Take, for example, the actual policies (not who opposed who, just what was written in the legislation) when Eisenhower was president. The majority of the Republican party today would never vote for Eisenhower-style bills. Republican policy at that time was to the left of even where Democratic policy is today.
I don’t think this is correct.
I think it’s only true if you look at direction and not actual policy. So if you say “Eisenhower expanded civil rights and the Republicans today are not in favor of expanding civil rights” or similar, then it’s true. But if you look at “the actual policies” that Eisenhower enacted in the course of expanding civil rights, they’re things that would be taken for granted by Republicans of all stripes nowadays (e.g. desegregating schools).
Mark Warner of VA was Republican and is now Democrat. Moderate both. Mark Warner - Wikipedia
Where do you see that Mark Warner was once a Republican? (Are you sure you’re not confusing him with John Warner?)
That makes sense, and it seems to me to open the question of which is more important in a politician - their immediate situation, or the direction that they’re trying to influence their situation.
I’m not sure what you mean by “important”, and more significantly, whether someone is taking a stance on a given issue because he believes in that specific position on that specific issue versus trying to influence things in that general direction seems to be highly speculative for the most part.
But at any rate, in the context of this specific discussion I would think the actual stance on specific issues is what counts. Suppose you have someone who was strongly in favor of integration but strongly opposed to all immigration and affirmative action back in the 50s, and he maintained those exact stances over the ensuing 6 decades. That guy would move from being a liberal to being a conservative on race without having changed his position on a single issue, by virtue of the country having moved to the left while he stayed in position.
There’s another wholly reasonable theory that most politicians are blank pages that will adapt themselves to their constituency and base. Some politicos are fairly explicit about this if in the mood.
I once combed through 1980s voting records to discover the rep that best matched my views: I even had a spreadsheet. I then figured out that what I liked was… high tech urban districts. Pro-choice, pro free trade, technocratic.
Do political pundits count?
If so, Arianna Huffington and Ed Schultz both made a meaningful change on their views.
There is almost no truth to this at all. Eisenhower believed in a very interventionist foreign policy, much more so than any party today. On Spending he was a deficit hawk and spending as percentage of GDP went down 2% in his presidency. On immigration he launched Operation Wetback to round up and deport illegal Mexican immigrants. The biggest policy difference with todays Republicans would be taxes since Ike wanted balanced budgets before tax cuts.
:smack: I think you’re right. He was a “Virginia Democrat” governor, he really seemed like a Republican but apparently was always a Democrat. I stand corrected.
He wasn’t considered a conservative while he was President, either.
Only if they’re sincere.
Their *stated *views. Both looked more like examples of target marketing.
I remember when he died and a bunch of us in the college dorm were watching the news. Our resident SDS member gushed how he was one of the bestest liberals ever then, I said, “You mean the guy who as Governor of California advocated throwing the Japanese into internment camps at the outbreak of WWII?” He didn’t believe it.
Yes he was.
In 2007, Barack Obama was (his claim) a religious social conservative who opposed gay marriage, and a fiscal conservative who campaigned on getting rid of the deficit and cutting taxes. He was also a trade protectionist who campaigned against NAFTA and promised to reform it to protect workers. He also wanted to streamline Washington and reform lobbying.
Four years later, and he was fully supportive of gay marriage and free trade, while running record deficits and presiding over a huge expansion of government in DC.
Mainstream macro economics prescribes larger deficits during recession and smaller deficits during economic expansion. For example, central bank chief (and registered Republican) Ben Bernanke called for additional fiscal stimulus for years after the first one passed in 2009, without success because of Republican congressional opposition.
So in economic policy, I don’t see evidence for inconsistency.
Let’s look at gay marriage. Polling shows that public attitudes have changed dramatically: in 2009 40% supported it, while 4 years later it was up to 54%. Republicans alone had a shift of about 10 percentage points during that era. Cite: http://news.gallup.com/poll/210566/support-gay-marriage-edges-new-high.aspx
Surely, we’re discussing those who shifted their politics relative to their colleagues, right? I mean I doubt whether a liberal southerner’s positions on civil rights in 1955 would be considered particularly forward thinking today.
Not really. He had been a center right Republican his entire career, he had staked out a position in 1980 against Reaganomics/supply side, which he called “voodoo economics”, he was constantly fighting off people like Pat Buchanan, and because conservativea didn’t trust him, he had to make that anti-tax pledge when he was campaigning, which he later broke, and thereby confirmed conservative fears that he was a vascular in opportunist who couldn’t be trusted.
Record deficits? That’ll be the same Barack Obama who cut the deficit by 1/3 by the end of his term? Early on he had large deficits driven by the two wars and worse recession since the Great Depression he inherited, but as the economy improved the deficits dropped significantly, even despite the tax cuts. The idea that Obama was a profligate spender, particularly compared to the presidents that bookend him, is not borne out by even cursory scrutiny.
HUH?? Are you saying abortion wasn’t a divisive partly-line issue prior to the 90s??