[Clemenza]

Ike was to the right of his opponent in the convention, Robert Taft, but was running against a genteel Illinois socialist whose father had run on the ticket of a certain fire breathing populist named William Jennings Bryant.

Withdrawing from the messianic policy of Roosevelt and Truman, balancing the federal budget (cutting spending in the process), and sending the illegals back south were but three achievements we can thank Ike for.

[WilliamReading]

oops, Taft was way more conservative than Eisenhower. Eisenhower was not even a Republican before 1952. He almost ran as a Democrat, but decided he liked the GOP better.