Reply #50: you're incorrect. Morris created the term, not the practice. [View All]

[wyldwolf]

The logic behind it, is that it not only takes good ideas away from your opponent, but that it insulates you from attacks on that particular issue.

FDR used it to great effect when he borrowed some socialist ideas from Robert LaFollette, Upton Sinclair, and other socialist leaders of the time. FDR used it in dealing with labor disputes.

It would probably be real easy to find other instances of it.

When Clinton used it, he began to steal Republican issues like welfare reform and implement them in his own way.

Welfare reform was also an idea of FDR, JFK, LBJ, and RFK.

FDR's famous SOTU speech when he said the US government must end the business of relief. JFK/LBJ's "welfare to work" ideas, RFK's "welfare should be a hand up, not a hand out."