Posted on 04/16/2007 12:31:17 PM PDT by calcowgirl
Lifelong Republican, Marine veteran and former congressman Pete McCloskey has left the GOP and registered with the Democratic Party.
McCloskey says he is disgusted with the "succession of ethical scandals, congressmen taking bribes and abuse of power by both the Republican House leadership and the highest appointees of the White House."
"A pox on (Republicans) and their values," he wrote.
As a Republican, McCloskey served in the House of Representatives from a San Mateo County congressional district from 1967- to 1983. He was a brief presidential hopeful when he ran on an anti-war platform against Richard Nixon in 1972.
But McCloskey again found himself in the media spotlight last year when he left his rural Northern California farm in Rumsey, rented a house in Lodi and ran in the primary against Richard Pombo, a conservative, seven-term Republican incumbent who later lost the general election to the novice Pleasanton Democrat Jerry McNerney.
McCloskey may lost the primary but observers say he provided a pivotal voice in the growing, anti-Pombo chorus that eventually led to the incumbent's defeat.
His party shift will be no surprise to the Republicans who backed Pombo. They called McCloskey a shill for the Democratic Party before he even filed for the office.
Months before McCloskey entered, he helped formed a group called the "Revolt of the Elders," which made no secret of its search for viable Republicans willing to run against Pombo. When they couldn't find someone, McCloskey filed himself.
Here's what McCloskey wrote in an e-mail announcement about his decision.
McCloskeys have been Republicans in California since 1859, the year before Lincoln's election. My great grandfather, John Henry McCloskey, orphaned in the great Irish potato famine of 1843, came to California in 1853 as a boy of 16, and joined the party just before the Civil War.
By 1890 he and my grandfather, both farmers, made up two of the twelve members of the Republican Central Committee of Merced County. My father's most memorable expletive came when I was a boy of 10 or 11: "That damn Roosevelt is trying to pack the Supreme Court!"
I registered Republican in 1948 after reaching the age of 21. We were the party of civil rights, of free choice for women and fiscal responsibility. Since Teddy Roosevelt, we had favored environmental protection, and most of all we stood for fiscal responsibility, honesty, ethics and limited government intrusion into our personal lives and choices. We accepted that one the duties of wealth was to pay a higher rate of income tax, and that the estates of the wealthy should contribute to the national treasury in reasonable measure.
I was proud to serve with Republicans like Gerry Ford, the first George Bush and Bob Dole.
In 1994, however, Newt Gingrich brought a new kind of Republicanism to power, and the election of George W. Bush in 2000 has led to wholly new concept of governance. The bureaucracy has mushroomed in size and power. The budget deficits have become astronomical. Our historical separation of church and state has been blurred. We have seen a succession of ethical scandals, congressmen taking bribes, and abuse of power by both the Republican House leadership and the highest appointees of the White House.
The single cardinal principle of political science, that power corrupts, has come to apply not only to Republican leaders like Tom DeLay, Duke Cunningham, Bob Ney and John Doolittle, but to a succession of White House officials and appointees. The stench of Jack Abramoff has permeated much of the Washington Republican establishment.
The Justice Department, guardian of of our rule of law, has been compromised. It's third ranking official, a graduate of Pat Robertson's dubious law school, has taken the 5th Amendment.
Men who have never felt the fear of combat, and who largely dodged military service in their youth, have led us into grievous wars in far off places with no thought of the diplomacy, grace and respect for other peoples and their cultures which has been an American trademark for at least the last two thirds of a century. We have lost the respect and affection of most of the world outside our borders. My son, Peter, one of the U.S. prosecutors at The Hague of the war crimes in Serbia and elsewhere, tells me that people of other countries no longer look at the country which countenances torture as a beacon for the world and the rule of law.
Earth Day, that bi-partisan concept of Gaylord Nelson in 1970, has become the focus of almost hatred by today's Republican leadership. Many still argue that global warming is a hoax, and that Bush has been right to demean and suppress the arguments of scientists at the E.P.A., Fish & Wildlife and U.S.Geological Survey.
