Kansas Politics: CBS News- 1980 GOP Convention: Ford/Bush VP Drama

Source: Kansas Politics-

Source:The New Democrat 

CBS News trying to figure out who Ronald Reagan had nominated for Vice President at the 1980 Republican National Convention. Reagan had narrowed it down to former President of the United States Gerald Ford of all people who had already served briefly as Vice President for Richard Nixon before President Nixon resigned in the summer of 1974. And of course former Ambassador to China George H.W. Bush who had served in other positions as well.
Source:Kansas Politics:

CBS News: 'President Gerald Ford Talks Ronald Reagan On Face The Nation in 1976'

Source:CBS News- President Gerald R. Ford (Republican, Michigan) talking to CBS News Face The Nation, in 1976.

Source:The New Democrat 

"President Gerald Ford talks about the possible nomination of Ronald Reagan for president, and the possibility of Reagan as Ford's running mate on the June 6, 1976 edition of Face the Nation. Ford's eventual running mate was Robert Dole, and they lost to Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale. (CBS NEWS)" 

From CBS News

President Gerald Ford trying to run as a centrist in 1976 even though he had a pretty conservative record in Congress as a Representative from Grand Rapids, Michigan and as House Minority Leader. And then had a pretty conservative record as President especially when it came to fiscal policy and taxes. But also as it related to foreign policy and national security. But Ronald Reagan saw President Ford as not tough enough when it came to Russia and foreign policy in general and was a basis for running against him in 1976.

CBS News: Governor Ronald Reagan- Talks President Gerald Ford: On Face The Nation (1975)

Source: CBS News-

Source:The New Democrat 

I don't have the exact date on this, but I believe this is early 1975. The year I'm sure of and it was just after Ronald Reagan left the California Governor's Mansion as a two-term Governor of California. 1975 representing a new Congress with the next major national election being the 1976 presidential election. With the speculation in Washington being who was going to run for president. President Gerald Ford who inherited the job from President Richard Nixon in 1974 when President Nixon resigned. And would Ron Reagan run against the President or not in the Republican presidential primaries.
Source:CBS News

CSPAN: S.E. Cupp & Brett Joshpe on Conservative Ideas in American Life & Popular Culture (2008)

Source:The New Democrat

At least to me S.E. Cupp and I'm not familiar with Brett Joshpe, but S.E. to me looks like a real Barry Goldwater get big government out of our wallets, bedrooms, classrooms and boardrooms Conservative. Who doesn't want to outlaw anything that she disapproves of and wouldn't personally be involved with. Like certain times of entertainment, language, homosexuality, gambling and perhaps even marijuana and same-sex-marriage. That she and young Conservatives are the hope for the Republican Party in the future as the country is becoming more tolerant and individualistic. And even liberal and libertarian.

The Washington Post: Michael Gerson: The Tea Party Risks Scaring Away Voters

Source:The New Democrat

I'm going to take you on a trip back in time to the mid 1960s and we'll work are way up to the early 1980s as well. Imagine had the Barry Goldwater classical conservative movement managed to take over the Republican Party during this time period. And today it becomes what we see with Senator Rand Paul, or they combine with his father former Representative Ron Paul and this kind of conservative libertarian movement took over the Republican Party. With the Dick Nixon's, Gerry Ford's, Ron Reagan, George Bush's who all had things in common with this movement, but who are perhaps not pure conservative libertarians, but able to work with these movement's to lead the party.

Imagine had the Conservative Libertarians taken over the GOP and essentially kicked out the Northeastern Progressives, or those Republicans become more like moderate Conservatives as we see with Mitt Romney and Olympia Snowe to use as examples. The Libertarian Party never gets up and running is ever formed in the early 1970s. Why, because there simply wouldn't any need for it. The Progressives in the Democratic Party would've continued to push the safety net and perhaps even for a welfare state which is even bigger. But the Republican Party wouldn't of helped them and instead would've pushed to reform current federal social insurance programs and decentralize them and send them to the states.

The Christian Right still comes into business, but wouldn't have the power that they do today, or have had the last forty years or so. Because again you have these Conservative Libertarians and moderate Conservatives from the Northeast and Midwest and even Mid-Atlantic running the party. The Christian  Right would've been left with a handful of seats in Congress in the Bible Belt for the most part. And probably treated by their Congressional Leadership the way the Progressive Caucus is treated in the House and Senate. As people you basically only talk to when you need their votes.

