n.
- One of the two primary political parties of the United States, organized in 1854 to oppose the extension of slavery.
- The Democratic-Republican Party.
Republican Party
| Dictionary: Republican Party |
n.
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One of the two main U.S. political parties (the other being the Democratic party), favoring a right-wing stance, limited central government, and tough, interventionist foreign policy. It was formed in 1854 in support of the anti-slavery movement preceding the Civil War.)
See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.
| Political Dictionary: Republican Party |
USA
The term has had a very confusing history. Around 1800 the party system coalesced into Federalists and Democratic-Republicans. Broadly, the Federalists were urban and trade-orientated, while the Democratic-Republicans were rural and orientated towards the interests of small farmers. The Democratic-Republicans became the Democratic Party in 1828, Their opponents changed label from Federalist to Whig in the 1820s but this did not improve their fortunes. They coined the label Republican (probably because like Cortina or Escort it had vaguely good connotations without offending anybody) when the anti-Democrat forces coalesced on an anti-slavery campaign in 1854. The Republican victory in the presidential election of 1860 (see Lincoln) and the ensuing Union victory in the Civil War led to Republican dominance until 1876. The pact of that year, in which the Republicans were allowed to win a disputed presidential election on condition that federal forces withdrew from the South (see civil rights), reinstated the Democratic hegemony in the South. At federal level, the Republicans were again hegemonic from 1896 to 1932 because sectional interests captured the Democratic Party. This was overturned by the New Deal coalition, which lasted until the 1960s. In the late 1960s some commentators predicted The Emerging Republican Majority (title of a book by K. Phillips, 1970), but no coherent majority has emerged.
Ideologically, the Republican Party favours business and opposes welfare. Because US parties are so weak and open, it is hard to pin any other ideological label on to it. A large but not dominant faction attempts to hitch the party to the values of Christian fundamentalism. The party is sometimes known by the acronym GOP (for Grand Old Party). Its symbol is the elephant.
| US History Encyclopedia: Republican Party |
The Republican Party began at a protest meeting in Ripon, Wisconsin, on 28 February 1854 as a group of Antislavery activists, known as Free Soilers, met to start a new grassroots movement. The first party convention took place in Jackson, Michigan, that same year on 6 July. The group adopted the name of the political party of Thomas Jefferson, which later evolved more directly into the Democratic Party. The Republican Party emerged directly out of the Free Soil Party in the North, a movement embraced at various times by such Democrats as Martin Van Buren, who ran unsuccessfully for the presidency on the Free Soil Party ticket in 1848, and David Wilmot, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives (1845–1851). Numerically more significant was the Republican Party's support from disillusioned northern Whigs. With the collapse of the Whig Party in the 1850s, the Republicans emerged as one of the legatees of the Whig organization.
Ideological Roots
Ideologically the early Republican Party arose out of three traditions, the first of which was the reform tradition that followed on the heels of the Second Great Awakening. The Second Great Awakening was a religious revival movement that engulfed the early American republic in the first two decades of the nineteenth century. Many Second Great Awakening leaders came to abandon the orthodox Calvinist emphasis on predestination and human depravity in favor of a more optimistic view that the world could be made a better place by individuals seeking their own salvation. This doctrine connecting the individual to social progress was influential on a number of important reforms, many of them supported by the Whigs and others supported by third-party movements centered on a single issue. In temperance reform, public education, women's rights and antislavery efforts among others, this religious reform impulse was very important. Although most Republicans did not endorse equal rights for women, or immediate abolition of Slavery for that matter, they were more likely to see themselves as "their brother's keepers," a role entirely consistent with the Puritan tradition and anathematic to many others of a libertarian bent. This reform tradition helped inspire many of those who opposed slavery's extension into the territories. The Liberty Party and the Free Soil Party had previously served as the political vehicles for this movement. Nearly all the Republican leaders except Abraham Lincoln had strong connections to some of these antebellum reform movements.
The second important influence on the Republicans was the economic policies sponsored by Henry Clay and his allies in the Whig Party. Clay believed that the government should act to develop the American economy by promoting protective Tariffs on "infant" industries such as textiles and iron. These protective tariffs would pay for internal improvements to the transportation infrastructure, such as roads, rivers, harbors, and most importantly in the 1850s, railroads. A rechartered Bank of the United States would provide a uniform currency with its bank-notes and would channel investment throughout the Union.
The third influence on the Republican Party was Nativism. Since the 1790s the United States had gone through periods in which some Americans sought to de-fine national identity tribally rather than by adherence to ideas or institutions. Founders such as John Jay thought only Protestants would make good Americans. With the tremendous influx of Irish and Germans, many of them Catholics, in the 1840s and 1850s, some Protestant Americans feared that American institutions would be "overrun" or destroyed entirely by illiterate paupers whose allegiance was to the Vatican.
Early Presidential Elections
The Republican Party nominated John C. Fremont as its first presidential candidate in 1856. Fremont was a hero of the Mexican-American War. Although the Democratic candidate, James Buchanan, enjoyed a landslide victory in that year, the Republicans made important gains in Congress and in the northern tier of states from New England to Wisconsin. While the Republicans in Congress and in the northern states tended to be radical free soilers, the party needed a candidate who appealed to northern moderates for the presidential election of 1860. In a field dominated by antislavery activists like William E. Seward and Salmon P. Chase, one candidate stood out: Abraham Lincoln of Illinois. Lincoln had shown himself to be a formidable debater and campaigner in the U.S. Senate contest against Stephen Douglas in 1858. He stood as a principled opponent of slavery's extension into the territories and he also stood with other economic interests that the Whigs had once favored and the Republican Party now represented: protective tariffs, a homestead law, federal land grants for higher education, federal sponsorship of internal improvements, and, most importantly, federal aid for a transcontinental railroad. Unlike some of the Know-Nothing converts to Republicanism, Lincoln opposed restrictions on immigration or any discrimination against Catholics.
The Republican Party was victorious in 1860 because it understood an electoral lesson the Democrats failed to remember: the presidential elections of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were won in the Lower North, a region from New Jersey to Illinois. With those electoral votes, no candidate could be defeated. Without them, no candidate could win. Despite the fact that Lincoln won in a four-way race with only 39 percent of the popular vote, he would still have won in the Electoral College if all his opposition had united on a single candidate. For the rest of the century, the Republican Party represented the Lower North, and insofar as it represented its constituency well, it found itself usually in control of the presidency and the Senate, and for a significant portion of the time, in control of the House of Representatives.
Lincoln's reelection in 1864 was by no means assured until the string of Union victories in that year inspired confidence among wavering voters. Union voters strongly supported the Republicans, over the former commander of the Army of the Potomac, George McClellan. In the years after Lincoln's assassination, northern public opinion turned strongly against the conciliatory Reconstruction policy of Lincoln, and the inconsistent harsh and tepid policy of Andrew Johnson. With southern states reimposing chattel slavery in all but name and electing former Confederate generals to represent them in Congress, the tide of northern opinion turned against appeasement. In the elections of 1866 and 1868 the Radical faction of the Republicans gained control of the congressional party and used its power to enact sweeping changes in the post–Civil War United States. The Radicals, including Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner, sponsored the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution, which provided equal rights under the law and manhood suffrage for African Americans. Stevens went so far as to propose that freedmen who were heads of households be given forty acres and a mule from confiscated land of high Confederate military and civilian officers, by which they might establish their economic independence.
The Gilded Age
The next ten years after the Civil War saw Republicans' attempts to recreate a new society in the South, with black voters and officeholders supporting the Republican Party. After the election of 1876, however, with a compromise worked out to avoid disputed southern electoral votes to Republican Rutherford B. Hayes, the Republicans withdrew their support for the federal army's enforcement of Reconstruction. Within a short time the South began restricting black voting. Outside the mountain South, Republicans had almost no support among southern whites. The pattern of support for Republicans was set at this time until well into the twentieth century. Republicans enjoyed strong support among Yankee Protestants in every region of the United States, from New England and upstate New York, through the upper Midwest and into the Northwest. German Lutherans, Scots-Irish Presbyterians, and African Americans in the North tended to vote Republican as did mountain southerners. Among the newer immigrants, the Republican Party enjoyed some support among Italians, French Canadians, and Russian Jews. Many skilled laborers, particularly in industries that enjoyed tariff protection voted for the Grand Old Party, as it came to be known in the Gilded Age. Only two groups proved almost entirely immune to the attractions of the Republican Party: southern whites and Irish Catholics.
The Republican Party in the Gilded Age divided into two groups, set apart more by federal civil service patronage than by principle: the "Half Breeds" and the "Stalwarts." In the late-nineteenth century, in addition to protectionism, the Republican Party was best known for its advocacy of a high-profile foreign policy, particularly in the Caribbean and the Pacific. Republicans sponsored American annexation of Hawaii and a group of Republicans were the most vociferous advocates of war with Spain to liberate Cuba. Many of these same Republicans argued for retention of the conquered territories of Puerto Rico and the Philippines. Dissident voices against American overseas expansion and against "corruption" began to defect in the mid-1880s to the more reform minded Democrats. These Republican defectors became known as "Mugwumps."
Populism and Progressivism
In the 1896 election, the Republicans successfully faced a challenge from the agrarian or "Populist" wing of the Democratic Party and the "People's Party." These Populists argued for an expansionary monetary policy based on the valuation of silver. In the midst of the depression of 1893, an easing of credit appealed to farmers in the South and West, but an inflationary money policy was adverse to the interests of wageworkers. With promises of prosperity and protectionism, the Republicans under William McKinley successfully appealed to workers, and new immigrants, particularly those non-evangelicals most alienated by William Jennings Bryan's religiously inspired rhetoric. The Republican Party held power for the better part of the next thirty-six years outside the South, interrupted only by Woodrow Wilson's two terms as president.
