# Do candidates change their parties?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-candidates-change-their-parties/747241>\
**Category:** Politics & Elections\
**Created:** [February 26, 2016, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-candidates-change-their-parties/747241 "2016-02-26T19:44:42Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\
**Post date:** [February 26, 2016, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-candidates-change-their-parties/747241/1 "2016-02-26T19:44:42Z")

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If a party chooses a candidate who is at odds with some or much of the party’s dogma or platform, does this tend to change the party at all?

If so, if the Republicans nominate Trump, will his tolerance of government spending make the party less ideologically hostile to it?

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**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\
**Post date:** [February 26, 2016, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-candidates-change-their-parties/747241/2 "2016-02-26T20:00:02Z")

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That’s a deep question, dude. Does man change the society, or does society change the man?

Republicans, like everyone else, are for big government spending. Actions speaker louder than words.

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**Author:** ![TheSeaOtter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ed655f/32.png) [@TheSeaOtter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheSeaOtter)\
**Post date:** [February 26, 2016, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-candidates-change-their-parties/747241/3 "2016-02-26T20:46:36Z")

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Krugman argues in today’s column that a significant portion of the Republican base (including the Trump supporters) was never really against government spending:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/26/opinion/twilight-of-the-apparatchiks.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/26/opinion/twilight-of-the-apparatchiks.html)

> [@](#):
>
> Here’s an example: Last summer, back when Mr. Trump was just beginning his rise, he promised not to cut Social Security, and insiders like William Kristol gleefully declared that he was “willing to lose the primary to win the general.” In reality, however, Republican voters don’t at all share the elite’s enthusiasm for entitlement cuts — remember, George W. Bush’s attempt to privatize Social Security ran aground in the face of disapproval from Republicans as well as Democrats.
> 
> Yet the Republican establishment still seems unable to understand that hardly any of its own voters, let alone the voters it would need to win in the general election, are committed to free-market, small-government ideology. Indeed, although Marco Rubio — the establishment’s last hope — has finally started to go after the front-runner, so far his attack seems to rest almost entirely on questioning the coiffed one’s ideological purity. Why does he imagine that voters care?

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**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\
**Post date:** [February 26, 2016, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-candidates-change-their-parties/747241/4 "2016-02-26T20:49:17Z")

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> [@TheSeaOtter](#):
>
> Krugman argues in today’s column that a significant portion of the Republican base (including the Trump supporters) was never really against government spending:
> 
> [http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/26/opinion/twilight-of-the-apparatchiks.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/26/opinion/twilight-of-the-apparatchiks.html)

I agree with him, but the party is ideologically (not necessarily in actuality) opposed.