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.
Yes, I remember when they had Stephen Cleveland on. I think he was interviewed by Brian Lamb, and Lamb remarked how much he resembled his ancestor.
I agree completely. But you wouldn't have figured it if you listened to Wilson on the trail, opposing the minimum wage and saying he was against an activist government and shying away from organized labor fearing they would become as bad as the evil corporate monopolies (and so they did).
Lying rat. At least WJ Byran was honest about his intentions.
And without his "he kept us out of war" (till next year!) slogan in 1916, Hugues would have beat him.
That's hilarious how Cleveland's grandson is still alive and not ancient.
Frances Cleveland was the best looking first lady in my opinion. Of course it helped that she was very young at the time.
I’m now reading “T.R., the Last Romantic” and nearly finished. I see similarities between Wilsonian pacifism and our current administration. So, even though TR was a Progressive and had a somewhat daffy identification with “the people,” he was wonderfully militaristic. TR also had some good points in defending moderate vs. conservative, and one realizes the very same arguments and conflicts never go away. We may even be saying a redux of 1912 in the making before our very eyes now.
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.
There's a guy in Virginia today who's John Tyler's grandson. The Tylers also bred late.