The Republican Party was divided over Progressivism. After McKinley's assassination, Theodore Roosevelt called for new initiatives in economic policy, designed to assert the power of the federal government in economic regulation. Roosevelt viewed the federal government as the arbiter when concentrated economic power threatened to overturn the limiting powers of the market.
At the end of Roosevelt's first elected term, he announced he would not seek reelection, and anointed William H. Taft as his successor. Although Taft embarked on a vigorous prosecution of trusts, Roosevelt soon grew disillusioned with him. Roosevelt's challenge to Taft in 1912, first within the Republican Party and then in forming the Progressive Party, split the Republican vote and allowed Democrat Woodrow Wilson to win the White House. After the outbreak of World War I, Republicans proved eager to enter the war on the side of the Allies, but the party reverted to Isolationism after the end of the war.
Twentieth Century
From 1918 to 1932 the Republican Party was predominant in part because of the profound cultural alienation of Americans after World War I. Warren G. Harding promised a return to "normalcy" (not a word until Harding coined it). Republicans at this time linked themselves to the enduring values of the rural Old America: isolationism, nativism, Protestantism, Prohibition, and protection.
Under Calvin Coolidge, the Republicans rolled back corporate taxes and cut spending, reducing the size of government. Despite the Teapot Dome scandal affecting the Harding administration, Republicans continued to enjoy strong political support in 1924 and in 1928, in part because of the unprecedented prosperity of the United States in the 1920s. The Republican presidential and congressional elections gathered landslide support in all regions of the United States except the South.
The election of Herbert Hoover in 1928 was an important victory for the Republicans. While the Republicans had already won two elections in the 1920s, Hoover's victory was more substantive. Hoover had been director general of the American Relief Administration in the aftermath of World War I. In the midst of general prosperity, Hoover campaigned on the slogan, "A Chicken in Every Pot, a car in every garage." A Quaker, Hoover represented old-fashioned Protestant rectitude against everything his political opponent Al Smith stood for: urbanism, cosmopolitanism, and Catholicism. Hoover won an over-whelming victory. Smith captured only the heavily Catholic states of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Louisiana, and the Deep South states of Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina, that scorned Republicans more than they feared Catholics.
As the Great Depression deepened, Hoover's inability to mount an effective mustering of moral and rhetorical resources was his most significant failure. Hoover was a lukewarm Republican Progressive and, as such, he tried a few half-hearted attempts to stimulate the economy, most notably with the National Recovery Administration. His worst failing was his insistence on old fashioned budget balancing, calling for tax increases as the economy shrank, and reducing government spending as revenues declined. The Republican Congress responded with an equally shortsighted policy: a ruinous increase in protective tariffs under the Smoot-Hawley tariffs, a vindictive form of trade policy that generated trade reprisals from America's principal trading partners and made economic recovery—for Europe, Japan, and America—that much more difficult.
Franklin D. Roosevelt's landslide victories in 1932 and 1936 pushed the Republicans into near-eclipse. The Democrats cemented the loyalties of a new generation of Americans in the cities, particularly southern and eastern Europeans, Catholics, Jews, and, for the first time in American politics, the most reliably Republican of all ethnic blocs: African Americans. With Roosevelt's campaign for a third term in 1940, the Republicans nominated a likeable, internationalist former Democrat, Wendell Willkie, who reduced the Democratic majorities. In 1946 the Republicans were able to regain control of Congress for the first time in sixteen years. Thanks to the cooperation of President Harry Truman and Senator Arthur Vandenberg, bipartisan internationalism prevailed in foreign policy, and Republicans were instrumental in supporting the Marshall Plan for European economic development, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the military alliance of Western Europe and North America organized against the Soviet Union, and the United Nations. A group of Republicans in Congress under the leadership of Representative Richard Nixon of California held investigations into the charges that the Roosevelt and Truman administrations had coddled Communists in their midst. This accusation and particularly the charges against State Department undersecretary Alger Hiss created ill will between Truman and the Republicans.
The Korean War and Republican charges of "Korea, Communism, and Corruption," helped defeat the Democrats in both the presidential and congressional elections of 1952. Dwight D. Eisenhower, the popular Allied commander of the European theater in World War II was elected president but his coattails did not allow for the control of Congress after the first two years. Republicans in the White House and in Congress proved unwilling, or unable to rein in Senator Joseph McCarthy's congressional investigations of Communists in government. Mc-Carthy's hearings sometimes appeared both farcical and brutal at the same time. Only after the public became aware of his excesses did the repressive climate end.
In 1956, despite a heart attack, Eisenhower was elected to a second term. He provided international stability and attempted to engage in serous disarmament talks with Premier Nikita Khrushchev of the Soviet Union. In domestic policy, Eisenhower made great gains. Working in collaboration with a bipartisan coalition in Congress, the president promoted federal aid to education, sent troops to Little Rock, Arkansas, to enforce desegregation, and supported a national network of inter-state highways. Nevertheless, Eisenhower's detached style of governing and the recession of the late 1950s contributed to a fall in his popularity.
In 1960 Democrat John F. Kennedy defeated Republican Richard Nixon. With Nixon's defeat, a group of new conservatives organized to overturn the Republican "Eastern Establishment." United under the banner of Senator Barry Goldwater, these conservatives secured Goldwater's nomination over the Establishment candidate Nelson Rockefeller. Although Goldwater was resoundingly defeated by Lyndon Johnson in 1964, the Republican Party was changed forever by the 1964 election: hereafter the party was more conservative, more issues-oriented, and more western and southern.
Richard Nixon was able to win election to the presidency in 1968 against a divided and discredited Democratic Party and with third-party candidate George Wallace taking the Deep South. In his first term Nixon united the conservatives and the moderates, and for the first time in the Republican Party's history, brought in large numbers of white southerners. This coalition, combined with conservative white ethnics in the North, brought Nixon a landslide victory in 1972. With the Watergate scandal and Nixon's resignation, the Republicans were badly defeated in congressional races in 1974 and Gerald Ford was defeated in the presidential race of 1976 by Jimmy Carter.
In 1980 Carter's difficulties with the Iranian government's refusal to return American hostages and the divisions within the Democrats weakened his claim on reelection in 1980. Ronald Reagan was elected president and succeeded in securing his legislative agenda, as no president had done for nearly twenty years. Working with a Republican Senate and a Democratic House of Representatives, Reagan sponsored a dramatic cut in taxes for those in the higher income brackets. His effort to scale back spending proved less effective, however. Nevertheless Reagan achieved impressive foreign policy triumphs. He negotiated substantial arms reduction with President Mikhail Gorbachev of the Soviet Union. He was triumphantly reelected in 1984, and he remained very popular personally, despite his administration's involvement in trading arms to Iran for hostages.
His successor, George H. W. Bush, was also successful in presiding over a coalition of Americans, Arab states, and Europeans that achieved a military victory against Iraq, when that country invaded Kuwait. Bush remained at record levels of public approval until shortly before the 1992 election. In a three-way race with Bill Clinton and Ross Perot, Bush was defeated.
In the first two years of the Clinton presidency the Republicans played a defensive strategy. With Clinton's failure to pass any form of his proposed health care legislation, the Republicans in Congress organized to defeat the Democratic majority in both houses. In what amounted to a public vote of no confidence in the Democratic Party, the Republicans took control of the Senate, and, for the first time in forty years, the House of Representatives as well. Under the effective electoral strategy of Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, the Republicans maintained their majority in both houses for the rest of the decade. Their legislative strategy proved less effective. Republicans allowed the government to be shut down on two occasions in 1995, inconveniencing and alienating the public. Gingrich was unable to secure the passage of his Contract with America, which promised term limits and greater legislative accountability. The Republican candidate for president, former Kansas senator Robert Dole, was resoundingly defeated in 1996.
President Clinton's admission of contradictions between his sworn testimony and his actual behavior in his sexual relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky allowed the Republican leadership to launch the impeachment of Clinton on the grounds that he committed perjury. In his Senate trial, however, Clinton was acquitted because a majority of the Senate, including some moderate Republicans, refused to vote for his removal.
The election of 2000, between Vice President Albert Gore and Texas governor George W. Bush, resulted in an indeterminate result. After much investigation, the disputed electoral votes of Florida were awarded to Bush in a U.S. Supreme Court decision split straight down ideological lines. The Republicans only enjoyed complete control of the Congress for a few months after the election. The defection of Senator James Jeffords of Vermont to Independent allowed the Democrats to organize the Senate, and the government was once again under divided control.
Bibliography
Belz, Herman. A New Birth of Freedom: The Republican Party and Freedmen's Rights, 1861 to 1866. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1976.
Gienapp, William E. The Origins of the Republican Party, 1852– 1856. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986.
Marcus, Robert D. Grand Old Party: Political Structure in the Gilded Age, 1880–1896. New York, Oxford University Press, 1971.
Mayer, George H. The Republican Party, 1854–1964. New York: Oxford University Press, 1964.
McKinney, Gordon B. Southern Mountain Republicans, 1865– 1900: Politics and the Appalachian Community. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1978.
Merrill, Horace Samuel, and Marion Galbraith Merrill. The Republican Command, 1897–1913. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1971.
Mohr, James C., ed. Radical Republicans in the North: State Politics during Reconstruction. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976.
