Interesting. NYT op-ed piece on Obama reaching out to Eisenhower Republicans

[highplainsdem]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/07/opinion/07smith-2.html

We Should Still Like Ike

By JEAN EDWARD SMITH
Published: July 7, 2008
Huntington, W.Va.

FROM Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush, the Republican Party has assiduously courted the core of the old Roosevelt coalition: poor, white, working-class voters — mostly rural, often elderly, sometimes sparsely educated and frequently fundamentalist. But in so doing, Republican presidential candidates have shortchanged a vital component of their party: the Eisenhower Republicans.

These are the affluent, well-educated, mostly white suburbanites and exurbanites who once dominated Republican politics. Fiscally conservative but socially progressive, they catapulted Wendell Willkie to the Republican nomination in 1940 and then rode to victory on the coattails of Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952. They believe in rule of law at home and collective security abroad, and they cringe at the mantra that Washington is the problem, not the solution.

-snip-

Eisenhower believed traditional American values encompassed change and progress. “Should any political party attempt to abolish Social Security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear from that party again,” he wrote his brother Edgar. “There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things,” he continued, but he added, “Their number is negligible and they are stupid.”

-snip-

Mr. Obama is already reaching out to evangelical Christians, a key bloc of the Reagan coalition. Reaching out more explicitly to the Eisenhower Republicans who never felt part of that coalition would be a logical next step.

Jean Edward Smith is the author, most recently, of “F.D.R.”

[anonymous171]

1. I like to call them "Smart Republicans"

:kick:

[Skittles]

2. interesting demographic

any DUers know any of these folk?

[NYC_SKP]

4. You bet, half of my parents siblings...

Aunts and uncles who were paying attention during the last 50 years.

My uncle was the first to tell me that Eisenhower first warned us of the "military industrial complex".

They feel that the Republican party was hijacked by globalists and intolerant types, and they're disgusted with Bush.

[highplainsdem]

5. I have known some moderate Republicans. They're reasonable people, and they were shut out

of GOP politics for a long time.

They tend to be older people, though. One of my favorites, a moderate Republican politician, died several years ago. Sweet guy.

The old moderate Republicans (think of Howard Baker) were/are very close to present-day centrist Democrats.

[Skittles]

8. may I ask

how have they BEEN voting?

[DJ13]

3. Eisenhower's daughter (a Republican) has already endorsed Obama

:thumbsup:

[cliffordu]

6. Yeah, If Obama wasn't a deadbeat of a Democrat,

he'd be reaching out to real patriots like the John Quincy Adams Anti-Masonic Whigs

[NattPang]

7. By the time Obama is done campaigning

The only demographic groups left for John McCain
will be the CEO Millionaires,
the racists,
the truly stupids,
and the media.

[Skittles]

9. unfortunately, Nattpang

that's a LOT of f***ing people

[NattPang]

10. The stupids are a big group.

That's true.
But the stupids who are broke
may just borrow a clue, or two
this time.

[Skittles]

11. I live in Texas

the stupids both have no money AND have lots of money :o

[1776Forever]

12. Copy of an email I sent to my friends and family July 4th about Eisenhower....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=3563813&mesg_id=3563813

[anonymous171]

13. .

:kick: