Mitt Romney were, and also the Bushes.

Reagan was the only man, through the power of his ideas and power of speaking, to get through the establishment’s gauntlet, and he won a 44 state victory then a 49 state victory. And the republican establishment has been doing everything in its power since to prevent such victories (and overwhelming democratic defeats) again!

[onyx]

WALLACE: What do you think of your party, of the Republicans, today?

DOLE: I think they ought to put a sign on the national committee doors that says closed for repairs until New Year’s Day next year and spend that time going over ideas and positive agendas.

WALLACE: You describe the GOP of your generation as Eisenhower Republicans, moderate Republicans.

Could people like Bob Dole, even Ronald Reagan, could you make it in today’s Republican Party?

DOLE: I doubt it. And I — Reagan wouldn’t have made it. Certainly Nixon couldn’t have made it, because he had ideas and, we might have made it, but I doubt it. I mean —

WALLACE: Too moderate? Too willing to compromise?

DOLE: I just consider myself a Republican, none of this hyphenated stuff. I was a mainstream conservative Republican, and most people are in that category.

[a fool in paradise]

Bob Dole: The Republicans are out of ideas and faces.

Meanwhile the Democrats have Bill Hillary Clinton and. And? AND???

Al Gore?

John Edwards?

Joe Biden?

Little Dick Gehbphardt???

[reg45]

And JFK was - Oh Horrors - a veteran.

[apillar]

Ironic, since Dole essentially got everything he wanted in both 2008 and 2012 when the "moderate" establishment candidate won the nomination over the conservative wing of the party and ran a "positive" campaign, while the Obama team proceeded to throw every piece of garbage they could get their hands on, back, in return.

...and that worked out so well we should triple down in 2016?!?

[nickcarraway]

Let’s face it JFK and Reagan wouldn’t be allowed in the GOP today, because they were too conservative. Nixon, however, would be allowed.

[Mount Athos]

great question!