Btw, you need to get your facts straight. Richard Schweiker was a Pro-Life Republican, champion of the unborn and one of the first supporters of a Pro-Life amendment to the Constitution. Schweiker was a moderate-liberal Republican in the 1960`s and the first half of the 1970`s. Thanks to his association with Reagan, Schweiker eventually became a conservative with an ACU rating of 79 in 1978, 88 in 1979 and 85 in 1980.
According to Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, Richard Schweiker was instrumental in getting a Pro-Life plank in the Republican Party Platform. THus making the GOP, America's Pro-Life party.
"Ever since Ronald Reagan embraced a prospective pro-life running mate in 1976 in the person of Sen. Richard Schweiker (R-Pa.), the party of Lincoln has positioned itself as a champion of human life in the womb." ~ Tony Perkins LINK
“Btw, you need to get your facts straight. Richard Schweiker was a Pro-Life Republican, champion of the unborn and one of the first supporters of a Pro-Life amendment to the Constitution.”
How artfully you change the subject from whether the Schweiker pick was a “black mark” (as you put it) against Reagan to whether Schweiker was prolife and therefore desirable as a running mate. The vast majority of the GOP was prolife at the time, and there were more than a few cosponsors for the HLA. (Even BOTH Democrat Nominees for VP four years earlier, Eagleton and Shriver, were prolife!) McCain is prolife. Roe v. Wade was only three years old.
There was no time for Schweiker to have done all the great things you claim he did for the prolife cause BEFORE Reagan sslected him). He represented a Cathoic, heavily prolife state. He was prolife. Big deal.
I have my facts very straight, my friend, becasue I lived through the Schweiker pick, recall the circumastances vividly and it caused real problems for Reagan in the southern delegations. Schweiker, at the time of the pick, was a northeastern liberal especially on economic issues. He was big spender, big government, big union man who was friendly to big government social policies. His selection caused shock waves through the GOP. Jesse Helms, who had saved Reagan from political oblivion in the North Carlina primary a few months earlier, mutinied (so outraged was he by the Schweiker pick) and led a movement to have James Buckley’s name placed in nomination at the 1976 convention to try to deny Reagan the nomination because he thought Reagan had betrayed conservatism. NBC News reporeted from the convention:
(Kansas City) Head of Buckley movement is Reagan delegate North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms who doesn’t like Schweiker Vice President pick. He says now Reagan forces mad at him. [HELMS - says he’s getting hard looks from some of Reagan people. Notes Reagan’s reaction.] Richard Rosenbaum says if Buckley doesn’t stop, he might lose state party’s enthusiasm for Buckley’s Senator reelection. [ROSENBAUM - told Buckley to withdraw.]
REPORTER: John Hart
http://tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/program.pl?ID=489475
Richard Viguerie (who I know is a crank, but had a large following at the time)was so enraged that he abandoned Reagan altogether in favor of Phil Crane in 1980.
My facts are straight. And so is my point. Reagan’s selection of Schweiker (who would be classified as a RINO by today’s standards) was considered a betrayal by conservatives in 1976, even more than Palin’s is, becasue Palin is . Denying it won’t wash. I remember it because I felt betrayed at the time. (BTW, nice try on citing the fact that Schweiker grew more conservative AFTER his association with Reagan. What exactly has that got to do with his selection when he was a dyed in the wool liberal according to the 1976 standards?)Reagan faced an outright revolt over his pick, because it placed someone who had been voting a pretty solid liberal line since he entered Congress in 1960 one heartbeat from the Presidency. And he did it for political expediency, not for any apparent altruistic motive.
Palin’s decision to support McCain will not hurt her, any more than the Schweiker pick hurt Reagan. But a helluva lot of conservative (myself included) felt a kick in the gut when we heard about it. I felt nothing of the sort when I heard Palin had endorsed McCain, both because it is much less of a big deal and because her motives in doing what she did are more selfless and purer than Reagan’s were in picking Schweiker. I say that as a huge fan of Reagan(and Palin). But on this comparison, the Gipper comes off worse than the Governor. and those are the facts whether you like them or not.