Another reason why the Libertarian Party would've never had gotten started is because again the Christian Right and the Neoconservatives aren't running the GOP. So the big government social agenda in the GOP is never put on the table in any big way as either part of the party platform, or into law. Even if this did happen, I'm not saying the Republican Party would be winning a majority of the African-American vote. The civil rights laws and all of those Southern Democrats bolting to the GOP as a result changed that forever. But maybe they get thirty or forty percent of the African-American vote. And the same thing with the Latin-American vote because you wouldn't consistently see Republicans who are tagged with either racial views or racists towards these groups.

Of course the Conservative Libertarians don't run the GOP. But they are certainly a growing and strong faction in the party today and I believe the GOP's best hope of appealing to Latinos and Millennial's in the future. And what you instead of Conservative Libertarians in charge are the Christian Right, Neoconservatives and Neoconfederates who love to talk about how much they love the Constitution. When at the same time they talk about how much they want to change the Constitution. Who take the Ron Paul anti-government views when it comes to the economy and public social insurance and almost anything that the Federal Government does that is not national security related as being unconstitutional. While they want to give the Federal Government more power as it relates to Americans personal lives.

The point I believe Mike Gerson was making in his column about the Tea Party is that they put the Republican Party in jeopardy with their anti-government approach because they have a habit of bashing public services that a majority Americans like and use everyday. And public infrastructure is a perfect example of that and the reason why Congress hasn't passed a highway bill yet this year is because the Tea Party in the House essentially believes the Federal Government has no business in funding infrastructure. Which makes Congress's job when it comes to legislating almost impossible, but infrastructure is just an example of that. The Republican Party pays a price for it because they look like people who can't get meals prepared and cars parked you know doing the basic business of government.

Richard Nixon Foundation: 'President Nixon Unveils Family Assistance Program in 1969'

Source:Richard Nixon Foundation- President Richard M. Nixon (Republican, California) talking about Welfare Reform in 1969.

Source:The New Democrat 

"On August 8, 1969, President Nixon addressed the nation on his administration's domestic program proposals. The focal point of his address and domestic legislative push was the Family Assistance Plan, a plan crafted with the help of chief Urban Affairs counsel Daniel Patrick Moynihan." 

From the Richard Nixon Foundation

What President Nixon is talking about here in 1969 became what is now known as Welfare to Work. The bipartisan law that Congress passed in 1996 that was signed by President Bill Clinton. The old Welfare system was based on subsidizing low-skilled adults who didn't have the skills needed to get a good job and support themselves and their families. But essentially left them in poverty without much of an ability to move up and get off of Welfare and move to the middle class.

What President Nixon is talking about here is to continue to subsidize people in poverty. But to empower them to be able to move out of poverty with things like education and job training. But also design a system where working regardless of the job pays more than not working. I believe in that as well which is why I support increasing the minimum wage to 10-12 dollars an hour and index it for inflation so it keeps up with cost of living. And then tie today's Welfare cash payments to today's $7.25 an hour minimum wage for a forty hour a week fifty-two weeks a year job.

You want people in poverty to stay in poverty than you encourage people not to work and pay them more not to work than they could make working with their current skills. But if you want people to actually get out of poverty, than you have to empower people on Welfare to get themselves the skills that they need to move up the economic ladder and get off of Welfare all together. Which is my approach and President Nixon covered some of that in this speech.

The Federalist: David Corbin & Matt Parks: What Should a Do Something Congress Do

Source:The New Democrat

In an era where the American people were actually crying out for something different and real that could bring the country together that was facing the most difficult economic and financial challenges since the Great Depression and I'm thinking of 2008/09, President Barack Obama gives us essentially a political slogan which is "Hope and Change". What is that other than what those two words mean even when you put them together, Hope and Change. What are we hoping for and what do we want to change from and what do we want to be instead.

Whatever you think of the New Deal from Franklin Roosevelt, or Fair Deal with Harry Truman, or Camelot with Jack Kennedy, or the Great Society with Lyndon Johnson, or the Reagan Revolution, these were all real agendas. With real policies, policy initiatives and policy goals designed to take the country in a certain direction for the good of the country. And a big problem that I've had with Barack Obama as President is that even though he's had real policy initiatives and goals and has wanted to move the country in a new direction, he's lacked the vision to move the country behind that agenda and support him.

