Have some moose cheese and some Oregon whine.
I wonder if the Establishment acted like this in 76 and 80 toward Reagan?
Yes. In 1976, the pundits said Reagan couldn't win. It was actually good that he didn't, as Jimmy Carter was the one and only President who did not name a single Supreme Court justice. In 1980, the same, and it was a close race vs. George H.W. Bush. His opponents threw everything Reagan, including that he had been an FDR Democrat, was Hollywood, divorced, and not too bright.
In truth, he left the Democrats while dealing with the Communists in Hollywood. Demonrats hate and vilify those that leave their embrace, much like vampires and Muslims. A President has to be bright enough to ask for advice from the best, and tempering that advice with what is politically possible. By that standard, Reagan was brilliant in 1981-1982, and not so bright in 1986, when he signed the biggest tax increase in history (until 1993) sent to him by Bob Dole, Senate Majority leader and self-proclaimed "tax collector for the welfare state", and the Demons re-took the Senate in the 1986 elections after Dole had been Majority Leader less than two years.
Oh, and in 1980, with less than one week to go, all the press said the election was "too close to call", which was closer to the truth than "Castle leads by 30".
Don’t know about everywhere, but they sure did in 1976 in Fort Lauderdale.
As a high school volunteer then at the local GOP HQ, I saw there was a definite bias from the white shoe, country club set against the “unwashed masses”.
There was an obvious disdain for blue collars apparent in the attitudes of the Coral Ridge folks.
Saw something similar in 1992 when I arranged with the county GOP to save a space for a bunch of Cub Scouts in a hangar at Ft Lauderdale Executive airport when George Bush Sr. came for a campaign stop. The pols would get a good photo-op, the boys would get credit toward a merit badge and have the thrill of meeting the President and seeing the political circus up close; press, limos, Secret Service, etc. They even had a torpedo bomber in the hangar like Bush flew and a celeb, Gerald Raney warmed up the crowd.
When we arrived the “Young Republicans” had occupied the space and refused to let our boys in where they could see and meet the President.
From what I’ve read it goes back a long ways in the GOP; Taft, Goldwater, Reagan, the urban Easterners vs the working and middling classes from the Midwest, West and later the South following the success of Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” in ‘68.
Like the black voter in the Dem Party, the GOP establishment would like values voters and Tea Party types to hand over our cash and votes and keep our mouths shut and let “the best and brightest” run the show.
The arrogant sense of entitlement and disdain for hoi polloi among the elites isn’t confined to the ‘rat side of the aisle.
Perhaps they can share seats in the same tumbrel some day!