Montgomery, David. Beyond Equality: Labor and the Radical Republicans. New York: Knopf, 1967.
Rae, Nicol C. The Decline and Fall of the Liberal Republicans: From 1952 to the Present. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.
———. Conservative Reformers: Republican Freshmen and the Lessons of the 104th Congress. Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1998.
Richardson, Heather Cox. The Death of Reconstruction: Race, Labor, and Politics in the Post–Civil War North, 1865–1901. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001.
Rutland, Robert Allen. The Republicans: From Lincoln to Bush. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1996.
| Columbia Encyclopedia: Republican party |
Republican party, American political party.
Origins and Early Years
The name was first used by Thomas Jefferson's party, later called the Democratic Republican party or, simply, the Democratic party. The name reappeared in the 1850s, when the present-day Republican party was founded. At that time the crucial issue of the extension of slavery into the territories split the Democratic party and the Whig party, and opponents of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 organized the new Republican party. Jackson, Mich., is called the birthplace of the party (July 6, 1854) and Joseph Medill is credited with having suggested its name, but these distinctions are also claimed for other places and other men.
By 1855 the new party was well launched in the North. Anti-slavery Whigs such as William Seward and Thurlow Weed were dominant in the new grouping, but elements of the Know-Nothing movement, together with the Free-Soil party, abolitionists, and anti-Nebraska Democrats also supplied strength. The party's national organization was perfected at Pittsburgh in Feb., 1856, and its first presidential candidate, John C. Frémont, made a creditable showing against victorious James Buchanan. The party opposed the repeal of the Missouri Compromise and the extension of slavery, denounced the Supreme Court's decision in the Dred Scott Case, and favored the admission of Kansas as a free state.
The Civil War and Reconstruction Years
Generally belligerent toward the South, the Republicans were regarded by Southerners with mingled hatred and fear as sectional tension increased. They were successful in the elections of 1858 and passed over their better-known leaders to nominate Abraham Lincoln in 1860. The party platform in 1860 included planks calling for a high protective tariff, free homesteads, and a transcontinental railroad; these were bids for support among Westerners, farmers, and eastern manufacturing interests.
Lincoln's victory over Stephen A. Douglas, John C. Breckinridge, and John Bell was the signal for the secession of the Southern states, and the Civil War followed. Union military failures early in the war and conservative opposition to such measures as the Emancipation Proclamation caused the party to lose ground in the Congressional elections of 1862. But despite mutterings against his leadership, Lincoln, renominated on the Union (Republican) ticket in 1864, defeated Gen. George B. McClellan.
Although a separate ticket headed by the radical Frémont withdrew before the election in 1864, the cleavage within the party between radicals and moderates widened as the war progressed. Radicals such as Benjamin F. Wade, Henry W. Davis, Thaddeus Stevens, Charles Sumner, and Edwin M. Stanton advocated a punitive policy for the South, while Lincoln and the moderates were inclined to leniency. The division was made complete when, after Lincoln's assassination, his successor, Andrew Johnson, adopted a moderate program of Reconstruction. Johnson, a Jacksonian Democrat from Tennessee, had been added to the ticket in 1864 to strengthen the idea of a Union party. Ultimately his policies and attempts to implement them antagonized his supporters among the moderate Republicans and paved the way for the triumph of the radicals in the congressional elections of 1866. The height of radical power was reached in 1868 with the impeachment of Johnson, which was defeated by only a one-vote margin.
The nomination of the war hero Ulysses S. Grant assured Republican success over the Democrats led by Horatio Seymour in the presidential election of 1868. The radicals were supreme under Grant, but their excesses and the open scandals of the administration created a new schism, leading to the formation of the Liberal Republican party. Its candidate, Horace Greeley, although supported by the Democrats, was not popular enough to defeat Grant in 1872, and corruption became even more widespread.
The election of 1876 indicated that radical Republicanism had lost much of its popular support. The Democratic candidate, Samuel J. Tilden, received a popular plurality of over 250,000 votes, but the disputed electoral votes of Florida, South Carolina, and Louisiana, the only Southern states still under Republican control, were awarded to Rutherford B. Hayes, and the Republican was declared President-elect. With the election, however, Republican domination of the South and radical rule of the party were definitely ended.
The Late Nineteenth Century
In the period that followed, the two parties differed little in their programs. Each party had numerous almost irreconcilable factions, and each avoided taking any real stand on controversial issues, which were generally left to lesser political groups such as the Granger movement and the Greenback party. The Republicans favored a protective tariff and the Democrats a tariff for revenue only, but even this traditional distinction was not rigidly kept. However, the Republican tariff policy was the work of leaders of the new industrial capitalism, whose influence in party councils began to be strongly felt under Grant.
The Republican "old guard," led by Roscoe Conkling, while failing to secure a third nomination for Grant in 1880, nevertheless temporarily blocked the presidential aspirations of James G. Blaine. Another ex-Union general, James A. Garfield, was nominated and was elected over a Democratic general, Winfield S. Hancock. Assassinated shortly after taking office, Garfield was succeeded by Vice President Chester A. Arthur.
In these postwar elections, the party, always supported by the Grand Army of the Republic, denounced all Democrats as former Copperheads and claimed to have alone saved the Union. But "waving the bloody shirt," as this type of propaganda was styled, was not enough to elect Blaine in 1884. The reform wing of the party, led by Carl Schurz, deserted Blaine for the conservative Democrat Grover Cleveland, who was elected. This defection by the mugwumps illustrated the lack of real issues between the two parties; it was the man and not the party that counted. Benjamin Harrison defeated Cleveland in 1888 but lost to him in 1892. The growing Populist party, with its radical program, had a peculiar position in those elections, receiving in each section of the country the support of the party not in power.
McKinley through Coolidge
When, in 1896, the Democratic party was captured by the radicals under William Jennings Bryan, its presidential candidate in 1896, 1900, and 1908, the Republican party became openly the champion of the gold standard and conservative economic doctrines. The conservatives, skillfully guided by national chairman Marcus A. Hanna, won with William McKinley in 1896 and 1900, and under such leaders as Nelson W. Aldrich, Thomas B. Reed, Joseph G. Cannon, Thomas C. Platt, and Matthew S. Quay, the party prospered. Theodore Roosevelt, successor to the assassinated McKinley, easily defeated the conservative Democrat Alton B. Parker in 1904, and the vigorous foreign policy of his administration fostered the belief that the Republicans stood for the imperialism represented by the recent Spanish-American War.
Under Roosevelt's Republican successor and friend, William Howard Taft, "dollar diplomacy" flourished, but a new rift appeared in the party. Insurgents led by Senator Robert M. La Follette balked at the party's conservatism and when the regulars renominated Taft in 1912, most of the dissidents withdrew and in the Bull Moose convention chose Roosevelt to lead the new Progressive party ticket. Because of this division, the Democratic candidate, Woodrow Wilson, was elected President and, narrowly reelected in 1916 over Charles Evans Hughes, he served through World War I. The party, however, won the Congressional elections of 1918, and Republican opposition was a large factor in defeating Wilson's peace program. By straddling the issue of the League of Nations and calling for a return to "normalcy," the party easily elected Warren G. Harding in 1920. His administration rivaled Grant's for corruption, but after Harding died in office, his successor, Calvin Coolidge, was returned over John W. Davis and La Follette.
Depression and World War II
The Republican victory with Herbert C. Hoover in 1928 marked the first time since the end of Reconstruction that the party had carried states of the old Confederacy; this came about chiefly because the Democratic candidate, Alfred E. Smith, was a Roman Catholic and an opponent of prohibition. Hoover and the Republicans were blamed for the disastrous economic depression that soon enveloped the country, and the Democrats, under Franklin Delano Roosevelt, were swept into office in 1932. The frustrated Republicans were never able to break the remarkable hold of Roosevelt and the New Deal on the electorate and regularly went down to defeat every four years, with Alfred M. Landon (1936), Wendell Willkie (1940), and Thomas E. Dewey (1944).
Isolationists held the upper hand in the party before World War II, and in 1940 two Republicans, Henry L. Stimson and Frank Knox, were virtually read out of the party for accepting posts in Roosevelt's cabinet. But the party supported the nation's war effort and after the war, led by Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg, joined the Democratic administration in a bipartisan foreign policy. In 1948 the Republican party was supremely confident of defeating Roosevelt's successor, Harry S. Truman. However, Dewey, the party's first unsuccessful candidate ever to be renominated, was defeated by a close margin.
Eisenhower and Nixon
In 1952, the more liberal element among the Republicans was able to deny the conservatives' choice, Robert A. Taft, choosing instead the popular war hero, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower as their presidential nominee. Campaigning against the domestic policy of the Truman administration and its prosecution of the war in Korea, Eisenhower swept to a landslide victory over the Democratic candidate, Adlai E. Stevenson. The domestic program of the Eisenhower adminstration was moderately conservative, and in foreign policy the internationalist approach of the previous Democratic administration was continued. Despite the President's overwhelming personal popularity and his landslide reelection over Stevenson in 1956, a feat that included carrying several Southern states for the second consecutive time, the Democrats retained control of Congress through the 1960 elections.
In 1960, an incumbent Vice President, Richard M. Nixon was nominated for president for the first time since 1836. Although the Republican party had become a minority in registration, Nixon failed by fewer than 200,000 votes to defeat John F. Kennedy. In 1964 the conservative wing of the party engineered the nomination of Senator Barry Goldwater, who was, however, defeated in a landslide by Lyndon B. Johnson. In 1968 the party rebounded and won a narrow victory with party stalwart Richard Nixon over Democratic candidate Hubert Humphrey, who was handicapped by disaffection over the Vietnam War. In 1972, President Nixon was triumphantly reelected, defeating George McGovern on a record of favoring a strong defense with a limited détente with the Soviet Union and China, and a conservative domestic program featuring a decentralization of political power.
