Teddy the 4th? Blech. I don’t care what he thinks or what Woodrow Wilson’s great-grandson thinks either.
Alton Parker in 1904 anyone?
Glenn Beck called McCain a “weird progressive” like TR. Weird progressive is a good term for TR. His 1912 campaign was to the left of ex-Bourbon democrat Wilson’s (who was in fact a leftist disaster in office, and he had less experience than Obama). And bizarrely religious in tenure. The religious left from WJ Bryan to TR’s Bull Moosers to the prohibition movement was thriving in the early 20th century. God demanded an income tax!
When asked last year who their favorite President of the other party from the 20th Century was all the Republican White House candidates to my disgust said Truman, not that he has much competition, I’d have thought they’d be in line with the popular meme and picked Kennedy. Or least joke and say Clinton cause he gave us Congress. I’d have said I’d have to go back to the 19th Century and Grover Cleveland.
Anyhow, all the democrats said TR.
I wish Al Smith in 1928 had beaten Hoover but without knowledge of the future there is no way I would have voted for him.
The last actual conservative the dems nominated was John Davis in 1924 but he was a segregationist and anti-suffragist and his opponent was the excellent conservative Republican Calvin Coolidge so forget Davis.
So Bourbon Alton Parker in 1904 was the last time the dem might have been better than the Republican. Allegedly many people at the time said the party labels could have been switched.
Lol @ RINO spawn.
The KKK was all over the 1924 rat convention.
Liberals today would have voted for that pinko sometimes Republican LaFollette.
They did have Stephen Cleveland, the grandson of President Grover Cleveland, interviewed on CSPAN during their "American Presidents" series a few years back (Stephen's not that old because both his father and grandfather had babies while in their 60s), and he reminded me quite a bit of his grandfather.
My mother's maiden name is Webster, they're directed related to the famous Daniel Webster (through his brother's family), but I only mention it at political functions as an interesting bit of trivia. Disturbingly, my father also tells me we're distance cousins of Crook County Chicago Machine Democrat/ State Comptroller Dan Hynes (now running against Quinn for Governor since he failed to be annointed over Obama for Senate in '04). Particularly interesting since I attended a fundraiser for his Republican opponent back in '06.
Anyway, back on topic... apparently there ARE some good conservative Republicans in Teddy's family, especially Teddy's son Archibald Roosevelt, who was a card-carrying John Bircher and described as "ultra right wing". In his introduction to Zygmund Dobbs's The Great Deceit: Social Pseudo-Sciences in 1964, Archie Roosevelt wrote: "Socialists have infiltrated our schools, our law courts, our government, our MEDIA OF COMMUNICATIONS. ... the Socialist movement is made up of a relatively small number of people who have developed the TECHNIQUE OF INFLUENCING large masses of people to a VERY HIGH DEGREE." Very eerie prophetic. That rings true today even more than it did when he wrote it.
Taft was the most conservative of the three major Presidential candidates in 1912 (though even there, we have a number of RINOs in the Taft family), but I would have far preferred a third Teddy Roosevelt term to what we got with scumbag blatantly racist/socialist/globalist Woody Wilson. Wilson did a good job hiding his true intentions on the campaign trail in 1912 but from his governing I think it was clear he was the most liberal of three candidates (especially since we got to three all perform the duties of President). The writing was on the wall when Wilson proposed a scheme to nationalize the railroad industry and both Taft AND Roosevelt denounced the proposal as "rank socialism". Obama's kind of a disturbing hybrid of the worst elements of Wilson and Carter, along with Bill Clinton redux as his administration staff.
I would agree Truman was the "best" Democrat President over the last 100 years, but given the competition that's not saying much. He gets the title by default simply because he didn't wreak the USA under his watch, usher in a new era of failed statist government agencies and programs, or disgrace the office with sleazy behavior and criminal actions. I find it interesting how he managed to simultaneously tick off the southern Dixiecrats AND the east coast "progressives" (the two biggest elements of the RAT party at the time), but won re-election anyway in a huge upset. Overall, his whole "fair deal" thing was basically the New Deal lite. I would have voted for Dewey in '48.
Have to agree with justiceseeker93's post #17 rebuttal as well. Certainly Ronald Reagan, Bob Taft, Ev Dirksen, and so on weren't "some flavor of progressive". There are alot of RINOs in the New England states (not so much in the rest of the northern states), but there's probably just as many RINOs in the central northern states as their are in the central southern states.