You can make all the complaints about Congressional Republicans that you want especially in the Senate about blocking President Obama's agenda. But they haven't paid much of a political price for their obstructionism because except for President Obama's reelection as President he hasn't been able to bring Independents who may be politically more incline to vote for Democrats behind him. Because the President and other Democrats haven't communicated very effectively reasons to get behind President Obama and Congressional Democrats.

Where is and what is President Obama's agenda and policies when it comes to all the challenges that the country faces on a whole range of issues? I could probably give you a pretty good idea issue by issue, but I couldn't tell what that agenda is called because it doesn't have a name. Because even as political slogans might sound cheesy or like political gamesmanship today with how simplistic and even superficial American voters can be when it comes to choosing who to vote for and voting a lot of times for candidates and incumbents based on personality, political slogans can be very helpful in bringing voters behind you.

I don't believe even President Obama even knows what his political agenda is, or can at least tell you in a few words and make it clear for everyone. He instead goes issue by issue which I guess has its own effectiveness when he's successful. But he's gone from Hope and Change to at best Practical Progressivism (my words) which is not exactly and attention grabber for non-hard core political junkies and not something that expires Independents behind you.

CSPAN: Brian Lamb Interviewing Cal Thomas: Contemporary America: Condemning Culture, Media & Modern America

Source:The New Democrat

Cal Thomas standing up for traditional Anglo-Saxon America when Anglo-Saxons and to me that is people of British descent were essentially running the country both culturally and politically. People on the religious and cultural right in America who tend to be of Anglo-Saxon descent, but not all of them and Protestant as well essentially believe that America has been going down hill since the Baby Boomers came of age in the 1960s.

Pre-1960s America was a collectivist country culturally as far as how Americans tended to live. Dad worked, Mom stayed at home and essentially raised the kids, but not as a single mom because Dad paid the bills and saw his kids early in the morning, at night and on the weekends. African-Americans were second-class citizens and essentially around to serve Caucasian-Americans. Gays were locked in the closet and boys were raised to be live this way. And girls were raised to serve their men.

That all changed in the 1960s with the Baby Boom Generation and the hippy movement where millions of Americans figured out that they didn't have to live in the social and cultural box that their parents and grandparents created for them. And decided that is not how they wanted to live and rebelled and set out to live their own lives the way they wanted to. And the traditional values coalition paint back to the 1960s as the time when America started going downhill. And elements of the Tea Party has been trying to take America back to the 1950s ever since culturally and even though law.

Richard Nixon Foundation: President Richard Nixon's Farewell Address to White House Staff

Source:The New Democrat

This was the one thing that was missing from Richard Nixon's career that I believe could've made his career even better and more successful. And he did by most standards had a very successful career in public service even with the way it ended. Especially considering where he came from and how far he went and how much he accomplished. But I believe the one thing that was missing about his career was candor about himself and letting people into the personal world of Richard Nixon.

I believe he had two great lines from this speech that were lessons and advice that he gave the American people based on his own personal experience. "You'll never know what it is like to be on the highest mountain until you've been in the deepest valley". Meaning you'll never know what it is like on top until you've been at the bottom. Because success isn't given to anyone and before you achieve success there are certain steps you have to take first and even failures so you know how to improve and get to the top.

The other great line I believe from President Nixon's speech is. "Don't ever get discouraged and ever be petty. Because others may hate you, but they only win when you hate them and then you destroy yourself". Meaning people may hate or seriously dislike you, but that shouldn't bother you as long as you are doing your best and are a good person. So what if some schmuck hates you especially if you are a good productive person. What the hell they know and they may hate you for being what they are not which is a decent productive successful person.

The main problem that Dick Nixon had that I believed destroyed what otherwise would've been a great presidency what that he didn't live the advice that he gave at his farewell address. He didn't take his own advice and let people who did hate him and he had perhaps more than his share of haters from his days in Congress to being Vice President of the United States and out of office all together from 1961-69 and he let those haters destroy him by feeling the need and urge to destroy them even by using illegal means. And it cost him his presidency.