I say a pox on them and their values.
Until the past few weeks, I had hoped that the party could right itself, returning to the values of the Eisenhowers, Fords and George H. W. Bush.
What finally turned me to despair, however, was listening to the reports, or watching on C-Span, a whole series of congressional oversight hearings on C-Span, held by old friends and colleagues like Pat Leahy, Henry Waxman, Norm Dicks, Nick Rahall, Danny Akaka and others, trying to learn the truth on the misdeeds and incompetence of the Bush Administration. Time after time I saw Republican Members of the House and Senate. speak out in scorn or derision about these exercises of Congress oversight responsibility being "witch-hunts" or partisan attempts to distort the actions of people like the head of the General Service Administration and the top political appointees in the Justice and Interior Departments. Disagreement turned into disgust.
I finally concluded that it was a fraud for me to remain a member of this modern Republican Party, that there were only a few like Chuck Hegel, Jack Warner, Arlen Specter, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins I could respect.
Two of the best, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, and Jim Leach of Iowa, after years of battling for balance and sanity, were defeated last November, and it seems that every Republican presidential candidate is now vying for the support of the Pat Robertsons and Jerry Falwells rather than talking about a return to the values of the party I joined nearly 59 years ago. My favorite spokesmen have beome Senators Jim Webb and Barack Obama.
And so it was, that while at the Woodland courthouse the other day, passing by the registrar's office, I filled out the form to re-register as a Democrat.
The issues Helen (McCloskey) and I care about most, public financing of elections, a reliable paper ballot trail, independent re-districting to replace gerrymandering, the right of a woman to choose not to bring a child into the world, a reversal of the old Proposition 13 and term limits which have so hurt California's once superb education system and the competence of our Legislature, are now almost universally opposed by California's elected Republicans, and the occasional attempts at reform by our Governor are looked on with grim disdain by most of them.
From Helen's and my standpoint, being farmers in Yolo County gives us the opportunity to work for purposes which were once Republican, but can no longer be found at Republican conventions and discussions.
I hope this answers your questions about the party and a government I have served in either civil or military service under ten presidents, five Republican and five Democrat ... I doubt it will be of much interest other than to our friends, but it has been a decision not easily taken.
Respectfully, Pete McCloskey,
Pete McCloskey and Paul Findley are the cofounders in 1989 of an anti-Israel lobbying group called "The Council For The National Interest."
Both have counted the Jews and unborn children as their most nefarious enemies for decades.
Not really. Let me know when you graduate from Kindergarten. I don’t argue with 5 year olds!
Republican ethics scandals?
William Jefferson
Sandy Berger
Shall I continue? My list would be quite long and have nary an R after a name.
Oh, and I almost forgot: Pete McCloskey gave the keynote speech at the Institute For Historical Review’s 2000 annual meeting.
Petey was never a Republican, he was an anti-Zionist, anti-Semite Lowell Weicker Marxist sockcucker before Weicker came to Congress. At least he’s finally in the right party with his fellow goosestepping diaperheaded bomb-throwing piglets.
I don’t know of any Republicans who voted for the communist who replaced Pombo, and I don’t even know many who voted for McCloskey, but very few voted for Pombo either. Most Republicans around here were so disgusted with Pombo that they just skipped the election, or at least that particular race. McNerney won by default, not because he convinced people that he’s a better candidate. If the local Republican party runs a decent candidate against McNerney in the next election, we WILL get the seat back. This is considered to be a Republican "safe" district, and Republicans hold a numeric advantage here. Pombo thought that designation made him election-proof. He found out the hard way that he was wrong.