The party, however, suffered a series of massive setbacks with the resignation of Vice President Spiro Agnew upon his conviction for tax evasion and revelations of major White House involvement in the Watergate affair, which led finally to the resignation of President Nixon. Nixon's successor, Gerald R. Ford, attempted to disassociate the party from the scandals, but Watergate appeared to be a major factor in the substantial Republican losses in the 1974 elections and in the subsequent defeat of Ford by the Democrat Jimmy Carter.
The Reagan-Bush Years to the Present
In 1980, the conservative Ronald Reagan, a former supporter of Barry Goldwater, regained the presidency for the Republicans and reversed long-standing political trends by instituting a supply-side economic program of budget and tax cuts. He also advocated increased military spending and presided over the largest military buildup during peacetime in American history. The Iran-contra affair, which broke in late 1986, marred the last years of his tenure, though his vice-president, George H. W. Bush, was nonetheless able to defeat the Democratic nominee, Michael Dukakis, in the 1988 election.
Bush was generally recognized as strong on foreign policy. He was widely lauded for his role in orchestrating the coalition of forces against Iraq in the Persian Gulf War. He also largely continued Reagan's policy toward the Soviet Union. On the domestic side, however, Bush's administration was perceived as being slow to respond to such problems as stagnant economic growth, rising unemployment, and the unaffordability of health care for many Americans. Bush's high popularity after the Persian Gulf War dropped rapidly, and he lost the 1992 presidential election to the Democrat, Arkansas's Governor Bill Clinton.
In the 1994 congressional and state elections, however, the Republican party scored major victories and increased its hold in the South. Republicans unseated long-time Democratic incumbents, winning control of both houses of Congress (for the first time since the 1950s) and claiming several governorships. Newt Gingrich, who spearheaded the Republicans' congressional election campaign with his conservative "Contract with America" program, became speaker of the House. While bills were passed on the key program components, many items were thwarted or defeated in Congress or by the president.
The 1996 elections saw incumbents generally retain their offices. Former Senate majority leader Bob Dole won the Republican nomination for the presidency, but he and his running mate, Jack Kemp, were never able to reduce significantly President Clinton's substantial lead. In the House and Senate, Republicans retained their majorities, slightly diminished in the former and slightly increased in the latter. The 1998 mid-term elections saw the Republican margin in the House reduced, despite expectations that they would benefit from the effects of the Lewinsky scandal; the results led to Gingrich's resignation from office.
In the 2000 elections, the party's presidential nominee, George W. Bush appeared generally to lead in the polls in what ultimately became a popular-vote loss to Democrat Al Gore. Despite not winning the popular vote. Bush secured the presidency with a victory in the electoral college when he won Florida by an extremely narrow margin and outlasted Gore's unsuccessful court challenge of the Florida vote-counting process. The party did not fair as well in other races for national office, and the Democrats made gains in Congress, although the Republicans retained control there.
The party lost control of the Senate as a result of a defection in mid-2001, but regained it after the Nov., 2002, elections. In 2004, Bush was renominated without opposition, and he subsequently soundly defeated the Democratic nominee, John Kerry. The Republicans also increased their majorities in both houses of Congress, as retiring Senate Democrats from the South were replaced by Republicans. Public discontent with congressional scandals and the war in Iraq led to reversals in the congressional elections of 2006, however, and the party lost control of both houses of Congress, albeit narrowly in the Senate. Those losses were amplified in 2008 when Democrat Barack Obama, aided by a national economic crisis, defeated Republican presidential hopeful John McCain and led the Democrats to their largest national victory since 1976.
Bibliography
See H. L. Trefousse, The Radical Republicans (1968); E. Foner, Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men (1970); F. L. Burdette, The Republican Party (2d ed. 1972); E. Lindop, All about Republicans (1985); W. Gienapp, The Origins of the Republican Party, 1852-56 (1988); F. Schwengel, The Republican Party (1988); L. L. Gould, Grand Old Party: A History of the Republicans (2003).
| Law Encyclopedia: Republican Party |
This entry contains information applicable to United States law only.
The Republican party was founded in 1854 by a group of renegade Democrats, Whigs, and political independents who opposed the expansion of slavery into new U.S. territories and states. What began as a single-issue, independent party became a major political force in the United States. Six years after the new party was formed, Republican nominee Abraham Lincoln won the U.S. presidential election. The Republican party and its counterpart, the Democratic party, became the mainstays of the nation's de facto two-party system.
Lincoln's victory in 1860 signaled the demise of the Whig party and the ascendance of Republican politics. From 1860 to 1931, the Republicans dominated U.S. presidential elections. Only two Democrats were elected to the White House during the seventy-year period of Republican preeminence.
The early Republican party was shaped by political conscience and regionalism. Throughout the early and mid-nineteenth century, states in the North and South were bitterly divided over the issues of slavery and state sovereignty. In 1854 the enactment of the Kansas-Nebraska Act inflamed political passions. Under the act residents of the new territories of Kansas and Nebraska could decide whether to permit slavery in their regions. In effect, the act invalidated the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which prohibited the extension of slavery in new areas of the United States. Opponents of slavery condemned the measure, and violence erupted in Kansas.
Antislavery parties had already sprung up in the United States. The abolitionist Liberty party began in 1840, and the Free Soil party was formed in 1848. In much the same spirit, the Republican party arose to protest the Nebraska-Kansas Act. The new group drew support from third parties and disaffected Democrats and Whigs. After organizational meetings in 1854 in Ripon, Wisconsin, and Jackson, Michigan, the Republican party was born.
In 1856 the Republicans nominated their first presidential candidate, John C. Frémont, a former explorer who opposed the expansion of slavery in new U.S. territories and states. Although defeated in the national election by Democrat James Buchanan, Frémont received one-third of the popular vote.
In 1860 Abraham Lincoln from Illinois was the Republican presidential nominee. Lincoln appealed not only to antislavery voters but to business owners in the East and farmers in the Midwest. The Democratic party was in turmoil over slavery. The northern Democrats nominated Stephen A. Douglas, who tried to sidestep the issue, and the southern Democrats backed John C. Breckinridge, who denounced government efforts to prohibit slavery. Lincoln defeated both candidates.
Although Lincoln's election was a triumph for the Republicans, his support was concentrated primarily in the North. Shortly after Lincoln's victory, several southern states seceded from the Union, and the bloody U.S. Civil War began.
Throughout the war Lincoln and his policies took a drubbing from the press and public. When Lincoln ran for reelection, the Republican party temporarily switched its name to the Union party. Lincoln sought a second term with Democrat Andrew Johnson as his running mate in order to deflect criticism of the Republican party. Johnson, from Tennessee, was one of the few southerners to support the preservation of the Union. Despite his critics Lincoln defeated the Democratic nominee, George B. McClellan, who ran on a peace platform.
After the North's victory in 1865, the Republicans oversaw Reconstruction, a period of rebuilding for the vanquished South. Lincoln favored a more conciliatory attitude toward the defeated Confederacy. Radical Republicans, however, sought a complete overhaul of the South's economic and social system. After Lincoln's assassination in 1865, the Republicans' Reconstruction policies — such as conferring citizenship and voting rights to former slaves — created long-lasting resentment among many southern whites.
Republicans depended upon the support of northern voters and courted the vote of emancipated slaves. The party fanned hostility by reminding northern voters of the South's disloyalty during the war. The Republicans were the dominant party in the United States from 1860 to 1931, and the party's base among southern whites began to grow in the 1950s, when political loyalties began to shift.
During their long period of political dominance, Republicans sent the following candidates to the White House: Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James Garfield (died in office), Chester A. Arthur (vice president who succeeded Garfield), Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley (died in office), Theodore Roosevelt (vice president who succeeded McKinley and was later elected on his own), William Howard Taft, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover.
During the 1880s and 1890s, there was an important shift in party affiliation. Struggling Republican farmers throughout the Midwest, South, and West switched their political allegiance to the Democrats who promised them government assistance. The financially strapped farmers were concerned about the depressed national economy. Many turned to the populist movement headed by Democrat William Jennings Bryan. A brilliant orator, Bryan called for the free coinage of silver currency, whereas the Republicans favored the gold standard.
Despite his popularity Bryan was defeated by Republican William McKinley in the 1896 presidential election. The Democrats appealed to farmers, but the Republicans had captured the business and urban vote. After the U.S. economy improved during the McKinley administration, supporters dubbed the Republican party "the Grand Old Party," or the GOP, a nickname that endured.
After President McKinley was assassinated in 1901, Vice President Theodore Roosevelt assumed the presidency. He pursued ambitious social reforms such as stricter antitrust laws, tougher meat and drug regulations, and new environmental measures. In 1912 Roosevelt and his followers broke off from the Republicans to form the Bull Moose party. The third party split helped Democrat Woodrow Wilson defeat Republican candidate William Howard Taft.
After eight years of Democratic power, during which the U.S. fought in World War I, the Republicans returned to the White House in 1920 with Warren G. Harding. Unable to stave off or reverse the Great Depression, the Republicans lost control of the Oval Office in 1932.
During the Great Depression, the public became impatient with the ineffectual economic policies of Republican President Herbert Hoover. Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt swept into the White House with a promise of a New Deal for all Americans. From 1932 to 1945, Roosevelt lifted the nation from its economic collapse and guided it through World War II. During Roosevelt's administration the Republican party lost its traditional constituency of African Americans and urban workers. Harry S. Truman followed Roosevelt in office and in 1948 withstood a strong challenge from Republican Thomas E. Dewey.
Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower won the presidency in 1952 and 1956. A popular World War II hero, Eisenhower oversaw a good economy and a swift end to the Korean War. Eisenhower was succeeded in 1960 by Democrat John F. Kennedy who defeated Eisenhower's vice president, Republican nominee Richard M. Nixon. In 1964 Republicans nominated ultraconservative Barry M. Goldwater who was trounced at the polls by Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson, the incumbent. Johnson, Ken- nedy's vice president, had assumed the presidency after Kennedy's assassination in 1963.
When Republican Richard M. Nixon was elected president in 1968, he began the reduction of U.S. military troops in Southeast Asia. Nixon opened trade with China and improved foreign relations through a policy of detente with the former Soviet Union. During his term the shift of southern Democrats to the Republican party accelerated. (In fact, from 1972 to 1988, the South was the most Republican region of the United States.)
The nadir for the Republican party occurred in 1974 when Nixon left office in the midst of the Watergate scandal, a botched attempt to burglarize and wiretap the Democratic National Committee headquarters. Implicated in the scandal's cover-up, Nixon became the only president in U.S. history to resign from office. He was succeeded by Vice President Gerald R. Ford of Michigan who served the remainder of Nixon's term and pardoned the disgraced president.
Ford lost the 1976 presidential election to Democrat Jimmy Carter of Georgia. A sour economy and the bungling of foreign affairs (most notably the Iran hostage crisis) led to Carter's defeat in 1980 by Republican challenger Ronald Reagan and his running mate, George Bush.
The Republicans controlled the White House for twelve years, with Reagan serving two terms and Bush one. During Reagan's tenure, southern Democrats turned in droves to the Republican party, embracing Reagan's politically conservative message. Pointing to widespread ticket-splitting, many analysts believe voters embraced the charismatic Reagan, not the party. Bush became president in 1988 but was defeated in 1992, by Democrat Bill Clinton of Arkansas.
Although considered the party of business and the suburbs, the GOP has made significant inroads in traditionally Democratic areas such as labor and the South. An extremely conservative element dominated the Republican party in the 1980s, but a more moderate wing began to exert influence in the late 1990s. Many of these moderates were elected to Congress in 1994, giving the Republicans control of both houses for the first time in more than 40 years.
| History Dictionary: Republican party |
A political party that began in 1854 and is today one of the two major political parties in the United States. Originally, it was composed mainly of northerners from both major parties of the time, the Democrats and the Whigs, with some former Know-Nothings as well. The first Republicans were united by their opposition to the expansion of slavery. Their first winning presidential candidate was Abraham Lincoln in 1860.
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| Wikipedia: Republican Party (United States) |
"GOP" redirects here. For other uses, see GOP (disambiguation).
Not to be confused with American Republican Party.
| Republican Party | |
|---|---|
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| Chairperson | Michael Steele (MD) |
| Senate leader | Mitch McConnell (KY) |
| House leader | John Boehner (OH) |
| Founded | 1854 |
| Headquarters | 310 First Street NE, Washington, D.C., 20003 |
| Ideology | Modern: American conservatism, Social conservatism, Fiscal conservatism Economic liberalism, Neoconservatism Historical: Classical liberalism, Paleoconservatism, Progressivism |
| Political position | Fiscal: Center-right[dubious ], Right[dubious ] Social: Center-right[dubious ], Right[dubious ] |
| International affiliation | International Democrat Union |
| Official colors | Red (Unofficial) |
| Seats in the Senate | 40[1] |
| Seats in the House | 178 |
| Website | |
| www.gop.com | |
| Politics of the United States Political parties Elections |
|
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the Grand Old Party or the GOP, despite being the younger of the two major parties. The party's platform is generally considered right of center in the U.S. political spectrum.
The Republican Party has the second most registered voters as of 2004 with 55 million, encompassing roughly one-third of the electorate.[2] Polls over the last two years have found that twenty to thirty-four percent of Americans self-identify as Republicans.[3][4][5][6][7]
There have been eighteen Republican Presidents, compared to 15 Democrats.[8] Republicans currently fill a minority of seats in both the United States Senate and the House of Representatives, hold a minority of state governorships, and control a minority of state legislatures.
Contents |
History
Main article: History of the United States Republican Party
Founded in Ripon, Wisconsin, in 1854 by anti-slavery expansion activists and modernizers,[9] the Republican Party quickly surpassed the Whig Party as the principal opposition to the Democratic Party.[10] It first came to power in 1860 with the election of Abraham Lincoln, a former Whig, to the presidency and presided over the American Civil War and Reconstruction.[11][12]
The party began to form in the late 1840s, though it would take opposing the Kansas-Nebraska Act to unify the party.[13] Their first official party convention was held on July 6, 1854 in Jackson, Michigan.[14] The Republican's initial base was in the Northeast and Midwest and the party solidified its position as the second party with the nomination of John C. Fremont in the 1856 Presidential election. Early Republican ideology was reflected in the 1856 slogan free labor, free land, free men. "Free labor" referred to the Republican belief in a mobile middle class that left the workforce and set up small businesses. "Free land" referred to Republican efforts to facilitate this spirit of entrepreneurship by giving away government owned land. The Party hoped that this rapid growth would help check, and eventually end slavery.[15] Abraham Lincoln received the Republican nomination in 1860 and subsequently won the presidency.[16] The party remained a part of the Union during the American Civil War and presided over Reconstruction. In the election of 1864 a majority of Republicans united with pro-war Democrats to nominate Lincoln to the National Union Party ticket. A faction of Radical Republicans split with the party and formed the Radical Democracy Party. This group chose John C. Frémont as its presidential candidate, before reaching a political agreement and withdrawing from the election in September 1864.
The party's success created factionalism within the party in the 1870s. Those disturbed by Ulysses S. Grant ran Horace Greeley for the presidency against him. The Stalwarts defended the spoils system; the Half-Breeds pushed for reform of the civil service. The GOP supported business generally, hard money (i.e., the gold standard), high tariffs, generous pensions for Union veterans, and the annexation of Hawaii. The Republicans supported the Protestants who demanded Prohibition. As the Northern post-bellum economy boomed with heavy and light industry, railroads, mines, fast-growing cities and prosperous agriculture, the Republicans took credit and promoted policies to sustain the fast growth. But by 1890, the Republicans had agreed to the Sherman Antitrust Act and the Interstate Commerce Commission in response to complaints from owners of small businesses and farmers. The high McKinley Tariff of 1890 hurt the party and the Democrats swept to a landslide in the off-year elections, even defeating McKinley himself.
After the two terms of Democrat Grover Cleveland, the election of William McKinley in 1896 is widely seen as a resurgence of Republican dominance and is sometimes cited as a realigning election. McKinley promised that high tariffs would end the severe hardship caused by the Panic of 1893, and that the GOP would guarantee a sort of pluralism in which all groups would benefit. The Republicans were cemented as the party of business, though mitigated by the succession of Theodore Roosevelt who embraced trust-busting. He later ran on a third party ticket of the Progressive Party and challenged his previous successor William Howard Taft. The party controlled the presidency throughout the 1920s, running on a platform of opposition to the League of Nations, high tariffs, and promotion of business interests. Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover were resoundingly elected in 1920, 1924, and 1928 respectively. The Teapot Dome scandal threatened to hurt the party but Harding died and Coolidge blamed everything on him, as the opposition splintered in 1924. The pro-business policies of the decade seemed to produce an unprecedented prosperity until the Wall Street Crash of 1929 heralded the Great Depression.
The New Deal coalition of Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt controlled American politics for most of the next three decades, excepting the two-term presidency of Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower. African Americans began moving toward favoring the Democratic Party during Roosevelt's time. After Roosevelt took office in 1933, New Deal legislation sailed through Congress at lightning speed. In the 1934 midterm elections, 10 Republican senators went down to defeat, leaving them with only 25 against 71 Democrats. The House of Representatives was split in a similar ratio. The "Second New Deal" was heavily criticized by the Republicans in Congress, who likened it to class warfare and socialism. The volume of legislation, and the inability of the Republicans to block it, soon made the opposition to Roosevelt develop into bitterness. Conservative Democrats, mostly from the South, joined with Republicans led by Senator Robert Taft to create the conservative coalition, which dominated domestic issues in Congress until 1964.
The second half of the 20th century saw election or succession of Republican presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush. The Republican Party, led by House Republican Minority Whip Newt Gingrich campaigning on a Contract with America, were elected to majorities to both houses of Congress in the Republican Revolution of 1994. Their majorities were generally held until the Democrats regained control in the mid-term election of 2006. In the 21st century the Republican Party is defined by social conservatism, a Preemptive war foreign policy to defeat terrorism and promote global democracy, a more powerful executive branch, tax cuts, gun rights and border sovereignty, and deregulation of industry.
In the Presidential election of 2008, the party's nominees were Senator John McCain, of Arizona, for President and former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin for Vice President. They were defeated by Senators Barack Obama and Joe Biden. In 2009, Republicans Chris Christie and Bob McDonnell were elected to the governorships of New Jersey and Virginia. Their victories were seen by some as a repudiation of the Democratic Administration and a harbinger of anti-incumbent sentiment against Democrats in the upcoming 2010 elections.[17][18]
Name and symbols
The party's founding members chose the name "Republican Party" in the mid-1850s in part as an homage to Thomas Jefferson (it was the name initially used by his party).[20][21] The name echoed the 1776 republican values of civic virtue and opposition to aristocracy and corruption.[22]
The term "Grand Old Party" is a traditional nickname for the Republican Party, and the initialism "G.O.P." (or "GOP") is a commonly used designation. According to the Republican Party, the term "gallant old party" was used in 1875.[23] According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first known reference to the Republican Party as the "grand old party" came in 1876. The first use of the abbreviation GOP is dated 1884.
