Rockefeller Republican

Rockefeller Republicans
Leader Nelson Rockefeller
Founded 1930s–1970s
Ideology Liberal Republican (moderate to center left[1] culturally and socially; to center right economically[2] of Republican Party)
Nelson Rockefeller, after whom Rockefeller Republicans were named.

The Rockefeller Republicans, also called Moderate[3] or Liberal Republicans, were members of the Republican Party (GOP) in the 1930s–1970s who held moderate to liberal views on domestic issues, similar to those of Nelson Rockefeller, Governor of New York (1959–1973) and Vice President of the United States (1974–1977). Rockefeller Republicanism has been described as the last phase of the "Eastern Establishment" of the GOP, which had been led by New York governor Thomas E. Dewey. The group's powerful role in the GOP came under heavy attack in 1964 and it lost most of its influence. At a discouraging point in the 1964 primary campaign against Barry Goldwater in California, political operative Stuart Spencer called on Rockefeller to "summon that fabled nexus of money, influence, and condescension known as the Eastern Establishment. 'You are looking at it, buddy,' Rockefeller told Spencer. 'I am all that is left.'"[4]

Michael Lind contends that the ascendancy of the more conservative fusionist-wing of the Republican Party,[5] beginning in the 1960s with Goldwater and culminating in the Reagan revolution in 1980, prevented the establishment of a Disraelian one-nation conservatism in the United States.[6][7] In its current usage, the term refers to "[a] member of the Republican Party holding views likened to those of Nelson Rockefeller; a moderate or liberal Republican".[8]

Definition

The term largely fell out of use by the end of the twentieth century and has been replaced by the term "moderate Republican". Rockefeller Republicans were typically moderate to center-right, vehemently rejected conservatives like Barry Goldwater and his policies and were often culturally liberal. They espoused government and private investments in environmentalism, healthcare and higher education as necessities for a better society and economic growth, in the tradition of Rockefeller. In general, Rockefeller Republicans opposed socialism and government ownership. They supported some regulation of business and many New Deal-style social programs. A critical element was their support for labor unions and especially the building trades appreciated the heavy spending on infrastructure. In turn, the unions gave these politicians enough support to overcome the anti-union rural element in the Republican Party. As the unions weakened after the 1970s, so too did the need for Republicans to cooperate with them. This transformation played into the hands of the more conservative Republicans, who did not want to collaborate with labor unions in the first place and now no longer needed to do so to carry statewide elections.[9]

In foreign policy, most wanted to use American power in cooperation with allies to fight against the spread of communism. They wanted to help American business expand abroad. Richard Nixon, a moderate establishment Republican within the party's contemporary ideological framework, was influenced by this tradition. Although Nixon ran against Rockefeller from the right in the 1968 primaries and was widely identified with the cultural right of the time, he adopted several Rockefeller Republican policies during his time as President: setting up the Environmental Protection Agency, supporting expanded welfare programs, imposing wage and price controls and in 1971 announcing he was a Keynesian.[10] Rockefeller Republicans were most common in the Northeast and the West Coast, with their larger liberal constituencies, while they were rare in the South and Midwest.[11]

History

Thomas E. Dewey, the Governor of New York from 1942 to 1954 and the Republican presidential nominee in 1944 and 1948, was the leader of the moderate-wing of the Republican Party in the 1940s and early 1950s, battling conservative Republicans from the Midwest led by Senator Robert A. Taft of Ohio, known as "Mr. Republican". With the help of Dewey, General Dwight D. Eisenhower defeated Taft for the 1952 presidential nomination and became the leader of the moderates. Eisenhower coined the phrase "Modern Republicanism" to describe his moderate vision of Republicanism. After Eisenhower, Nelson Rockefeller, the Governor of New York, emerged as the leader of the moderate-wing of the Republican Party, running for President in 1960, 1964 and 1968. Rockefeller Republicans suffered a crushing defeat in 1964 when conservatives captured control of the Republican Party and nominated Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona for President.

Other prominent figures in the GOP's Rockefeller-wing included Pennsylvania Governor Raymond P. Shafer, Pennsylvania Senator Hugh Scott, Illinois Senator Charles H. Percy, Oregon Senator Mark Hatfield, Arkansas Governor Winthrop Rockefeller, Nelson's younger brother (who was somewhat of an aberration in a conservative, heavily Democratic Southern state) and according to some also President Richard Nixon.[12][13] After Vice President Rockefeller left the national stage in 1976, this faction of the party was more often called "moderate Republicans" or Nixonians, in contrast to the conservatives who rallied to Ronald Reagan. Rockefeller Republicans included moderates such as Senator Margaret Chase Smith and liberals such as Jacob Javits.

