The sons and daughters of some iconic Republicans (Ike! T.R.!) are contemplating crossing the aisle

[CatWoman]

May 14, 2007 issue - Susan Eisenhower is an accomplished professional, the president of an international consulting firm. She also happens to be Ike's granddaughter—and in that role, she's the humble torchbearer for moderate "Eisenhower Republicans."

Increasingly, however, she says that the partisanship and free spending of the Bush presidency—and the takeover of the party by single-issue voters, especially pro-lifers—is driving these pragmatic, fiscally conservative voters out of the GOP. Eisenhower says she could vote Democratic in 2008, but she's still intent on saving her party. "I made a pact with a number of people," she tells NEWSWEEK. "I said, 'Please don't leave the party without calling me first.' For a while, there weren't too many calls. And then suddenly, there was a flurry of them. I found myself watching them slip away one by one."

Eisenhower isn't the only GOP scion debating if the party still feels like home. Theodore Roosevelt IV, an investment banker in New York and an environmental activist like his great-grandfather, Teddy, takes issue with what he says is George W. Bush's inattention to global warming (and Republican presidential contender John McCain's flirtations with the religious right).

He's unhappy with the cost of the global war on terror and the record deficits incurred to finance it. Ninety years ago, former president Teddy Roosevelt attacked Woodrow Wilson's pro-democracy idealism, calling it "milk-and-water righteousness"; Roosevelt's great-grandson doesn't like how the current president is promoting values abroad, either. "I come from a tradition of pragmatic Republicanism," he says. "This administration has taken the idea of aggressively exporting democracy à la Woodrow Wilson and gone in a direction even Wilson wouldn't have considered."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18507722/site/newsweek/

[kskiska]

1. Hmmm. Goldwater's daughter, too.

I wonder where David and Julie (Nixon) Eisenhower stand?

[Nickster]

2. Funny, T.R.'s grandson should do some reading before he exonerates his Grand Pappy so easily.

I'd say TR and Dubya had a lot more in common than the grandson would like to believe.

[CatWoman]

3. How so, Nickster?

educate a sistah :)

[Nickster]

15. During the late 1800s, TR was involved with a group of expansionist

military men and politicians that saw it as our manifest destiny to take over just about anything in the name of America, and they worked together to push their propaganda to make it happen. He also seemed to be quite the racist as well.

From A People's History of the United States, Page 300:

When the US didn't annex Hawaii in 1893 after some Americans set up their own government, TR said that the US avoiding the annexation was a great "crime against white civilization".

TR told the Naval War College that "all the great masterful races have been fighting races....No triumph of peace is quite so great as the supreme triumph of war."

When a mob in New Orleans lynched a number of Italian immigrants, publicly he supported giving the Italian govt renumeration, but privately wrote his sister that he thought the lynching was "rather a good thing." He told his sister that he had said as much at a dinner with "various dago diplomats...all wrought up by the lynching."


That's just a few things that I paraphrased from the book on just one page. Made me think of Dubya. Maybe it's just me?

[johnaries]

5. TR was anti-monopoly and an environmentalist,

and he was effectively kicked out of the Republican Party and started a new Progressive party of his own. So, how is that like W?

edit to add: http://www.theodoreroosevelt.org/life/biotr.htm

His specific achievements are numerous. Perhaps his greatest contribution was his work for conservation. During his tenure in the White House from 1901 to 1909, he designated 150 National Forests, the first 51 Federal Bird Reservations, 5 National Parks, the first 18 National Monuments, the first 4 National Game Preserves, and the first 21 Reclamation Projects. Altogether, in the seven-and-one-half years he was in office, he provided federal protection for almost 230 million acres, a land area equivalent to that of all the East coast states from Maine to Florida.

Aside from his conservation efforts, he "busted" trusts bringing the large corporations under the control of the people; he began the Panama Canal (more canal photos); he established the Department of Commerce and Labor; he negotiated an end to the Russo-Japanese War and thereby won the Nobel Peace Prize; he preached a "Square Deal" for all Americans, enabling millions to earn a living wage; he built up the Navy as the "Big Stick," thus establishing America as a major world power; he reduced the National debt by over $90,000,000; and he secured the passage of the Elkins Act and the Hepburn Act for regulation of the railroads, the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act for consumer protection, and the Federal Employers' Liability Act for Labor.