The traditional mascot of the party is the elephant. A political cartoon by Thomas Nast, published in Harper's Weekly on November 7, 1874, is considered the first important use of the symbol.[24] In the early 20th century, the usual symbol of the Republican Party in Midwestern states such as Indiana and Ohio was the eagle, as opposed to the Democratic rooster. This symbol still appears on Indiana, New York[25], and West Virginia[26] ballots.
After the 2000 election, the color red became associated with the GOP, although it has not been officially adopted by the party. That election night, for the first time, all of the major broadcast networks used the same color scheme for the electoral map: states won by Republican nominee George W. Bush were colored red, and states won by Democratic nominee Al Gore were colored blue. Although the assignment of colors to political parties is unofficial and informal, they have come to be widely recognized by the media and the public to represent the respective political parties (see Political color and Red states and blue states for more details).[citation needed]
Structure and composition
Further information: Politics of the United States#Organization of American political parties
The Republican National Committee (RNC) is responsible for promoting Republican campaign activities. It is responsible for developing and promoting the Republican political platform, as well as coordinating fundraising and election strategy. Its current chairman is the first African American elected to the post, Michael S. Steele. The chairman of the RNC is chosen by the President when the Republicans have the White House or otherwise by the Party's state committees. The RNC, under the direction of the party's presidential candidate, supervises the Republican National Convention, raises funds, and coordinates campaign strategy. On the local level there are similar state committees in every state and most large cities, counties and legislative districts, but they have far less money and influence than the national body.
The Republican House and Senate caucuses have separate fundraising and strategy committees. The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) assists in House races, and the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) in Senate races. They each raise over $100 million per election cycle, and play important roles in recruiting strong state candidates, while the Republican Governors Association (RGA) assists in state gubernatorial races; it is currently chaired by Governor Rick Perry of Texas.
Ideology and political positions
Further information: Factions in the Republican Party (United States)
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The Republican Party includes fiscal conservatives, social conservatives, neoconservatives, Moderates, and libertarians.
Economic policies
Republicans emphasize the role of free markets and individual acheivement as the primary factors behind economic prosperity. To this end, they favor laissez-faire economics, fiscal conservatism, and the promotion of personal responsibility over welfare programs.
A leading economic theory advocated by modern Republicans is supply-side economics. Some fiscal policies influenced by this theory were popularly known as "Reaganomics," a term popularized during the Presidential administrations of Ronald Reagan. This theory holds that reduced income tax rates increase GDP growth and thereby generate the same or more revenue for the government from the smaller tax on the extra growth. This belief is reflected, in part, by the party's long-term advocacy of tax cuts. Many Republicans consider the income tax system to be inherently inefficient and oppose graduated tax rates, which they believe are unfairly targeted at those who create jobs and wealth. They believe private spending is usually more efficient than government spending. Republicans oppose the estate tax.
Most Republicans agree there should be a "safety net" to assist the less fortunate; however, they tend to believe the private sector is more effective in helping the poor than government is; as a result, Republicans support giving government grants to faith-based and other private charitable organizations to supplant welfare spending. Members of the GOP also believe that limits on eligibility and benefits must be in place to ensure the safety net is not abused. Republicans introduced and strongly supported the welfare reform of 1996, which was signed into law by Democratic President Clinton, and which limited eligibility for welfare, successfully leading to many former welfare recipients finding jobs.[27]
The party opposes a government-run single-payer health care system, believing such a system constitutes socialized medicine and is in favor of a personal or employer-based system of insurance, supplemented by Medicare for the elderly and Medicaid, which covers approximately 40% of the poor.[28] The GOP has a mixed record of supporting the historically popular Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid programs, all of which Republicans initially opposed. Congressional Republicans and the Bush administration supported a reduction in Medicaid's growth rate;[29] however, congressional Republicans expanded Medicare, supporting a new drug plan for seniors starting in 2006. Many Republicans support increased health insurance portability, laws promoting coverage of pre-existing medical conditions, a cap on malpractice lawsuits, the implementation of a streamlined electronic medical records system, an emphasis on preventative care rather than emergency room care, and tax benefits aimed at making health insurance more affordable for the uninsured and targeted to promote universal access. They generally oppose government funding for elective abortions.[30]
Republicans are generally opposed by labor union management and members, and have supported various legislation on the state and federal levels, including right to work legislation and the Taft-Hartley Act, which gives workers the right not to participate in unions, as opposed to a closed shop, which prohibits workers from choosing not to join unions in workplaces. Some Republicans are opposed to increases in the minimum wage, believing that such increases hurt many businesses by forcing them to cut jobs and services, export jobs overseas, and raise the prices of goods to compensate for the decrease in profit.
Separation of powers and balance of powers
Many current Republicans voice support of "strict constructionism," the judicial philosophy that the Constitution should be interpreted narrowly and as close to the original intent as is practicable rather than a more flexible "living Constitution" model.[31] Most Republicans point to Roe v. Wade as a case of judicial activism, where the court overturned most laws restricting abortion on the basis of a right to privacy inferred from the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Some Republicans have actively sought to block judges whom they see as being activist judges and have sought the appointment of judges who claim to practice judicial restraint. Other Republicans, though, argue that it is the right of judges to extend the interpretation of the Constitution and judge actions by the legislative or executive branches as legal or unconstitutional on previously unarticulated grounds. The issue of judicial deference to the legislature is a matter of some debate — like the Democrats, most Republicans criticize court decisions which overturn their own (conservative) legislation as overstepping bounds and support decisions which overturn opposing legislation. Some commentators have advocated that the Republicans take a more aggressive approach and support legislative supremacy more firmly.[32]
The Republican party has supported various bills within the last decade to strip some or all federal courts of the ability to hear certain types of cases, in an attempt to limit judicial review. These jurisdiction stripping laws have included removing federal review of the recognition of same-sex marriage with the Marriage Protection Act,[33] the constitutionality of the Pledge of Allegiance with the Pledge Protection Act, and the rights of detainees in Guantanamo Bay in the Detainee Treatment Act. The last of these limitations was overruled by the Supreme Court in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld.
Compared with Democrats, many Republicans believe in a more robust version of federalism with greater limitations placed upon federal power and a larger role reserved for the States. Following this view on federalism, Republicans often take a less expansive reading of congressional power under the Commerce Clause, such as in the opinion of William Rehnquist in United States v. Lopez. Many Republicans on the more libertarian wing wish for a more dramatic narrowing of Commerce Clause power by revisiting, among other cases, Wickard v. Filburn, a case that held that growing wheat on a farm for consumption on the same farm fell under congressional power to "regulate commerce ... among the several States".
President George W. Bush was a proponent of the unitary executive theory and cited it within his signing statements about legislation passed by Congress.[34] The administration's interpretation of the unitary executive theory was called seriously into question by Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, where the Supreme Court ruled 5-3 that the President does not have sweeping powers to override or ignore laws through his power as commander in chief,[35] stating "the Executive is bound to comply with the Rule of Law that prevails."[36] Following the ruling, the Bush administration has sought Congressional authorization for programs started only on executive mandate, as was the case with the Military Commissions Act, or abandoned illegal programs it had previously asserted executive authority to enact, in the case of the National Security Agency domestic wiretapping program.
The Republican party supports the status quo of the current political status of Puerto Rico, which is that the island is free to hold referendums to decide their status within the United States.
Environmental policies
Some Republicans are skeptical of anthropogenic global warming and question scientific studies on the impact of human activity on climate change, instead asserting that global warming is part of "natural" cyclical phenomenon, or caused by a number of other alternative theories.[citation needed] This is slowly changing due to more scientific research and increasing pressure from the international community, and in July 2008 the Bush administration acknowledged, at least in principle, the need to act on the issue of climate change.[citation needed] John McCain, the Republican nominee for president in 2008, was a strong advocate of legislation to regulate the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
Historically, the Republican Party has made several contributions to the protection of the environment. Republican President Theodore Roosevelt was a prominent conservationist whose policies eventually led to the creation of the modern U.S. National Park Service.[37] Also, President Richard Nixon was responsible for establishing the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970.[38] More recently, California Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, with the support of 16 other states, sued the Federal Government and the United States Environmental Protection Agency for the right to set vehicle emission standards higher than the Federal Standard,[39] a right to which California is entitled under the Clean Air Act.
