Rep. Connie Morella (MD) was my representative when I lived in Maryland. Her voting record didn’t deviate horribly from the party line, but she had a great reputation among Montgomery County Democrats.
Colin Powell may qualify as well.
This is a great list.
One of the reasons I asked this question is that I’ve started hearing people like John McCain, Arlen Specter, Lincoln Chafee, Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, and James Jeffords (before he left the party) as being referred to as “liberals.” But most of them, especially McCain, are not really liberals – they’re just moderates or slightly less conservative than the Republican leadership.
McCain, especially, I think of as being a mainstream conservative. He just really hates George W. Bush (and he has good reason to), for the way he campaigned in the 2000 primaries. People are talking about McCain as John Kerry’s running mate, but I doubt that would be a very good match (and McCain seems to know it).
BTW, the term “limousine liberal” was apparently coined by one of John Lindsay’s NYC mayoral opponents to describe Lindsay:
Personally, I would call McCain a moderate with a side order of populist. Actually, I would not mind calling him “President” nearly as much as a lot of other current politicos. I WISH we had had a choice between McCain and Lieberman as the two main party candidates.
No doubt, John McCain hates George W. Bush, but if he thinks he lost the GOP nomination 4 years ago because Bush used underhanded campaign tactics, he’s kidding himself. He was the front-runner, he was in the driver’s seat, and he blew it all by choosing to pander to the wrong people.
It’s a truism that the way to win the presidency is to campaign as a member of the far left/right (depending on your party) during the primaries, then race to the middle as fast as possiblke as soon as you’ve sewn up the nomination. John McCain chose to ignore the conventional wisdom. He decided that his best bet was to appeal to liberals in the media from Day One. His entire campaign was geared toward winning the support of people who had no use for the Republican Party. He chose to downplay all the issues that mattered to conservatives, while marketing himself as a maverick.
Small wonder that conservative Republican voters (the won a Republican NEEDS, if he’s going to win the nomination) abandoned him in droves.
If McCain doesn’t see what a huge mistake that was, he’s not nearly as smart as he thinks he is.
In addition to Boehlert, Upstate NY has also produced Jack Quinn, Amory Houghton, Frank Horton, and Barber Conable. Also, don’t forget the La Foletttes in Wisconsin and Harold Stassen of Minnesota.
Arnold Schwarzenegger and George Bush, Sr.
Regards,
Shodan
My dad was one, but he died 2 years ago, so they may becoming extinct.
No one’s answered my question: what is a liberal Republican? On which issues are they most likely to deviate from moderate democrats or mainstream Republicans? I have a vague understanding of conservative Dems. They are either old-school Dixiecrat types with conservative or reactionary positions on civil rights, but populist, pro-labor and pro-farmer positions that keep them on the Democrat side of the aisle (these are increasingly rare) or modern “third-way-ers” like Clinton, with moderate-to-liberal social positions and moderate pro-business, pro-trade economic positions (these are increasingly common, but aren’t really conservative, just centrist). What are the equivalent positions for Republicans?
Aitara: "Mark O. Hatfield- He served as governor of Oregon 1959-1967, then was elected to the Senate in 1966 and served until 1997. He was best known for his anti-war positions, co-writing a book on nuclear weapons freezes with Teddy Kennedy.
“Bob Packwood — Before he self-destructed, he had been one of the leading proponents of women’s issues in the Senate. . .”
NDP: “William Weld would probably qualify as a liberal in the Republican Party. Apparently uber-Republican Jesse Helms found Weld’s views on issues like gay rights and medical marijauna deviated from the party line to such a degree that he blocked his nomination as Ambassador to Mexico in 1997.”
syncrolecyne: “New Mexico’s former Republican governor Gary Johnson was pro-choice, favored drug decriminalization. . .”
Those are certainly examples, but they don’t show any coherency. Is any Republican with one or two liberal views a “liberal Republican”? Some of those positions are consistant with a libertarian position, which I understand. That’s not what the OP meant by the “Rockefeller wing” of the GOP, though, is it?