Historically, Rockefeller Republicans were moderate or liberal on domestic and social policies. They typically favored New Deal programs and a social safety net and they sought to run these programs more efficiently than the Democrats.[14] Rockefeller Republicans also saw themselves as champions of "good government", contrasting themselves to the often corrupt machine politics of the Democratic Party, particularly in large cities. They were strong supporters of big business and Wall Street. Many Republicans of the Eisenhower-Rockefeller vein were major figures in business, such as auto executive George W. Romney and investment banker C. Douglas Dillon. In fiscal policy, they favored balanced budgets and were not averse to raising taxes in order to achieve them. Connecticut Senator Prescott Bush once called for Congress to "raise the required revenues by approving whatever levels of taxation may be necessary".[15]

In state politics, they were strong supporters of state colleges and universities, low tuition and large research budgets. They favored infrastructure improvements, such as highway projects. In foreign policy, they tended to be Hamiltonian, espousing internationalist and realist policies, supporting the United Nations and promoting American business interests abroad.

Barry Goldwater crusaded against the Rockefeller Republicans, beating Rockefeller narrowly in the California primary of 1964. That set the stage for a conservative resurgence, based in the South and West in opposition to the Northeast Rockefeller wing. However, in 1968 the moderate contingent recaptured control of the party and nominated Richard Nixon. He was easily reelected in 1972 and after he resigned the moderate-to-conservative Republican Gerald Ford replaced him as President. Four years after nearly toppling the incumbent Ford in the 1976 presidential primaries, conservative Ronald Reagan won the party's presidential nomination at the 1980 convention and served two terms in the White House. By 1988, the Republicans had chosen Prescott Bush's son George H. W. Bush as its presidential candidate on a conservative platform. Bush's national convention pledge to stave off new taxation were he elected president ("Read my lips: no new taxes!") marked the candidate's full conversion to the conservative movement and perhaps the political death knell for Rockefeller Republicanism as a prevailing force within party politics.

Modern use

The Rockefeller Republican label is sometimes applied to such modern-day politicians as Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, who served as a Republican in the U.S. Senate before being elected that state's governor as an independent. He later became a Democrat and briefly sought that party's 2016 presidential nomination.[16]

Ethnic changes in the Northeast may have led to the demise of the Rockefeller Republican. Many Republican leaders associated with this title were White Anglo-Saxon Protestants like Charles Mathias of Maryland. Liberal New York Republican U.S. Senator Jacob Javits, who had an Americans for Democratic Action rating above 90% and an American Conservative Union rating below 10%, was Jewish. As time went on, the local Republican parties in the northeast tended to nominate Catholic candidates who appealed to middle class, social values-laden concerns, such as George Pataki, Rudy Giuliani, Al D'Amato, Rick Lazio, Tom Ridge, Chris Christie and others, who in many cases represented the party's diversity more on the basis of religion and were often otherwise like their Protestant conservative counterparts.

The term "Rockefeller Republican" is now somewhat archaic as Nelson Rockefeller died in 1979 and Republicans with these views are now generally referred to as simply "moderate Republicans" or pejoratively RINOs, i.e. Republicans in Name Only.[17] Christine Todd Whitman, former Governor of New Jersey, referred to herself as a Rockefeller Republican in a speech on Governor Rockefeller at Dartmouth College in 2008.[18] Lloyd Blankfein, Chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs, who is a registered Democrat, referred to himself as a "Rockefeller Republican" in a CNBC interview in April 2012.[19] The retired four-star generals Colin Powell and David Petraeus have both described themselves as "Rockefeller Republicans".[20][21][22] Former Senator Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine) are also two notable moderate-to-liberal Republicans from the Northeast.[23] Former Senator Scott Brown (R-Massachusetts), who also ran a US Senate campaign in New Hampshire, also had a voting record described as more liberal than most Republicans.[24][25]

Senator John McCain was often referred to as a moderate during his 2000 and 2008 presidential campaigns by opponents and commentators alike. In the 2000 primary, Bush described the race as "going to be a clear race between a more moderate-to-liberal candidate vs. a conservative candidate in the state of South Carolina".[26] NPR covered the 2008 campaign reporting that "some conservative Republicans say McCain's voting record shows him to be too moderate a GOP candidate".[27] The BBC reported that that this reputation as being more centrist was "for his relatively moderate views on civil unions, abortion and immigration reform".[28] In 2004 and 2006, McCain was one of a few Republicans who voted against banning same-sex marriage at the federal level, arguing that the issue should be left to the states.[29] However, FiveThirtyEight, which tracks and scores Congressional votes, had found that McCain had shifted between being more moderate and more conservative based on its study.[30]

