# Not from the US but WTF kind of candidates are the Republicans really offering up? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [January 11, 2012, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-from-the-us-but-wtf-kind-of-candidates-are-the-republicans-really-offering-up/609182 "2012-01-11T18:02:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 19
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2012, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-from-the-us-but-wtf-kind-of-candidates-are-the-republicans-really-offering-up/609182/19 "2012-01-12T20:26:42Z")
> [@mnemosyne](#): > > Funny, I get my news from multiple sources and reach conclusions based upon the sum of the information provided to me, largely based upon quotes, actions and behaviour of the people involved. You know, an attempt at having an informed opinion. > > I am not American, but from my perspective, this group of Republicans look like pinheads all on their own. The comedic opportunities are just a bonus. The reason why has to do with the rise of “Movement Conservatism” after the Goldwater campaign of 1964. Once upon a time there were commonsensical Republicans, known as [“Rockefeller Republicans”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockefeller_Republicans) (not for their wealth but because Nelson Rockefeller was a prominent one), socially liberal, pro-civil-rights-movement, moderately conservative on fiscal and economic matters. But the Movement Conservatives – forming a coalition of various very dissimilar factions (Commie-fighting warhawks, small-l libertarians, social-religious conservatives, nativist-populists, Midwestern conservatives who wanted the whole New Deal rolled back to zero, white Southern conservatives reacting to the civil-rights movement, and always business-interests conservatives above all) who more or less agreed to work together for common goals in a “No Enemies To The Right” strategy – took over the party, mounted the Reagan Revolution in 1980, and gradually marginalized the Rockefeller Republicans. You can read the story in [_The Right Nation: Conservative Power in America,_](http://www.amazon.com/Right-Nation-Conservative-Power-America/dp/1594200203) by Adrian Wooldridge and John Mickelthwait. And now, just these past three years, the Tea Party emerged, which **still** finds the GOP insufficiently radical-conservative and is trying to push it **further** right and succeeding. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-from-the-us-but-wtf-kind-of-candidates-are-the-republicans-really-offering-up/609182)._