Quote:
Originally posted by Mike AI@Oct 18 2004, 03:40 PM
How many Presidential candidates who have called themselves a liberal during the campaign won??
It is funny to watch how fast Deemocrats run from the L word.
I was not alive during most of those elections, but what I have read and studied about them - I do not remember JFK calling himself a liberal. Infact JFKs policies were very Conservative. ( especially compaired to modern times)
PD you are trying to cofuse the issues. Just because a person is not as conservative as Goldwater does not make him "libera;" - the measuring stick "more liberal then" is pretty weak.
The only truly liberal of the group was Carter, at least openly - and look at the disaster he led!
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Mike ... Kennedy WAS conservative by the standards of today - DEFINITELY more conservative than Humphrey or Stevenson. Still, he was certainly more liberal than Nixon, and was attacked in all the traditional ways - would be "soft on communism", would treat niggers like real citizens, run up huge deficits (back when Republicans thought they were bad), blah-blah-blah.
Frankly, I think that Reagan was, and Bush II is, every bit as conservative as Barry Goldwater. The Republican Party has definitely taken a hard right over the last 50 years, and particularly since Reagan. It started with the Mitchell Plan to recruit disgruntled white voters in the early 70s, and continued with the galvanization of the religious right in the 80s and 90s.
Mikey, whether you like it or not the country is pretty evenly divided between left and right. In the 50 year timeframe you outlined, the Republicans have won 7 elections (Eisenhower, Nixon (2), Reagan (2), Bush I, Bush II); and the Democrats have won 5 (Kennedy; Johnson; Carter; Clinton (2)).
You can prattle on about how the Democrats have run away from the L word - I don't dispute that. I don't think that means a fucking thing. The truth of the matter is, a shift of a thousand votes or so in the last election and it would be 7-6. I don't know how you can deny how evenly divided the country is.
Even if the candidates THEMSELVES don't label themselves liberal, there are more than enough people like you screaming it.