In 2012, the GOP nominated as their candidate for president Mitt Romney a Governor who had described himself as moderate and progressive in 2002. Running for Governor of Massachusetts, he said of himself: "I'm not a partisan Republican," Romney said. "I'm someone who is moderate, and . . . my views are progressive".[31] In his 1994 US Senate campaign Romney distanced himself from Ronald Reagan noting that he was an independent during the Reagan presidency.[32] One of his 2012 primary opponents, Newt Gingrich, even referred to Romney as a "Rockefeller Republican" in order to draw a contrast between Romney's former self-description and his own.[33] However, in his own words during the 2012 campaign, Romney described himself as a "severely conservative" Republican.[34]

In 1988 at the Republican National Convention, Donald Trump was asked by Larry King on CNN: "You might be classified as an Eastern Republican, Rockefeller Republican. Fair?", to which Trump replied: "I guess you can say that". When Trump was considering to run against Andrew Cuomo for Governor of New York, Trump was dubbed as a "Conservative Rockefeller Republican".[35] During his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump was described as both a modern-day Rockefeller Republican (by some conservative writers)[36][37][38] and as the heir to the Goldwaterite opposition to the Rockefeller Republicans.[39][40][41]

Revival in New England and the Northeast

"Liberal to moderate Northeastern Republicans once were as much a part of the political landscape as today's liberals from Massachusetts".[42] By 2009, CNN published an analysis describing how liberal and moderate Republicans had declined by the start of the 21st century.[42] In 2010, Scott Brown was elected to the Senate to fill the seat once held by Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy; he was considered to be a moderate Republican in a similar mold as Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine.[43]

The Atlantic referred to the election of Northeastern Republicans as being similar to "Rockefeller-style liberal Republicanism", even though the label is not necessarily used by the candidates themselves.[44] Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker "is socially liberal [...] He is pro-choice and has long supported gay marriage". In Vermont, the voters elected Phil Scott as Governor. Describing himself, Governor Scott stated that "I am very much a fiscal conservative. But not unlike most Republicans in the Northeast, I'm probably more on the left of center from a social standpoint", Scott explained. "I am a pro–choice Republican".[45] In 2017, The Washington Post described Larry Hogan, another Republican governor in a deep-blue state, as "a moderate Republican who is focused on jobs and the economy".[46] According to the National Review, Rockefeller Republicanism, as a wing of the Republican Party, is making a re-appearance in New England and the Northeast. "At the state level, however, a kind of Rockefeller Republicanism seems to be rising once again in recent years".[47]

Perception by the Tea Party movement

The moderate and moderately conservative wing of the Republican Party, has traditionally been considered, and sometimes even derisively called, the 'establishment' of the party.[48] In 2010, several moderate Republicans lost their primaries or were challenged by the Tea Party movement. In Alaska, Lisa Murkowski, the ranking member of the Energy and Natural Resources committee, lost her GOP primary to conservative Tea Party challenger, Joe Miller.[49] The Tea Party's campaign organization "helped Miller portray the senator as too liberal for the state".[50] Mike Castle, a moderate former Governor and Representative of Delaware, lost his primary to conservative 'insurgent' Christine O'Donnell who depicted Castle as being too liberal.[51] Senator John McCain survived a primary in 2010, but his Tea Party opponent, J.D. Hayworth, accused him of being insufficiently conservative.[52] A few years after, in 2014, the Arizona Republican Party censured McCain "for a record they called too 'liberal'".[53] An op-ed of the Washington Post made the assertion that Castle's loss marked the end of the party legacy of Nelson Rockefeller.[54] In another case study, GOP-nominated Dede Scozzafava was opposed by national conservatives within the Republican Party during her election bid in an upstate New York Congressional district. "National PACs upset with Scozzafava's support of the federal stimulus, EFCA, same-sex marriage and abortion rights poured on money and attacks".[55] She was pressured to drop out of the race, and when she did the Republican National Committee endorsed Tea Party-backed, Doug Hoffman.[56]

Notable Moderate Republicans

Charlie Baker, Governor of Massachusetts[57][58]

Scott Brown, former US Senator from Massachusetts[59][60]