Kyungho Dean: Edward R. Murrow vs. Joe McCarthy

Source:Kyungho Dean- CBS News anchor Edward R. Murrow, I'm guessing with his son.

Source:The New Democrat 

"In 1958, Edward R. Murrow stated, "Our history will be what we make it. And if there are any historians about fifty or a hundred years from now, and there should be preserved the kinescopes for one week of all three networks, they will there find recorded in black and white, or color, evidence of decadence, escapism and insulation from the realities of the world in which we live."

Next year, Mr. Murrow's speech will "celebrate" its 50th anniversay...

The citizens in our free countries (I'm Canadian) are in such desperate-desperate need for Edward R Murrows. Not just on television, or in national printed media --but even at the smallest of local levels.

Yes, Washington and Ottawa affairs are important. But the day-to-dayness that most affects people's lives play themselves out at the local, municipal level.

I reached the sad and unavoidable conclusion that some of our "city halls" are dominated and run by a Corporate Repressive Evil Empire Power Structure.

I despair that I'm just not smart enough, tenacious enough, courageous enough to right the problem. I realize it isn't me whose most affected since I'm part of the comfortable class.

I despair though at the statistics of "The Others"

"Harvest of Shame" aired just after Thanksgiving 1960. The Dec. 5, 1960.

It was a documentary on the grinding poverty of migrant workers in Florida. 

Edward R Murrow made these closing remarks:

"The migrants have no lobby. Only an enlightened, aroused and perhaps angered public opinion can do anything about the migrants. The people you have seen have the strength to harvest your fruit and vegetables. They do not have the strength to influence legislation. Maybe we do. Good night, and good luck."

It isn't just migrants who have no lobby. Our working minimum-wage poor neighbours living right here in our own municipalities "do not have the strength to influence legislation." Or do not speak sufficient English.

From Kyungho Dean

To quote Edward R. Murrow: "We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty." Which pretty much sums up the difference between people who believe in free speech and fascists. "We cannot defend freedom abroad when we are making it weaker at home". Going to other countries to defend freedom and American values as we are crushing those values at home for the American people. That is what this debate in the early and mid 1950s was about.

Ed Murrow and his nightly newscast See it Now and their investigation into Senator Joe McCarthy's committee hearings about supposed Communists inside of the U.S. Government put CBS News on the map as far as TV in this country. And probably led to the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite that eventually became a half-hour show. Because Murrow and See it Now took down a movement that was trying to destroy free speech and assembly for the rest of the country. Which is what Joe McCarthy and his supporters were about.

Dennis Prager: 'Why America is in Jeopardy'

Source:The New Democrat

Oh man Dennis Prager, well at least he is provocative and keeps bloggers in business. And I must say that I respect him in the sense that he tells you what he believes and I really believe he means well. Just like he says that "Liberals are good people to and that he just disagrees with them". I believe Conservatives or in Mr. Prager's case Neoconservatives generally speaking are good people to. I just tend to disagree with them, but Bill Buckley and Barry Goldwater are two of my favorite people and I'm a Liberal myself.

"America is not in jeopardy" as Dennis put it because we are becoming less religious. The real and I mean real threats in all due respect to Dennis have to do with a sluggish economy that is not growing fast enough and producing enough high quality jobs that keep people off of public assistance. And with the crazy world that we live in all sorts of terrorists that would want to hurt us. And perhaps the rise of Russia in Europe and Eurasia as well. But not because fewer Americans go to church every week, or even believe in God.

But if you look at what are called the moral indicators that give us an idea how the country is behaving so to speak and how we are treating each other we are doing very well. Crime is down which is really the main thing you want to focus on when it comes to morality how people actually treat each other. Instead of how we live our own personal lives. The religious-right may hate hearing this, but we live in a constitutional liberal democracy with basic individual rights that include personal freedom and privacy.

Morality is not how whether you believe in God or not. As both a Liberal an Agnostic I find the notion that you have to be religious and believe in God to be moral, offensive. Morality is not about how you live your own personal life. Whether you live with your boyfriend or girlfriend before you are married or not. Or have sex before marriage. Or date a person of the same gender. Morality is about how we treat each other as people and how we live up to our own personal responsibilities. Especially as it relates to our family and friends, but people we work with and are associated with.

