The NY GOP Had It Right When They Were Left
Something really struck me about The Albany Project’s description of the “freakshow” that was the state GOP’s annual dinner Thursday night. Not just that Cheney and Peter King were speakers. Not just their assertion that not only is Iraq going swimmingly, but NY GOPers will do swimmingly in November. (I mean, really? Do you really want to equate those two situations?) But the quote Phillip points to from the NY Sun gets to the heart of it, I think.
As Vice President Cheney arrives in the city today to address the New York Republican State Committee at its annual dinner, he will find a party in worse shape than one of his hunting buddies.
Ok, before we go on, I have to say, that’s pretty funny.
The state’s Republican Party, once a national powerhouse that yielded presidential nominees such as Theodore Roosevelt and Thomas Dewey, is struggling through a seemingly continuous stretch of setbacks, embarrassments, and defeats, leaving Republican elected officials an endangered species throughout the state and party stalwarts divided over how to spur a recovery.
Wait– stop. Rewind a little there. So, the NY state GOP used to be a powerhouse because it produced folks like Teddy Roosevelt and Thomas Dewey? What made them so great? Because– they were– wait for it– progressives and liberals. Check out my man Teddy:
He was a Progressive reformer who sought to move the dominant Republican Party into the Progressive camp. He distrusted wealthy businessmen and dissolved forty monopolistic corporations as a “trust buster“. He was clear, however, to show he did not disagree with trusts and capitalism in principle but was only against corrupt, illegal practices. His “Square Deal” promised a fair shake for both the average citizen (through regulation of railroad rates and pure food and drugs) and the businessmen. He was the first U.S. president to call for universal health care and national health insurance.[5][6] As an outdoorsman, he promoted the conservation movement, emphasizing efficient use of natural resources. After 1906 he attacked big business and suggested the courts were biased against labor unions.
Now, that, my friends is a true Republican maverick, not this phony maverick-ism you see from John McCain.
What about Dewey?
As a leader of the liberal faction of the Republican party he fought the conservative faction led by Senator Robert A. Taft
(snip)
By the 1960s, as the conservative wing assumed more and more power within the Republican Party, Dewey removed himself further and further from party matters. When the Republicans in 1964 gave Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, Taft’s successor as the conservative leader, their presidential nomination, Dewey declined to even attend the Convention; it was the first Republican Convention he had missed since 1936.[21] President Lyndon Johnson offered Dewey positions on several blue ribbon commissions, as well as a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court
Wow. Liberal and progressive NY GOPers. Sounds like an oxymoron these days, right? Why? Here’s why:
This graph gives lie to 2 things:
1) that any GOP member of the NY Senate can claim to be a “centrist”, and
2) that any GOP member of the NY Senate can claim to be an “independent thinker”.
I mean, that nearly straight red line indicates a lockstep GOP that is much more conservative than centrist.
All the PR and member-item love-buying has helped folks like Joe Robach and Jim Alesi stay in power despite the fact that they have gone wayyyy to the right.
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I don’t believe that any organization who invites Dick Cheney to speak could possibly be considered “centrist”.
On the Roosevelt, Dewey front…I’m always amused when Republicans dare compare themselves to Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and even Eisenhower. These are not people who would be Republicans today. Their party has drifted so far from their ideals it would be unrecognizable to them today. The party of Lincoln….puh-leeeze.
On a related note, Conservative David Frum has proposed in his latest book that the republican party has to move to address such social issues to survive. However, if you were to measure the difference between what Frum says and what progressive republican held in the past there would still be a huge gap. But it is interesting that even republicans seem to argue that the Reagan era is over.
Wonder what our locals have to say about that