Lincoln Chafee, former Republican US Senator from Rhode Island[61][62]

Susan Collins, US Senator from Maine[63][64]

Lisa Murkowski, US Senator from Alaska[65][66]

Olympia Snowe, former US Senator from Maine[67][68]

Christine Todd Whitman, former Governor of New Jersey[69]

See also

References

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  2. Libby 2013, p. 77.
  3. Stebenne 2006, p. 38.
  4. Smith 2014, p. xxi.
  5. Lind 1997, pp. 53-54.
  6. Lind 1997, pp. 45-46.
  7. Lind 1997, pp. 55.
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  9. Rae. Decline and Fall of the Liberal Republicans: 1952 to the Present (1989)
  10. Reeves 2002, p. 295.
  11. Reiter (1981)
  12. Halberstam, David (1993). The Fifties. The Random House Publishing Group. New York. ISBN 0-449-90933-6. pp. 312–315.
  13. "If Nixon Were Alive Today, He Would Be Far Too Liberal to Get Even the Democratic Nomination". Alternet.org. 2011-07-29. Retrieved 2016-02-23.
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  15. Micklethwait & Woolridge 2005, p. 29.
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  18. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2013-02-23. Retrieved 2012-08-17.
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  36. "Donald Trump's Empire State Role Model". National Review. September 29, 2015.
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  56. Peters, Adam Nagourney and Jeremy W. "Dede Scozzafava, Republican, Quits House Race in Upstate New York". Retrieved 2018-07-08.
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  61. "5 Things You Should Know About Lincoln Chafee". NPR.org. Retrieved 2018-10-14.
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  63. Sen. Susan Collins hopes moderates will return to the GOP | PBS NewsHour, retrieved 2018-10-14
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  65. "With Roe in the Balance, Two Republicans Hold High Court in Their Hands". Retrieved 2018-10-14.
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  67. Livingston, Abby; Shiner, Meredith; Livingston, Abby; Shiner, Meredith (2012-02-28). "Olympia Snowe Shocks Colleagues With Retirement". Roll Call. Retrieved 2018-10-14.
  68. Snowe: Not a lot of company as moderate Republican, retrieved 2018-10-14
  69. Miller, Matt. "'It's My Party Too': A Bigger Tent". Retrieved 2018-10-14.

Bibliography

  • Baldi, Alipio (2012). On His Own Terms: A Life of Nelson Rockefeller. WestBow Press. ISBN 1-449-76213-1.
  • Libby (2013). Purging the Republican Party: Tea Party Campaigns and Elections. Lexington Books,. ISBN 0-739-18764-3.
  • Lind, Michael (1997). Up from Conservatism. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 0-684-83186-4.
  • Micklethwait, John; Woolridge, Adrian (2005). The Right Nation: Why America is Different. Penguin. ISBN 0-141-01536-5.
  • Reeves, Richard (2002). President Nixon: Alone in the White House. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 0-743-22719-0.
  • Smith, Richard Norton (2014). On His Own Terms: A Life of Nelson Rockefeller. Random House. ISBN 0-375-50580-6.
  • Stebenne, David L. (2006). Modern Republican: Arthur Larson and the Eisenhower Years. Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-11232-X.

Further reading

  • Burns, James MacGregor. The Deadlock of Democracy. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: 1967.
  • Joyner, Conrad. The Republican Dilemma: Conservatism or Progressivism (1963)
  • Kabaservice, Geoffrey. Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the destruction of the Republican Party, from Eisenhower to the Tea Party (Oxford University Press, 2012).
  • Kristol, Irving. "American Conservatism 1945–1995". Public Interest 94 (Fall 1995): 80–91.
  • Perlstein, Rick. Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus (2001) text search, survey of GOP politics in 1960s
  • Reinhard, David W. The Republican Right since 1945 (1983)
  • Rae, Nicol. Decline and Fall of the Liberal Republicans: 1952 to the Present. 1989.
  • Reichley, A. James. Conservatives in an Age of Change: The Nixon and Ford Administrations. 1981.
  • Reiter, Howard. "Intra-Party Cleavages in the United States Today." Western Political Quarterly 34 (1981): 287–300.
  • Sherman, Janann. No Place for a Woman: A Life of Senator Margaret Chase Smith (2000)
  • Smith, Richard Norton. On His: Terms: A Life of Nelson Rockefeller (2014), a major scholarly biography
  • Underwood, James F., and William J. Daniels. Governor Rockefeller in New York: The Apex of Pragmatic Liberalism in the United States (1982)
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