I know for a fact that religion has been a huge factor and benefit for millions of Americans. I respect that and I do even as someone who has spent less than a handful of days in any house of worship period in my life. But you don't need to be religious to be moral. You need to be raised well and educated well, loved by the people you depend on growing up and later in life. As well as healthy sense for yourself and intelligence and conscience that stops you from doing bad things to innocent people. And treating people with the respect that they deserve.

Arthur Brooks: A Conservative Vision For Social Justice

Source:The New Democrat

I'm trying to think of a conservative vision for social justice and it's hard. Because it almost sounds like creating an Oxymoron. And what I mean by that is that social justice or economic justice tend to be socialist terms. It's Social Democrats running for office in this country and in other countries who say "I'm fighting for social justice"! Which is something that frankly makes Conservatives or people who are supposed to pass as today's Conservatives (which is different) want to puke. Because when they hear social justice people in the Tea Party and Libertarians talk about social justice they automatically think that is wealth redistribution.

But just to take the conservative vision of social justice seriously for a minute for the purpose of this blog (if nothing else) I guess Newt Gingrich would be the best spokesperson for it because it was something that he was truly interested in at least when he was Speaker of the House and throughout his congressional career. And something he talked a lot about post-Congress and when he ran for President in 20011-12. The 1996 Welfare to Work Act was an example of that where they took the best of liberal and conservative ideas to empower people on Welfare to get off of Welfare into the workforce.

Speaker Gingrich when he ran for President was constantly talking about what government of all things could do to empower people on Welfare and Unemployment Insurance to get themselves the skills so they can get themselves a good job. He was constantly talking about the amount of time that someone on Unemployment Insurance spends that they could use that time to get degree at a community college or a bachelors degree. Instead of trying to look for a job with the current skills that they have.

I mean if you are truly Conservative who believes in social justice that is empowering people at the bottom so they are no longer on the bottom and trapped in poverty, (and I'm trying to say this without laughing at least based on the Tea Party and libertarian-right) then you believe government has some role here unless you are simply only interested in wrecking the safety net in America. And that role from a conservative perspective is about using market values in government to empower people to be able to make it on their own. Getting good skills to pay the bills to use a pop culture analogy.

That instead of saying that "the problem is the rich are too rich, or just rich period and what government should do is take most of their money to take care of everyone else". Which is basically the socialist, or social democratic vision of social justice that "we as Conservatives should instead say wealth and work is a good thing in America and good thing about our system. And that these things should be encouraged not discouraged and that the problem is not that we have rich people or too many. But not enough and what we need to do as a country with government playing a role, but not the only role is to empower people at the bottom and near-bottom to become successful and even rich on their own."

Townhall: Terry Jeffrey: 'Pat Buchanan Chronicles the 1960s: The Greatest Comeback'

Source:The New Democrat

When it comes to Richard Nixon's political career at least pre-White House I'm mostly interested in his career from 1961 after he just left the Vice Presidency after losing the 1960 presidential election to Senator Jack Kennedy. Up until January of 1969 when he's sworn as the 37th President of the United States. Because during this period Dick Nixon is completely out of public office either as a politician or as a public official in any office for the first time since January, 1947 when he gets sworn in as an elected U.S. Representative in the House of Representatives.

This was a very rough, but very productive time for Dick Nixon post 1962 California governor's race debacle where he lost to California Governor Pat Brown in a major landslide. So Nixon was at a point where he didn't know what to do with the rest of life. He got addicted to politics and public office his six years in Congress both in the House and Senate. And was a very hardworking and productive Vice President for President Dwight Eisenhower. And which Jack Kennedy still President going into 1963 it looked like JFK would get elected with huge Democratic majorities in Congress once again in 1964.

So what was Dick Nixon to do a man who loved political and public affairs and serving in government. What he did seeing that it would be at least a while before he would have another real shot at the presidency 1968 at the earliest. And that might of depended on who the Democratic nominee might be that year, he decided to make a lot of money as a corporate lawyer in New York. Defending and representing companies across the country and become a party man inside of the Republican Party in his spare time.