Yeah, TR and W have a LOT in common! :sarcasm:
TR would be a Dem today.

[BearSquirrel2]

9. Teddy was the last of the Republican progressives ...

The Republican party was started as progressives. It makes me gag everytime they say the Lincoln was a Republican when we all know a modern Lincoln would be at home as Democrat. Teddy's end of tenure effectively marked the end of the Republican party as a progressive institution. It was corrupted and effectively became the same thing as the Democrats of the day.

The last party realignment came in the 60s when Johnson signed civil rights legislation which prompted the Dixi-crats to bolt. At the same time, liberal/moderate Republicans switched over to the Democrats.

Perhaps were on the verge of another re-alignment. Everyone who is not a pscho-asshole is going Democrat.

[Kurovski]

4. Pushing for impeachment would do a great deal to save their party.

A push by Republicans, that is.

[Arugula Latte]

6. Um, your party has been the party of nutbags since 1980...

Soooo, what took you so long, Susie?

[WillyT]

7. K & R, Baby !!!

Hey Cat!

:bounce::hi::bounce:

[greenbriar]

8. SWEET do it!!!!!!!!!!!

awesome

[BlooInBloo]

10. They're lying - just giving the appearance of reasonableness - Like Arlen Specter...

Atrios has been right each and every Friedman Unit. I'll go with him.

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_05_06_archive.html#5030619460786875864

Wake Me Up When September Ends

While we've been here before, elite media people seemed to have settled on the notion that September is the drop dead date on Iraq, that Republicans have been making genuine noise that it'll be time to abandon Bush on Iraq then. The September date gets repeated often enough that it seems to have been circulated at enough of Sally Quinn's parties. That doesn't mean it's genuine, of course, as we should never underestimate the all powerful Friedman Unit Generator, but it seems a bit more real than it ever did before.

I'm not optimistic. I'd put it at 10% that there will be veto-override levels of Republican defection, and put it at 1% that the elite media will notice that they were suckered again when those defections fail to appear.

[katsy]

11. They can go to hell.

We don't need them.

They say they haven't heard what they wanted to hear so far from the Democrats.

That's because our candidates talk about economic fairness, good government, fully funded education, poverty, universal health care, ending the Iraq War, Katrina, fair not free trade, progressive taxation... issues that affect the great unwashed masses like me - NOT THEM.

What will get their attention is if one of our candidates yells TAX CUTS, deregulation, unraveling the New Deal (a/k/a small government), and privatization.

Screw them. They can sure as hell take care of themselves with all their influence and money. We want our president to represent all of us, not just the "iconic" republicons interests.

:mad:

Iconic, my a$$... more like thieves and feudal lords.

[saracat]

12. And surely you don't think that is a "winning attitude" ?All voters are not "lefties"

and truth be told , many of the most outspoken lefties don't vote so we need these folks. I am pleased to see the GOP coming out and speaking out about the tyravesty their party has become.We gain nothing by alienationg and hating these folks. Look at what a tremendous force for good Ron Reagan has been.Don't be so quick to throw people overboard.

[katsy]

14. And how big a voting block do you believe iconic republicons are?

Huge?

I don't think they make a blip on the radar personally as far as number of votes.

But they can use their money and influence to the detriment of the many.

I don't think we should alienate them. If they want to vote Democratic... fine.

If they are using their position and money to influence policy, then no, it's not fine.

What are they waiting to hear from our candidates? Whatever it is, they are still waiting to hear the magic words, aren't they?

Well, JMO... the magic words are tax cuts & privatization.

In that case, they should stick with the morans in the republicon party.

Ron Reagan is a Democrat or Independent. He's not out their saying "tell me something I want to hear to get my $$$ vote".

As far as all voters not being "lefties"... think the majority of voters are rw nutjobs? Or are they mostly iconic republicons? Most voters I know want fairness for all not welfare for the connected rich.

Edited to add: They should just VOTE their interests. Not send a public message to our candidates that they aren't hearing what they want to hear yet.

[karynnj]

13. Eisenhower's son endorsed Kerry in 2004 (n/t)

[Warren Stupidity]

16. Dare I Mention Momma?

Stephanie Miller is the daughter of the lesser known half of the Goldwater-Miller ticket.

[jmondine]

17. I'm surprised

Nobody has yet brought up Ron Reagan Jr.
Saint Ronald of Reagan's namesake was a speaker at the last Dem presidential convention.