Pombo should be treated as an object lesson by the Republican party. He is a perfect demonstration of the fact that you CANNOT abuse your constituents forever and expect them to keep taking it. In our district, the choice was between a loon Democrat and a dirtbag Republican. It was lose/lose. The difference is that Democrats have no standards, and therefore have no qualms about voting for loons. Republicans do have standards, and we draw certain moral lines in the sand.
Guiliani supporters should pay particularly close attention. Ignore the base, and you WILL lose. Republicans don’t like to vote for lousy candidates, even if it means the opposition will get an even worse one into the seat. That’s why Bush the elder lost in 1992, that’s why Pombo lost, it’s a big part of why we lost so many seats last year. We want good, honest, moral candidates. When we don't get them, we stay home.
Gee....wonder what his price ($$$$$) was....
Pete McCloskey and Paul Findley are the cofounders in 1989 of an anti-Israel lobbying group called "The Council For The National Interest."
Both have counted the Jews and unborn children as their most nefarious enemies for decades.
And I've been here at FR long enough to remember when it was absolutely full of people who looked upon these people as conservative heroes, for no other reason than that they hated Jews and Israel. Most of that human garbage is long gone, but there are still some left. They don't mouth off as often as they used to, though.
“Until the past few weeks, I had hoped that the party could right itself, returning to the values of the Eisenhowers, Fords and George H. W. Bush.”
Funny how he skips over Reagan, a true sign that this guy was never a Republican. Only leftists and communists don’t subscribe to the Reagan ideal. I’ll label him the former since he actually served.
It wouldn't surprise me if the AMA did.
The GOP did not.
Republicans supported limited government.
Government's minimal function is criminalizing murder.
Democrats called Republicans "baby killers".
A title that accurately describes Jerry Ford and Nelson Rockefeller in the 70s, but not many GOPers in 1948.
Of course, Pete McCloskey's fevered brain is full of other bizarre notions as well.
I vaguely remember this turd when he was an actual congressman instead of a fomer congressman. He made Rockerfeller look conservative and Jeffords look loyal.
I'm wondering why the old coot is switching now. Perhaps he craves attention like Mark Felt did. I'm sure the enemedia will see that he gets his 15 minutes of fame.
ROFL! Join the Democrats? I hope you enjoy the party of Bill Clinton, Ted Kennedy, Robert Toricelli, Jim McGreevey, etc, etc, etc, etc.
Good riddance to bad rubbish . . .
Well the guy probably has performed good deeds in the past, but his brain has obviously become addled.
Repeating McCloskey talking points?
You allege he was corrupt--Do you have any proof? If so, post it. If not, can it.
In the political equivalent of human reproduction, Pete McCloskey never had a shot at being the lucky litle guy to fertilize the target. In fact, he not only failed to keep up with his fellow swimmers, he never realized that the dark foul-smelling cavity in which he was madly splashing about wasn’t even the right one.
I remember that Goldwater Himself went wacky left in his late dotage. Perhaps that’s what’s going on here to a degree, I am sad to say — although in fairness, McCloskey always was a soaking “wet.” What’s crazy-talk is his assertion that it’s principally the GOP that is CORRUPT. At best, the Dems are equal-opportunity corrupt.
Interesting to note this kook had one of the most singularly schizophrenic voting records in Congress. His overall ACU rating was a 32, piss-poor by Republican standards, but he scored in 1 year (1972, when he ran for President) a ZERO. Now realizing by 1981 when he was ginning up to run for the GOP Senate nomination, that an ultraleftist wouldn’t get the nomination, he moved into “Conservative” territory, earning an 86 rating, but slacking off to a below 60 the following year. An unprincipled opportunist of the highest order. It was then-San Diego Mayor Pete Wilson who beat McCloskey (and Congressman Barry Goldwater, Jr.), himself a RINO, but looking like Jesse Helms by comparison.
Great Rhino heroes McCloskey...where’s the mentioning of Reagan? Eh?
It’s time he confirmed what every sensible person has known for the past 30 years. Pete McCloskey is a fairly left-wing democrat.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.