And when he wasn't doing those things he was studying current affairs inside of the United States and challenges that the country was facing and would be facing. Especially when it came to foreign policy and sort of did what would be called a world tour and meeting foreign leaders all over the world. So when he decided to run for public office again especially for president that he would be completely ready for it.

There was a PBS 1990 film from their American Experience series that chronicles all of these changes in Dick Nixon's life. That I highly suggest and a clip of that is on this post. And it shows exactly how he came back and all of the Congressional Republicans he helped out and backed in the 1966 mid-terms when House and Senate Republicans made big comebacks and the same thing in 1968 when they picked up a lot of seats again with Dick Nixon winning back the White House for the Republicans.

Washington Examiner: Mark Tapscott: Is Banning Fringe Views How Leftists Want to Deal With Conservatives?

Source:The New Democrat

It is really Conservatives and the far-right that get's stereotyped and accused of being fascists. And that is true to the extent that there is plenty of right-wing fascism in the world and even in America. We see that with the Tea Party especially in 2011-12 and even today that seem to have this view that you either live their traditional way of life and share their traditional view of what America is, (which is stuck in the 1950s) or you are not a real American.

But fascism is unfortunately bipartisan and not something that the Left can bash the Right over with no real fascist charges on our side. This blog has covered a few posts alone this year about leftist fascists. One dealing with leftists on campus trying to ban rightists from speaking at their schools. Another one even more extreme than that having to do with Fred Jerome's article in Salon back in January or February having to do with nationalizing FOX News because of the success that FNC especially has had as a right-wing voice. And even nationalizing news all together in America. So so-called Progressives could tell the truth.

But my point especially directly to the right-wing America whether they are Conservatives or not is that these leftists fascists aren't Liberals as they tend to be called. But people who are on the far-left in America where fascism not only exists, but Socialists, or even Communists or Anarchists on the far-left who see fascism as a necessary tool to create their vision of a fair and equal America, or however they would put that. And for them to accomplish their goals they feel the need to destroy right-wingers even by forcing them to shut up through government force.

The fact is you can't be a Liberal and a fascist. It is one or the other because there is nothing liberal about fascism. Liberals not only believe in the First Amendment and Free Speech, but we created these things for crying out loud. And wouldn't do anything especially through government to shut up the opposition. Other than by winning the debates, but with both sides having equal opportunity to make their case. And there are some on the Right especially in the Tea Party that are so damn partisan and hate anyone who disagrees with them that they simply can't believe and handle that.

Patrick J. Buchanan: 'Richard Nixon's "Southern Strategy & the Big Liberal Lie'

Source:The New Democrat

I first saw Pat Buchanan's column about Richard Nixon's Southern Strategy over the fourth as I checked my email that day. And because of other things I've been doing the last few days it's just now that I'm replying about it today. But I just read Mr. Buchanan's column about the Southern Strategy today and didn't see much of anything in it about the Southern Strategy. Other than calling a piece in the New York Times about it calling it a "big liberal lie". Most of what Pat Buchanan had in it was about racist policies from previous Democratic presidents from the 1940s, 30s and President Woodrow Wilson.

But let's be real the Nixon Southern Strategy was real. Dick Nixon whatever you think about him was a brilliant man and politician and saw how America was changing politically and how he could breakthrough and complete probably the greatest comeback in American political history. Pre-civil rights movement the Democratic Party was the Southern Party representing the bible belt. And no not with Liberals, Progressives and Socialists as we see today. But with people who are called today Neoconservatives, classical Conservatives, and the Religious-Right today. As well as the far-right especially as it related to civil rights, equal rights and segregation as just flat-out racism when it came to African-Americans. And bigotry when it came to non-Anglo-Saxon Protestant Americans who weren't from the South.

The Republican Party pre-civil rights and into the civil rights movement was both a progressive and a conservative party. But there Conservatives were conservative in the classical sense and probably would be called Conservative Libertarians today. People like Senator Barry Goldwater a perfect example of that and even at the time House Minority Leader Gerry Ford and Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen. With the progressive wing of the party representing the Northeast and to a certain extent the Midwest. Senator Jacob Javits from New York comes to mind.

