What Has Happened to the Republican Party?

[D. Allan]

Quote:

Miss [susan] Eisenhower, the granddaughter of the Second World War hero and two-term president Dwight Eisenhower, has become one of the most prominent members of a new breed – Obamacans (Republicans backing Mr Obama).

"I am proud to be an Eisenhower Republican. But my wing of the party, fiscally conservative and socially progressive, is not represented by the Republican party today.

"It has become a socially conservative and fiscally reckless party," she told The Sunday Telegraph. ...

Miss Eisenhower, 56, runs the Eisenhower Institute, a public policy think-tank. She gave interviews promoting Mr Obama in North Carolina ahead of his crushing victory there last week and said she would step up her campaigning for the general election.

Julie Nixon Eisenhower, 59, the youngest daughter of the disgraced former president Richard Nixon and wife of Susan's brother, David, is also supporting Mr Obama. -By Philip Sherwell, 12 May 2008 source

[Dr. Shane]

When Eisenhower first decided to run for President he had to decide which party to join. He never held elected office before becoming President. His vice-president, Richard Nixon, was a moderate Republican if that is any indication of Eisenhower's place in the party. That was a long time ago.

Teddy Roosevelt was a Republican and Franklin Roosevelt was a Democrat. Teddy was Franklin's fifth cousin and was President while Franklin was in college.

[Bravus]

Hehe - it really is a bit of a Dynasty, isn't it? America doesn't have one hereditary royal family, but it has a few closely related ones. I believe the Bushes are related to the Clintons, and even Obama is related to the Bushes in some obscure way, I think.

[Jeannieb43]

Quote:

Miss [susan] Eisenhower, the granddaughter of the Second World War hero and two-term president Dwight Eisenhower, has become one of the most prominent members of a new breed – Obamacans (Republicans backing Mr Obama).

"I am proud to be an Eisenhower Republican. But my wing of the party, fiscally conservative and socially progressive, is not represented by the Republican party today.

"It has become a socially conservative and fiscally reckless party," she told The Sunday Telegraph. ...

Miss Eisenhower, 56, runs the Eisenhower Institute, a public policy think-tank. She gave interviews promoting Mr Obama in North Carolina ahead of his crushing victory there last week and said she would step up her campaigning for the general election.

Julie Nixon Eisenhower, 59, the youngest daughter of the disgraced former president Richard Nixon and wife of Susan's brother, David, is also supporting Mr Obama. -By Philip Sherwell, 12 May 2008 source

My sentiments exactly.

The Republican Party is not what it used to be -- in any way, shape or form.

[Dr. Shane]

The Republican Party, like the Democratic Party, has always had divisions or "wings" in it. Eisenhower didn't belong to either party before he ran for President. Looking back one can see the Nixon wing contrast with the Goldwater wing.

McCain is definitely not from the Bush wing. So regardless if we elect Obama or McCain we are going to get change.

[Neil D]

McCain is definitely not from the Bush wing. So regardless if we elect Obama or McCain we are going to get change.

If McCain gets elected, I don't think so...I have heard McCain's retoric before in other republican cannidates....and they didn't bring change....Same ol' same old.

Obama explains what he is going to do....McCain states what he is giong to do...Do you want an authoritarian or a leader? I will choose the leader...

[D. Allan]

Republican 'change' has been toward the wrong direction.

Quote:

To the Editor:

Paul Krugman wonders about the source of Republican anger and traces it to class and economic resentment. I suspect that what really underlies Republican anger is fear.

The Republican core is scared that the dominance that white, Christian men have enjoyed in the New World since 1492 is slipping away. And they are right to be scared. The demographics are not on their side.

In just over 30 years, according to the latest projections, ethnic minorities (African-Americans, Latinos, Asians and Native Americans) will be the numerical majority and can form ruling political and economic coalitions.

The Democratic Party represents the interests of these groups far better than does the G.O.P. Republican resentment is not about the past or present, but about the future.

David Levinson

West Haven, Conn., Sept. 5, 2008

More from the same source /dAb

[Dr. Shane]

McCain has been rocking the boat since he first went to Washington. If he is elected it will almost be like electing a member of a third party. He is Republican by name but many Republicans do not consider him one of them. I have been listening to talk radio off and on for years and the talk radio hosts have railed against McCain for years. In 2000 McCain considered becoming an independent and caucusing with the Democrats. He is very much a change from anything we have had in Washington for a long time.

