Talk:Conservative Democrat

Untitled

I made a few edits for NPOV but this article still needs some attention. I don't think it needs to be merged but there is a lot of good material in articles such as Boll weevil (politics), Blue Dog Democrats, Dixiecrats, that can be incorporated (or maybe summarized) in this article. Kaibabsquirrel 20:22, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

I'm going to go ahead and do a big expansion of this article. Let me know what you think, or feel free to add anything more that I missed. Kaibabsquirrel 01:37, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

What was it about LBJ that drove conservative away in 1964?

What was it about LBJ that drove conservative away in 1964?

"Conservatives" were driven away by Johnson's support for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. john k 19:21, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

True, but more to the point, Southern conservative Democrats were outraged at Johnson's comprehensive opposition to segregation (of which the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was, admittedly, the cornerstone). KevinOKeeffe (talk) 15:31, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Arthur Schlesinger and Jerry Brown

I wouldn't consider either one of these men to be conservatives. Schlesinger's opposition to multiculturalism is clearly from a liberal, New Deal type inclusionary stance rather than a conservative stance, and while Jerry Brown may have adopted some conservative-libertarian ideas, it would be really stretching the meaning of "conservative" in current US political culture to refer to him as a conservative.

Schlesinger is not identified as a conservative in the article, nor is he intended to be so identified. Rather, Schlesinger, along with Hoffer and others, are merely identified as part of an intellectual trend within Democratic Party politics that impacted upon the history of conservative Democrats. The reference to Jerry Brown is clearly somewhat more problematic, but he is never explicitly identified as a conservative Democrat (which he is not), but rather as a Democrat who adopted a conservative (even by Republican standards) position on taxation during the 1992 Democratic Presidential primaries. Within that context, I think its appropriate for him to continue to be mentioned in this article, so long as he is not inaccurately characterized as an overall conservative Democrat. Jerry Brown was associated with moderate-to-conservative positions on fiscal issues through his 1975-1983 tenure as Governor of California (while remaining decidedly liberal on social and foreign policy questions), so this 1992 campaign proposal is not actually out of character with his earlier career.KevinOKeeffe (talk) 15:41, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

The South

How can the introduction to this article fail to mention the South? Don't we really mean "Conservative Southern Democrat," here? john k 19:20, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

More broadly, this article is rather a mess. Among other things, it seems to think that "liberalism" is synonymous with "leftist," in the immediate post-war period, which isn't true. Cold War Liberals were generally very strong on the liberalism, but Liberalism meant to them anti-communism as well as anti-conservatism (or, perhaps, even more than anti-conservatism). An article which implies that cold war liberalism and right wing dixiecracy are different facets of the same phenomenon has serious problems. john k 19:26, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

I've added an accuracy tag. I think the article makes a lot of dubious generalizations of questionable accuracy. In particular, it implies a parity between the two parties before 1964 that didn't really exist - already at that point the Democrats were clearly the more liberal party on the national level, the Republicans the more conservative, and this had been true since 1932, at least. There's much else that's problematic, but whatever. For now, I've put up the tag. john k 19:31, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Innaccuracy and POV in the intro

While few would argue that Sam Brownback is conservative or that Ted Kennedy is liberal, the assertion of Joe Lieberman as a "moderate Democrat" is dubious at best. Given that he was most recently elected not as a Democrat but as a third-party candidate, and whether he's a moderate or a conservative is widely disputed, he's really not the best example of a moderate Democrat. Likewise, Lincoln Chafee is a poor choice for a centrist Republican example, since he's officially left the Republican Party. If examples are to be given of centrist wings in the Democratic and Republican Parties, it would make more sense to pick politicians who are actually members of those parties. 71.203.209.0 03:17, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Article was a bit dusty, so I removed those cobwebs. Settler 02:31, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Giving all of these as examples of post-1980 "leaders" of their respective parties is weird too, since neither Brownback nor Allard have ever held a Republican leadership post in any capacity, Kennedy is mostly an unofficial leader of a particular party faction, and Pelosi only very recently gained a leadership post. --Delirium (talk) 07:46, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Difference between conservative democrat and republican