The civil rights movement and the civil rights laws of the 1960s changed that with African-Americans now backing President Lyndon Johnson and other Progressive Democrats who had similar politics. With the Southern Democrats and their voters bolting to the Republican Party. Which started to a certain extent in 1964 with Barry Goldwater for President winning a few Southern states. That campaign was a disaster in the 1964 general elections both for president and Congress with Congressional Republicans getting hammered and Senator Goldwater failing to win forty-percent of the national vote. And barely winning his home state of Arizona.

But what we saw in 1964 was Southern right-wing Democrats moving away from Lyndon Johnson and the progressive and liberal wings of the Democratic Party. And moving to the Republican Party and supporting Conservative Libertarians like Barry Goldwater. But what we also saw was what would is called the Neoconservative and religious-right base of the Republican Party today, but back in the 1960s these Democrats were simply called Southern Democrats, or the Southern Caucus in Congress, Democrats like this politicians and their supporters bolting the Democratic Party for the Republican Party.

So what started in 1964 with Barry Goldwater became an opening for Congressional Republicans both House and Senate and for Dick Nixon. A chance for Republicans and Republican leaders to break into the Democratic political monopoly in the country and bring in new Republicans to the party that were primarily from the Bible Belt. But also from the Midwest and the libertarian West. And as a result House Republicans pickup something like forty-five seats in the House in 1966. Going from a pretty small minority after 1964 to a sizable minority going into 1967. Especially since there were still a bunch of Southern right-wing Democrats in the House that could work with the Republican Leadership to stop legislation that the Democratic majority wrote.

Senate Republicans picked up three seats in 1966 going from 33-36, but it still took sixty-seven votes to prevent bills from being blocked in the Senate back them. But also there were enough Southern Democratic senators that would work with the Senate Republican Leadership to block bills from the Senate Democratic majority as well. But more importantly Dick Nixon saw this as the opening that he needed to win the presidency. Because now he saw what used to be Democratic strongholds as potential Republican pickups by appealing the the religious-right in those states. What I call the Traditional Values Coalition that now dominates the Republican Party today.

Townhall: Paul Greenberg: Howard Baker, Man in the Middle

Source:The New Democrat

To me at least as someone who is not a Republican Howard Baker the former U.S. Senator from Tennessee and Republican Leader who served both as Minority Leader with a Democratic President in Jimmy Carter and Senate Leader under a Republican President in Ronald Reagan is one of the last great statesman in the Republican Party. A true leader and I'll talk about his leadership later on. A true patriot someone who believed in country and governing first and always before politics.

There are so many examples of this, but go back to 1973 when a then Democratic Congress was looking at investigating the Nixon 1972 reelection campaign, as well as any involvement the Nixon Administration may of have in Watergate in other campaign violations. And the Senate took the lead in these investigations with the House coming later in their 1974 impeachment inquiry and Senate Baker at the time just starting his second term in the Senate was seen as both a Republican and Richard Nixon partisan and loyalist. Yet he serves as Ranking Member for the Republicans on the Senate select committee that investigated the Nixon reelect campaign.

And it was Senator Baker who had the most famous and I believe important line and question during that committee's investigation. Which was "what did the President know and when did he know it?" He wasn't there to defend a Republican President and his serve as President Nixon's counsel, but to find out the truth of what happened during the Nixon campaign and even what happened during Watergate. And that is how he led the Republicans on that committee and how he worked with Senator Sam Ervin the Chairman of that committee who was also a Democrat.

And then you can go up to 1977 and through the Jimmy Carter Administration where President Carter a mainstream Liberal Democrat (even from Georgia) who had huge majorities in Congress with a filibuster proof Democratic Senate in his first two years with sixty or sixty-one votes. And yet Howard Baker who had just become Senate Minority Leader the Republican Leader in the Senate in January, 1977 and who was called "President Carter's best friend in Congress", Howard Baker the Republican Minority Leader in the Senate. Because President Carter was what we call now a New Democrat a mainstream center-left Liberal. Not part of the FDR New Deal coalition or the George McGovern radical New Left that came of age in the late 1960s and 1970s.

Jimmy Carter even though he had those huge Democratic majorities in Congress both House and Senate was dealing with a Democratic Leadership especially in the House and to a certain extent in the Senate that was much more progressive than he was and much further to the Left. That when Democrats won the election going away in 1976 as far as not only winning back the White House, but retaining large majorities in Congress believed it was time to go back to the 1960s and expand the Great Society and go even further and creating large welfare state in America. But that wasn't who Jimmy Carter was and he needed Republican votes in Congress to pass a lot of his agenda to prevent Senate Republicans and Southern Democrats in the Senate from blocking his agenda. So he turned to Howard Baker for his help.