This association however has shifted as the Democratic Party came to also support environmentalism. President George W. Bush has publicly opposed ratification of the Kyoto Protocols on the grounds that they unfairly targeted Western industrialized nations such as the United States while giving developing Global South polluters such as China and India a pass. Democratic President Bill Clinton also never sent the Kyoto treaty to the U.S. Senate for ratification as he also thought it unfair to the United States.[40]
In 2000, the Republican Party adopted as part of its platform support for the development of market-based solutions to environmental problems. According to the platform, "economic prosperity and environmental protection must advance together, environmental regulations should be based on science, the government’s role should be to provide market-based incentives to develop the technologies to meet environmental standards, we should ensure that environmental policy meets the needs of localities, and environmental policy should focus on achieving results processes."[41]
The Bush administration,[42] along with several of the candidates that sought the Republican Presidential nomination in 2008,[43][44][45] supported increased Federal investment into the development of clean alternative fuels, increased Nuclear energy, and well as fuels such as ethanol, as a way of helping the U.S. achieve energy independence, as opposed to supporting less use of carbon dioxide-producing methods of generating energy. McCain supports the cap-and-trade policy, a policy that is quite popular among Democrats but much less so among other Republicans. Most Republicans support increased oil drilling in currently protected areas such as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a position that has drawn sharp criticism from some activists, but is supported by a majority of the American public.[46]
Social policies
The 2004 Republican platform expressed support for the Federal Marriage Amendment to the United States Constitution to define marriage as exclusively between one man and one woman. A majority of the GOP's national and state candidates are pro-life and oppose elective abortion on religious or moral grounds, and favor faith-based initiatives. There are some exceptions, though, especially in the Northeast and Pacific Coast states. They are generally against affirmative action for women and some minorities often describing it as a quota system, believing that it is not meritocratic and that is counter-productive socially by only further promoting discrimination.[47][48] Most of the GOP's membership favors capital punishment and stricter punishments as a means to prevent crime. Republicans generally support gun ownership rights and oppose laws regulating guns, although some Republicans in urban areas sometimes favor limited restrictions on the grounds that they are necessary to protect safety in large cities.
Most Republicans support school choice through charter schools and school vouchers for private schools; many have denounced the performance of the public school system and the teachers' unions. The party has insisted on a system of greater accountability for public schools, most prominently in recent years with the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Many Republicans, however, opposed the creation of the United States Department of Education when it was initially created in 1979.
Some in the religious wing of the party support voluntary organized prayer in public schools and the critiquing of Evolutionary theory via intelligent design in science classes. Although the GOP has voted for increases in government funding of scientific research, some members actively oppose the federal funding of embryonic stem cell research beyond the original lines because it involves the destruction of human embryos (which many consider ethically equivalent to abortion), while arguing for applying research money into adult stem cell or amniotic stem cell research. The stem cell issue has garnered two once-rare vetoes on research funding bills from President Bush, who said the research "crossed a moral boundary."
National defense and military spending
The Republican Party has always advocated a strong national defense; however, up until recently they tended to disapprove of interventionist foreign policy actions. Republicans opposed Woodrow Wilson's intervention in World War I and his subsequent attempt to create the League of Nations. They were also staunchly opposed to intervention in World War II prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Even in the 1990s, although George H. W. Bush supported fighting in the Gulf War, Republicans opposed the intervention of the United States in Somalia and the Balkans. However, in 2000, George W. Bush ran on a platform that opposed these types of involvement in foreign conflicts.
Today, some in the Republican Party support unilateralism in issues of national security, believing in the ability and right of the United States to act without external support in support of its national defense. In general, Republican defense and international thinking is heavily influenced by the theories of neorealism and realism, characterizing the conflicts between nations as great struggles between faceless forces of international structure, as opposed to the result of individual leaders, their ideas, and their actions. The realist school's influence shows in Reagan's Evil Empire stance on the Soviet Union and George W. Bush's Axis of evil.
Republicans secured gains in the 2002 and 2004 elections with the War on Terrorism being one of the top issues favoring them. Since the September 11, 2001 attacks, some in the party support neoconservative policies with regard to the War on Terror, including the 2001 war in Afghanistan and the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
The doctrine of preemptive war, wars to disarm and destroy potential military foes not in defense, but based on speculation of future attacks, has been advocated by prominent members of the Bush administration, but the war within Iraq has undercut the influence of this doctrine within the Republican Party. Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York during the time of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, and a once prominent Republican presidential candidate for the 2008 presidential election, has stated that America must keep itself "on the offensive" against terrorists, stating his support of that policy.
The Bush administration supported the position that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to unlawful combatants, using the premise that they apply to soldiers serving in the armies of nation states and not terrorist organizations such as Al-Qaeda. The Supreme Court overruled this position in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, which held that the Geneva Conventions were legally binding and must be followed in regards to all enemy combatants. Prominent Republicans such as former Republican Presidential Nominee Senator John McCain, Governor Mike Huckabee, and Representative Ron Paul strongly oppose the use of enhanced interrogation techniques, which they view as Torture.
Other international policies
Republicans support attempts for the democratization of Middle Eastern countries currently under the rule of dictatorships. The Republican party takes a pro-Israel stance stemming from its Neoconservative constituency, generally supportive of Israeli interests.[49]
The party, through former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, has advocated reforms in the United Nations to halt corruption such as that which afflicted the Oil-for-Food Programme. As previously stated, some Republicans including Bush oppose the Kyoto Protocol (although there is a section that supports it within the party). The party strongly promotes free trade agreements, most notably NAFTA, CAFTA and now an effort to go further south to Brazil, Peru and Colombia.
Republicans are divided on how to confront illegal immigration between a moderate platform that allows for migrant workers and easing citizenship guidelines, and enforcement-first nationalist approach. The Bush administration has made appeals to immigrants a high priority long-term political goal, but that goal is not a high priority in most local GOP entities. In general, pro-growth advocates within the Republican Party support more immigration, and traditional or populist conservatives oppose it. In 2006, the White House supported and Senate passed comprehensive immigration reform that would eventually allow millions of illegal immigrants to become citizens, but the House, taking an enforcement-first approach, refused to go along.[50]
Political status of Puerto Rico
The Republican Party has expressed its support for the U.S. citizens of Puerto Rico to exercise their right to determine a future permanent non-territorial political status with government by consent, full enfranchisement and to be admitted to the union as a fully sovereign U.S. state. Puerto Rico has been under U.S. sovereignty for over a century and Puerto Ricans have been U.S. citizens since 1917; but the island’s ultimate status still has not been determined and its 3.9 million residents still do not have voting representation in their national government. The following is the appropriate section from the 2008 party platform (unchanged from the 2004 and 2000 platforms).[51][52][53]
Voter base
Business community. The GOP is usually seen as the traditionally pro-business party and it garners major support from a wide variety of industries from the financial sector to small businesses. This may relate to the fact that Republicans are about 50 percent more likely to be self-employed, and are more likely to work in the area of management.[54]
Gender. Since 1980 a "gender gap" has seen slightly stronger support for the GOP among men than among women. In the 2006 House races, 43% of women voted for GOP, while 47% of men did so.[55]
Race. Since 1964, the GOP has been weakly represented among African Americans, winning under 15% of the black vote in recent national elections (1980 to 2004). The party has recently nominated African American candidates for senator or governor in Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Maryland, though none were successful. The Republican Party supported the abolition of slavery under Abraham Lincoln, and from the Civil War until the Great Depression of the 1930s, blacks voted for Republican candidates by an overwhelming margin; in the Southern states, they were often not allowed to vote, but received Federal patronage appointments from the Republicans. The majority of black Americans switched to the Democratic Party in the 1930s when the New Deal offered them governmental support for civil rights. In the South, blacks were able to vote in large numbers after 1965, when a bipartisan coalition passed the Voting Rights Act, and ever since have formed a significant portion (ranging from 20% to 50% depending on the state) of the Democratic vote in that region.[56]
In recent decades, the party has been more successful in gaining support from Hispanic and Asian American voters than from African Americans. George W. Bush, who campaigned significantly for Hispanic votes, received 35% of their vote in 2000 and 44% in 2004.[57] The party's strong anti-communist stance has made it popular among some minority groups from current and former Communist states, in particular Cuban Americans, Korean Americans, Chinese Americans, and Vietnamese Americans. In the 2006 House races, the GOP won 51% of white votes, 37% of Asian votes, and 30% of Hispanic votes, while winning only 10% of African American votes.[55] The election of Bobby Jindal as Governor of Louisiana has been hailed as pathbreaking. He is the first elected minority governor in Louisiana and the first governor of Indian descent to lead a state in the US. Many party activists hope that his ascension will broaden Republican appeal to minorities, and he has been named as a potential future presidential contender.[58]
For decades, a greater percentage of white (caucasian) voters self-identified as Democrats, rather than Republicans. However, since the mid-1990s whites have been more likely to self-identify as Republicans than Democrats.[59]
Family status. In recent elections, Republicans have found their greatest support among whites from married couples with children living at home.[60] Unmarried and divorced women were far more likely to vote for Kerry in 2004.[61]
Income. Low income voters tend to favor the Democratic Party while high income voters tend to support the Republican Party. President George W. Bush won 41% of the poorest 20% of voters in 2004, 55% of the richest twenty percent, and 53% of those in between. In the 2006 House races, the voters with incomes over $50,000 were 49% Republican, while those under were 38%.[55]
Military. Republicans hold a large majority in the armed services, with 57% of active military personnel and 66% of officers identified as Republican in 2003.[62]
Education. Self-identified Republicans are significantly more likely than Democrats to have 4-year college degrees. The trends for the years 1955 through 2004 are shown by gender in the graphs below, reproduced with permission from Democrats and Republicans — Rhetoric and Reality, a book published in 2008 by Joseph Fried.[63] These graphs depict results obtained by Fried from the National Election Studies (NES) data base.
Regarding graduate-level degrees (masters or doctorate), there is a rough parity between Democrats and Republicans. According to the Gallup Organization: "[B]oth Democrats and Republicans have equal numbers of Americans at the upper end of the educational spectrum — that is, with post graduate degrees..."[64] Fried provides a slightly more detailed analysis, noting that Republican men are more likely than Democratic men to have advanced degrees, but Democratic women are now more likely than Republican women to have advanced degrees.[65]
Republicans remain a small minority of college professors, with 11% of full-time faculty identifying as Republican.[66]
Age. The Democrats do better among younger Americans and Republicans among older Americans. In 2006, the GOP won only 38% of the voters aged 18–29.[55] In the 2009 Virginia gubernatorial election however, Republicans captured the 18-29 vote by a 10 point margin.
