The American Spectator : The Spectacle Blog : Another Random Rockefeller Republican Thought

Text Size

The Spectacle Blog

Another Random Rockefeller Republican Thought

By W. James Antle, III on 1.7.10 @ 12:36PM

When moderate-to-liberal Republicans have gotten into trouble with their liberal constituents, it has generally been because of their support for more-conservative Republican presidents and other national GOP leaders than because of their opposition to Democratic presidents. When such Republicans alternate between voting with a Democratic president and voting against him, it actually bolsters their reputation for independence. Some of the worst years for liberal Republicans have been 1974, 1982, and 2006 -- all years when Republican presidents were unpopular. The moderate Republicans who went down in 1996 were attacked more for their support of Newt Gingrich than their opposition to Bill Clinton.

The only major exception to this trend has been the ladies from Maine, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins. They managed to prosper in the 1990s despite Gingrich and they were reelected in 2006 and 2008, respectively, despite Bush. Maine still seems to be a place where Rockefeller Republicanism is generally popular, as evidenced by Snowe, Collins, William Cohen, and John McKernan.

View all comments (3) | Leave a comment

Red Phillips| 1.7.10 @ 1:58PM

What happened to liberal Republicans, who almost exclusively represented districts in the North, is the same thing that happened to conservative Democrats in the South in '94. The local districts caught up with the voting patterns that had been apparent at the national level for a while. Northerners started voting Democrat at the local level as they had been at the national level, and Southerners vice versa.

Bob| 1.8.10 @ 7:09AM

While I agree with your comments, the fact remains that the only reason we don't have "Rockefeller Republicanism" today is that those of us who are fiscal conservatives but social libertarians have left the party. The party is smaller today than it has ever been in modern history. If you don't think size matters in this analysis......

Steve| 1.21.10 @ 6:20AM

Just started a similar discussion over at my blog entitle appropriately enough, The Rockefeller Republican. There may be a kind of evolution happening whereby the traditional Rockefeller is turning into a Live-Free-or-Die Republican a la Scott Brown.