Obama is change from Bush but not change from Washington. If we elect Obama we will get a Democrat just like we had with Clinton, Carter and Johnson. I am not saying that as an insult or insinuating it is a bad thing. Many people want a Democratic administration. My point is that we are not going to get anything we haven't had before. Obama's choice in a VP shows what we can expect for the rest of his cabinet. Biden is very entrenched in the Washington establishment. Biden does represent change from Bush but not change from politics as usual.

I think both candidates have good things to offer. I think both would make good Presidents. McCain will do some good things that Obama won't and will do some bad things that Obama won't. The same is true of Obama. Both of them will bring change. One will bring change from politics as usual and the other will bring change from a Republican administration.

[D. Allan]

Quote:

Throughout his presidency, Eisenhower preached a doctrine of dynamic conservatism.

He continued all the major New Deal programs still in operation, especially Social Security. He expanded its programs and rolled them into a new cabinet-level agency, the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, while extending benefits to an additional ten million workers. -wikipedia

To today's Republican's he might be considered a 'socialist!' /dAb

[Dr. Shane]

Actually, he was probably considered a socialist by a lot of the Republicans of his own day.

[John317]

I don't know of any Republicans who have ever considered Eisenhower "socialist." I was little when Eisenhower ran for the presidency for the first time and I do remember the second term very well. There was never any talk about him in that way at that time, and I do not know of any Republicans today who consider him in that light.

Eisenhower never criticized the capitalist system per se or campaigned for socialist candidates.

[D. Allan]

Of course it is ridiculus to call Eisenhower a Socialist, with a capital letter. Just as it is to intimate that Obama one.

Perhaps some socialist facets could make our gov. a more valuable jewel as per France, Germany and Britian (health care for all, for one). - esp. might one think that after these last 8 yrs. which approach being worthy of the epithet: "Stalinist". /dAb

[John317]

Of course it is ridiculus to call Eisenhower a Socialist, with a capital letter. Just as it is to intimate that Obama one.

Has Obama campaigned for socialists before?

Has any other major party candidate for US president ever campaigned for socialists?

Did Eisenhower do it?

[John317]

Check out some of the evidence of what Obama has written and said about socialism:

http://gregransom.com/prestopundit/2008/04/gregs-guide-to-barack-obamas-d.html

[D. Allan]

[D. Allan]

Guilt by association: It is Obama's FATHER they're talking about. OBAMA, SR.

Makes me think of the McCarthy hearings and all the innocent people who were ruined.

/dAb

[John317]

Much of it does look at Obama's father. But it is looking at him because Obama has said his father was a big influence on him. Also, this part is about the candidate, Obama, himself:

Quote:

There's a big mystery at the heart of Barack Obama's Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance. What was Barack Obama doing seeking out Marxist professors in college? Why did Obama choose a Communist Party USA member as his socio- political counselor in high school? Why was he spending his time studying neocolonialism and the writings of Frantz Fanon, the pro-violence author of "the Communist Manifesto of neocolonialsm", in college? Why did he take time out from his studies at Columbia to attend socialist conferences at Cooper Union?

And there is more mystery in the book. Why does Obama consider working in a consulting house for international business like being "a spy behind enemy lines?" Why does he repeatedly find it so hard to explain his political views to others? Why was he driven to become a left-aligned political organizer? It's a question Obama again and again can't seem to answer to the satisfaction of the interlocutors in his own memoir.

If there is a mystery at the heart of Barack Obama's Dreams From My Father, one thing is not left a mystery, the fact that Barack Obama organized his life on the ideals given to him by his Kenyan father. Obama tells us, "All of my life, I carried a single image of my father, one that I .. tried to take as my own." (p. 220) And what was that image? It was "the father of my dreams, the man in my mother's stories, full of high-blown ideals .." (p. 278) What is more, Obama tells us that, "It was into my father's image .. that I'd packed all the attributes I sought in myself." And also that, "I did feel that there was something to prove .. to my father" in his efforts at political organizing. (p. 230)