What's the difference between the two? Ie, if a conservative democrat is conservative, should they not have any ideological differences with the Republican Party?Wikischolar1983 (talk) 07:35, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

To be more to the point, are they just conservatives who prefer to belong to the Democratic Party or are they less conservative than conservative Republicans by virtue of being Democrats?Wikischolar1983 (talk) 07:42, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Conservative Democrats and Liberal Republicans are moderates who lean slightly more towards their party. Think about it like this ... break people up into three groups: 40% Liberal, 20% Moderate, 40% Conservative. Conservative democrats are within the first 10% for the moderate percentage while Liberal Republicans are within the second 10% of the moderate percentage. QuirkyAndSuch (talk) 07:51, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

50 years ago, conservative Democrats were basically conservatives (usually, though not always, from the South) who belonged to the Democratic Party, and were often to the right of many/most conservative Republicans. Today, conservative Democrats tend to be essentially moderates, which is largely to say, Democrats who dissent with the national party on certain key issues; gun control, immigration, and abortion being three of the leading examples. It might be reasonable to suggest that many "Blue Dog"-style, conservative Democrats of the modern age have essentially forged a new ideological niche for themselves, as many are actually to the left of the national party on issues of international trade, often favoring a strongly protectionist perspective. It thus might be more technically accurate to label them as populists, rather than conservatives (or moderates). In any event, its clear the definition of conservative Democrat has shifted over the decades. It was not the same phenomenon in 1962 as it is in 2008. Never-the-less, a single article covering the historical totality of the phenomenon does seem entirely appropriate (albeit a work ever in progress). KevinOKeeffe (talk) 15:51, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

LaRouche

This is obviously the same wire service article as the Sacramento Bee citation, just printed in a different newspaper:

• Everything from ethnic prejudice to low voter turnout was blamed yesterday for the surprising primary victory that made a supporter of ultra-conservative Lyndon LaRouche the Democratic Party's candidate for Illinois lieutenant governor in the fall elections. [...] Party regulars aren't thrilled by him, either. Terry Michael, spokesman for the Democratic National Committee, calls LaRouche and his followers the "far-out kook fringe." Columnist and television commentator Tom Braden once proclaimed him "the champion loose nut of American politics." [...] But LaRouche, after moving to West Germany for a time, began a rapid shift to the right. After running for president on the U.S. Labor Party ticket in 1976, his rhetoric turned openly anti-Semitic. His newspaper, New Solidarity, told followers that Zionism is an evil cult, that the Holocaust was "mythical" and that B'nai B'rith "resurrects the tradition of the Jews who demanded the crucifixion of Jesus Christ." [...]He called for a massive military buildup, increased use of nuclear energy, and huge engineering projects around the world, including construction of a second Panama canal. And long before President Reagan announced his Strategic Defense Initiative, LaRouche was promoting that "Star Wars" concept of a nuclear missile shield using beam weaponry.
  • "Perennial presidential candidate focusing on states" Associated Press. THE FREDERICK POST, FREDERICK, MD., FRIDAY, MARCH 21, 1986

I'll change the cite in the article. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 01:22, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Liberal Republicans

Because we have a Conservative Democrat article, I think it would be useful for the reader to also create a Liberal Republican article. QuirkyAndSuch (talk) 07:54, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm not so sure that we should have either. The terms are too subjective. It would be more suitable for an encyclopedia to focus on actual organizations, such as the right-wing Democratic Democratic Leadership Council, or the liberal Republican Ripon Society. Wikipedia has a lot of political articles which are essentially nothing more than POV forks and soapboxes. I mean, what are the odds that someone would actually go to an encyclopedia and look up "Conservative Democrat" or "Liberal Republican"? --Niels Gade (talk) 14:41, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

• FYI, we have many articles on factions of the Republican Party: Rockefeller Republican, Republicans for Choice, the Log Cabin Republicans, the Republican Majority For Choice, The Wish List, Republicans for Environmental Protection, and the Kansas Traditional Republican Majority. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 17:28, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