And then you can go to 1981 where Ronald Reagan is not only now President after defeating President Carter in a landslide in 1980, but thanks to Reagan Senate Republicans win back the Senate for the first time since 1952. And now control the upper half of Congress the Senate and pick up thirty seats in the House to give them a fairly large minority in the House that could work with Southern Democrats in the House as well. Senate Minority Leader Baker now becomes Senate Leader Baker and now has to lead the Senate and govern and not just his caucus. Which is not easy with a 53-47 majority where you still need sixty votes to prevent legislation from being blocked. And he was able to work with a Democratic House and get deals with Senate Democrats and President Reagan to keep the trains moving.

I see Howard Baker as Bob Dole before Bob Dole became Senate Republican Leader replacing Leader Baker who had just retired. Because they were both loyal Republicans and loyal Conservatives as their voting records in Congress suggest. But they both believed in public service and knew how to be public servants and to govern. And of course would've rather have seen different legislation than what they produced with the agreements that they would get with Democrats and even to a certain extent moderate Republicans in their caucus. But at the end of the day they knew how to govern and how to count votes. And at the end of the day they needed to produce even if that meant producing really good legislation or good legislation instead of great, than that is what they would do to prevent crisis's from happening.

CSPAN:: Richard Brookhiser: Social & Financial Power in America

Source:The New Democrat

It was true Anglo Saxon British-Americans essentially built America and at the very least led to the creation of the building of America. Now you could easily make an excellent case they built America off of African slave labor. And that the African slaves really built America as slaves to the Europeans who settled the country. Which is true but the Anglo-Saxons the first Americans who weren't Indian created the freedoms that we all enjoy as Americans today. Which is the United States Constitution and for that they deserve a lot of credit.

American Enterprise: Charles Murray: The Trouble Isn't Liberals, It's Progressives

Source:AEI

Charles Murray hit it on the head in his AEI article about liberalism and how that is different from today's so-called progressivism. Even though even what is supposed to pass as progressivism today is really not progressivism either. But some form of leftist fascism and statism. A true Progressive is not a fascist and doesn't believe in unlimited government to serve or take care of the people either. But today's so-called Progressives seem to do and have an unlimited view of what government can do for people.

As a Liberal myself I'm finding everyday that I have more in common with real Conservatives. Not the big government religious fundamentalists, but real Conservatives the Rand Paul's of the world or Libertarians. Because we tend to believe in similar things. That it is not that Americans have too much freedom both economically and personally. But that we don't have enough in too many areas and tend to agree on things like the failed War on Drugs. Criminal justice reform, the prison industrial complex and the military industrial complex. That these two areas need to be reformed and that when people are educated they are much more qualified to run their own lives than government.

Of course I as a Liberal do not agree with Conservatives on economic policy in general. I would invest a lot more in infrastructure than they would and do not want to over regulate business, but believe they need to be regulated to protect workers and consumers from predators. And Conservatives in general tend to believe that regulations are a bad thing. And perhaps would privatize infrastructure all together in this country. But real Liberals and real Conservatives or Conservative Libertarians tend to have similar goals when it comes to these economic issues, but with different policies. And tend to have similar positions when it comes to social issues as well. That these things should be left up to the individual.

It's not Liberals that are the problem to paraphrase Charles Murray. But people on the Left who are called Liberals because the so-called Liberals either self-define their politics that way. Or the media is too dumb to tell the difference between a statist or fascist or Socialist or Communist even from a real Liberal. People who truly do believe in individual freedom and individualism and that there is a limit to what government can do for the people especially the central government.

It's not the Liberal that is alway trying to expand the state and eliminate all disagreeing points of the view to what the far-left preaches in America. About equality and collectivism at all costs. And that "freedom is dangerous even from a personal perspective and that we big central government to manage the social welfare of the country for the good of the country". But the far-left in America whether you want to call them collectivists or statists or even Democratic Socialists people who believe in the collective and collectivism and that individualism and freedom is dangerous and needs to be limited who believe in these ideas.