So we know that his father's ideals were a driving force in his life, but the one thing that Obama does not give us are the contents of those ideals. The closest he comes is when he tells us that his father lost his position in the government when he came into conflict with Jomo Kenyatte, the President of Kenya sometime in the mid 1960s; when he tells us that his father was imprisoned for his political views by the government just prior to the end of colonial rule; and when he tells us that the attributes of W. E. B. DuBois, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, and Nelson Mandela were the ones he associated with his father and also the ones that he sought to instill in himself. (p. 220)

[carolaa]

"All of my life, I carried a single image of my father, one that I .. tried to take as my own." (p. 220) And what was that image? It was "the father of my dreams, the man in my mother's stories, full of high-blown ideals .." (p. 278) What is more, Obama tells us that, "It was into my father's image .. that I'd packed all the attributes I sought in myself." And also that, "I did feel that there was something to prove .. to my father" in his efforts at political organizing. (p. 230)

So we know that his father's ideals were a driving force in his life, but the one thing that Obama does not give us are the contents of those ideals.

[John317]

OK, that's probably true of Obama as a kid. But what about Obama the man, the Senator, the man who would be the American president? He has certainly learned more about his father. What does he think? What is the evidence? I think that is the question here and what people want to know about him.

It's interesting that Obama has been to Kenya on several occasions and has campaigned for the current leader there, Raila Odinga, a Marxist, who claims that Obama's dad was the brother of his maternal uncle.

[carolaa]

It's interesting that Obama has been to Kenya on several occasions and has campaigned for the current leader there, Raila Odinga, a Marxist, who claims that Obama's dad was the brother of his maternal uncle.

What's interesting is that Odinga claims to be a social democrat, which is the same as Tony Blair's party affiliation. (according to Wikipedia)

[John317]

But if you research into Raila Odinga and his Orange Democratic Movement, you find they are Marxist/socialist. Odinga was trained in East Germany, by the way. Obama personally campaigned for Odinga in Kenya in 2006.

Wikipedia on some recent Kenyan history:

The last general elections were held on December 27, 2007. In them, President Kibaki under the Party of National Unity ran for re-election against the main opposition party, the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM). After a split which would take a crucial 8% of the votes away from the ODM to the newly formed Orange Democratic Movement-Kenya (ODM-K)'s candidate, Kalonzo Musyoka, the race tightened between ODM candidate Raila Odinga and Kibaki. As the count came in to the Kenyan Election Commission, Odinga was shown to have a slight, and then substantial lead. However, as the Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK) continued to count the votes, Kibaki closed the gap and then overtook his opponent by a substantial margin amid largely substantiated claims of rigging from both sides of the political divide (notably by the EU Observers). This led to protests and riots, open discrediting of the ECK for complicity and to Odinga declaring himself the "people's president" and calling for a recount and Kibaki to resign.

The protests escalated into unprecedented violence and destruction of property, leading to over 1000 deaths and the internal displacement of over 350,000 people. A Kofi Annan led group of eminent persons of Africa was called in to broker a peaceful solution to the political stalemate. It enjoys the backing of the United Nations, European Union, African Union, United States as well governments of various other notable countries across the world. More information is available in clashes in Kenya (2007–present).

Kofi Annan requested mediation support for his team on the Panel Secretariat from the Swiss based conflict mediation organisation, the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue. They seconded two staff on a full time basis to the talks and provided strategic advice through a network of senior advisors; logistical and technical assistance to the secretariat; prepared tools to facilitate the discussions and helped formulate agreements on relevant political issues.

On February 28, 2008, President Mwai Kibaki and Mr Raila Odinga signed an agreement on the formation of a coalition government in which Mr. Odinga would become Kenya's second prime Minister. Under the deal, the president would also appoint cabinet ministers from both PNU and ODM camps depending on each party's strength in parliament. The agreement stipulated that the cabinet would also include a vice-president and two deputy Prime Ministers. After being debated and passed by parliament, the coalition would hold till the end of the current Parliament or if either of the parties withdraws from the deal before then.

[D. Allan]

[carolaa]

I am aware that Obama campaigned for him, which is the entire reason you are bringing this up. You have mentioned this several times. I think some of the issues you raise are valid, and I hope the Obama campaign will address them.

[olger]

I personally think Homeland security is Dumb Dumb, Dumb..

I'm olger and I approve this message.

[John317]

And how-- almost like the left hand doesn't know what the right hand (arm?) is doing.