From a historical standpoint, conservative Democrats have played an enormous role in American politics, and remain a force to this day. For an online encyclopedia (with respect to the absence of limitations on paper usage that traditional encyclopedia labored under, and were thus forced to be overly selective in topics) to neglect to have an article on conservative Democrats is simply absurd. Liberal Republicans should have their own article as well. This article is not a "soapbox," but rather a potentially vital examination of one of the most important aspects of 20th century American political life. KevinOKeeffe (talk) 15:58, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Citations

The cites for this article should really be cleaned up; fewer than half of them even show up as numbered. Ideally, all of them should adopt the same format. I may get around to doing it myself, but in any event, it needs doing. KevinOKeeffe (talk) 16:03, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

I have cleaned-up the citations for this article. I had to delete one because it was a dead link, and several others because I really had no idea what they were cited in specific reference to, and having not read those books, it seemed very inappropriate for me to just assume they were in reference to what their titles suggested. There are now 17 citations, all of which show up properly numbered in the ref list (the other day, there were just seven which did so, although I have since added 4-5 citations of my own). A couple of the books which I cleaned up the citatons for, such the Disuniting of America by Arthur Schlesinger Jr., and The Politics of Rage by Dan T. Carter, are books I have actually read, and thus was very comfortable in determining their relevance to the article. KevinOKeeffe (talk) 10:20, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

RE:CONSERAVATIVE DEMOCRATS

Dear Readers-

In Regards to the part of Zell Miller being the last is true. Now more people in the South for example are, and have won as conservative Democrats. Sen Ben Nelson, Lincoln Davis, Joe Lieberman, and Congressman Dan Lipinski for example. This will be interesting as the rise of conservative Democrats come back!

Robert Jones —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.142.126.109 (talk) 05:16, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Heath Shuler has been prominent for House conservative Democrats. Harold Ford Jr could be mentioned as well even though he is not in office.

1874-1896: The rise of agrarian populism

Can someone help me out with this argument it doesn’t make any sense.

“Populist and Agrarian movements were essentially right-wing and reactionary movements, left-wing economic issues notwithstanding.” Then it goes on to say because there are both liberal and conservative in both parties.

In other words how I am reading this is because there are liberal and conservatives in both parties he doesn’t take into account their economic views. Meaning he doesn’t take into account if they are progressive but somehow if they are reactionary that makes them conservative.

Then they use William Jennings Bryan as an example of a conservative or as they put it a populist. How someone that fought for a progressive federal income tax as his bases to show he is conservative is beyond my understanding. McKinley was for the protective tariffs and Bryan wasn’t which means he was for the federal income tax which replaces the tariffs.
Can someone help me out with this?
--OxAO (talk) 08:29, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

JFK

I would like to see more added about JFK. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dunnbrian9 (talk • contribs) 04:04, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

RE: Conservative Democrats 2014 .

Footnote:

With the lost of the Senator from LA.State, thus end the conservative Democrats in all governor, state reps and senators in the south. Now solid Republican.

R.I.P.

Presidents

This is absolutely nonsense. No one can say with a straight face that FDR, who created modern American liberalism as we know it, was a "conservative Democrat," even by the standards of his time. While there may be debate about Bill Clinton, only someone on the far-left of the Democratic Party, or a member of the D.S.A. would say that Obama is a conservative Democrat by the standards of the time. Remove FDR and Obama or I will. 66.67.32.161 (talk) 20:56, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Obama section

Obama did NOT run to Clinton's "right" on economic issues in the '08 primaries, rather the reverse. Clinton's support came from smaller, rural, conservative Democratic states like West Virginia, Texas and Ohio. This is a bunch of nonsense. Obama was ALWAYS further to the left in the primaries than Clinton. To say otherwise is fiction made up by a pro-Clintonista in 2016 to desperately try to appeal to left-wingers in the primaries this year. Remove it or I will.