Sexual Orientation. Exit polls conducted in 2000, 2004 and 2006 indicate that 23–25% of gay and lesbian Americans voted for the GOP. In recent years, the party has opposed same-sex marriage, adoption by same-sex couples, inclusion of sexual orientation in hate crimes laws, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, while supporting the use of the don't ask, don't tell policy within the military. Some members of the party, particularly in the Northeast support Civil Unions for same-sex couples.[67] The opposition to some gay rights found in the Republican Party largely comes from the socially conservative wing of the party.[68]
Religion. Religion has always played a major role for both parties but, in the course of a century, the parties' religious compositions have changed. Religion was a major dividing line between the parties before 1960, with Catholics, Jews, and Southern Protestants heavily Democratic, and Northeastern Protestants heavily Republican. Most of the old differences faded away after the realignment of the late 1960s that undercut the New Deal coalition. Voters who attend church weekly gave 61% of their votes to Bush in 2004; those who attend occasionally gave him only 47%, while those who never attend gave him 36%. 59% of Protestants voted for Bush, along with 52% of Catholics (even though Kerry was Catholic). Since 1980, large majorities of evangelicals have voted Republican; 70–80% voted for Bush in 2000 and 2004, and 70% for GOP House candidates in 2006. Jews continue to vote 70–80% Democratic. Democrats have close links with the African American churches, especially the National Baptists, while their historic dominance among Catholic voters has eroded to 50-50. The main line traditional Protestants (Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Episcopalians) have dropped to about 55% Republican (in contrast to 75% before 1968). Their church memberships have declined in that time as well, and the conservative evangelical rivals have grown. Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as Mormons, are overwhelmingly Republican and vote in line with the Christian Right. George W. Bush received 89% of the Mormon vote.[69]
Location. Since 1980, geographically the Republican "base" ("red states") is strongest in the South, the Midwest, and Mountain West; while it is weakest in the Northeast and the Pacific Coast. The Midwest has been roughly balanced since 1854, with Illinois becoming more Democratic and liberal because of the city of Chicago and Minnesota and Wisconsin more Republican since 1990. Ohio and Indiana both trend Republican. Since the 1930s the Democrats have dominated most central cities, while the Republicans now dominate rural areas and the majority of suburbs.[70]
The South has become solidly Republican in national elections since 1980, and has been trending Republican at the state level since then at a slower pace.[71] In 2004 Bush led Kerry by 70%-30% among Southern whites, who made up 71% of the Southern electorate. Kerry had a 70-30 lead among the 29% of the voters who were black or Hispanic. One-third of these Southern voters said they were white evangelicals; they voted for Bush by 80-20; but were only 72% Republican in 2006.[55][57]
The Republican Party's strongest focus of political influence lies in the Great Plains states, particularly Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, and North Dakota, and in the Mountain states of Idaho, Wyoming, and Utah (Utah gave George W. Bush more than 70% of the popular vote in 2004). These states are sparsely populated with few major urban centers, and have overwhelmingly White populations, making it extremely difficult for Democrats to create a sustainable voter base there. Unlike the South, these areas have been strongly Republican since before the party realignments of the 1960s. The Great Plains states were one of the few areas of the country where Republicans had any significant support during the Great Depression.
Conservatives and Moderates. Republican "conservatives" are strongest in the South, Mountain West and Midwest, where they draw support from religious conservatives. The "moderates" tend to dominate the party in New England, and used to be well represented in all states. From the 1940s to the 1970s under such leaders as Thomas E. Dewey, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Nelson Rockefeller, and Richard Nixon, they usually dominated the presidential wing of the party. Since the 1970s they have been less powerful, though they are always represented in the cabinets of Republican presidents. New Hampshire's two Republican congressmen lost to their Democratic opponents. In Vermont, Jim Jeffords, a Republican Senator became an independent in 2001 due to growing disagreement with President Bush and the party leadership. In addition, Moderate Republicans hold the governorships in three of the six New England States; M. Jodi Rell in Connecticut, Donald Carcieri in Rhode Island, and Jim Douglas in Vermont. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney also was a popular Republican governor while in office.
Since the 1980s, talk radio audiences and hosts have tended to be conservative, and typically favor the Republicans. Some well known radio hosts include Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Neal Boortz, Laura Ingraham, Michael Reagan, Howie Carr, and Michael Savage.
Trends
While the American political sphere in 2003 was relatively evenly divided in terms of ideology,[72] in 2004 the Republican Party trailed the Democrats by 17 million registered voters.[2] Democratic commentators Ruy Teixeira and John Judis say non-geographic social indicators show a trend toward Democrats.[73] They point to the rapid increase in college graduates, who are trending Democratic, and a possible decrease in white and rural Republican bases. They also point to an increasing Democratic presence in formerly Republican strongholds such as Colorado, which after the 2008 elections had two Democratic senators, a Democratic governor and Democratic control of the legislature. Aggregate polling by Real Clear Politics shows the generic Republican candidate leading Democrats in the 2010 congressional election by 2.7 percentage points.[74]
Governors-elect Chris Christie and Bob McDonnell, of New Jersey and Virginia respectively, won in the 2009 elections, Christie by a 3.5% margin and McDonnell by a solid 17.35%. They each received a 2-1 margin of the independent vote when compared to their Democratic opponents. These campaigns are seen by Linda Chavez of Townhall.com as a blueprint for GOP success in 2010.[75]
As of 2004, the Republican Party had remained fairly cohesive, as both strong economic libertarians and strong social conservatives opposed the Democrats, whom they saw as the party of bloated and more secular, liberal government.[76] Yet, some libertarians are increasingly dissatisfied with the party's social policy, which they believe has grown increasingly restrictive of personal liberties, as well as its support for corporate welfare and national debt.[77] A minority of social conservatives are also growing increasingly dissatisfied with the party's support for economic policies that they see as sometimes in conflict with their moral values.[78]
State and territorial parties
See also
- Factions in the Republican Party (United States)
- List of United States Republican Party presidential tickets
- List of African American Republicans
- Political party strength in U.S. states
- 2008 Republican National Convention
Footnotes
- ^ Independents Joe Lieberman and Bernie Sanders caucus with the Democratic Party, giving the Democratic Caucus two extra seats (60/100).
- ^ a b c "Neuhart, P. (January 22, 2004). Why politics is fun from catbirds' seats. USA Today'.". http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/columnist/neuharth/2004-01-22-neuharth_x.htm. Retrieved 2007-07-11.
- ^ http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/mood_of_america/mood_of_america_archive/partisan_trends2/summary_of_party_affiliation
- ^ The Washington Post, "The Republican Shrinkage Problem", 4/29/2009, Accessed 6/15/2009
- ^ Politico, "Self-Identified Independents Surge in Poll", 5/26/09, Accessed 6/15/09
- ^ Washington Post-ABC News Poll, April 21-24 2009, Accessed 6/15/09
- ^ http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/10/21/steele-not-really-concerned-about-declining-gop-support/
- ^ http://www.wisegeek.com/in-the-us-have-there-been-more-democrat-or-republican-presidents.htm
- ^ Wyeth, Newton. Republican Principles and Policies: A Brief History of the Republican National Party. Harvard, MA: Republic Press, 1916. Print.
- ^ Rapaport, Ronald, and Walter Stone. Three's a crowd: the dynamic of third parties, Ross Perot, & Republican resurgence. 1st ed. University of Michigan Press, 2005 ISBN 0472114530, 9780472114535
- ^ Franklin, John Hope. Reconstruction after the Civil War. University of Chicago Press, 1995 ISBN 0226260798, 9780226260792
- ^ Foner, Eric. Politics and Ideology in the Age of the Civil War. Oxford University Press, 1981 ISBN 0195029267, 9780195029260
- ^ p.168 Gienapp, William. The Origins of the Republican Party. 1989 ISBN 0195055012
- ^ p.43 Stocking, William. Under the oaks. Detroit: 1904.
- ^ Foner, Eric. Free soil, free labor, free men: the ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War. 2nd. Oxford University Press, 1995 ISBN 0195094972, 9780195094978
- ^ http://www.uselectionatlas.org/USPRESIDENT/GENERAL/pe1860.html
- ^ http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1109/29168.html
- ^ http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125745104715531599.html
- ^ Cartoon of the Day: "The Third-Term Panic". Retrieved on 2008-09-01.
- ^ Appleby, Joyce (2003). Thomas Jefferson. p. 4.
- ^ Rutland, Robert Allen (1996). The Republicans: From Lincoln to Bush. p. 2.
- ^ Gould, Lewis (2003). Grand Old Party: A History of the Republicans. p. 14–15.
- ^ Origin of the GOP
- ^ Cartoon of the Day: "The Third-Term Panic". Retrieved on 2007-02-21.
- ^ http://www.schenectadycounty.com/FullStory.aspx?m=320&amid=930
- ^ http://www.wvsos.com/elections/ballots/barbourgen.pdf
- ^ House Committee on Ways and Means Subcommittee on Human Resources (2003-04-07). "New Report Shows Welfare Reform Success in Increasing Work and Raising Incomes". Press release. http://waysandmeans.house.gov/News.asp?FormMode=print&ID=64. Retrieved 2006-11-18.
- ^ Unsettling Scores: A Ranking of State Medicaid Programs, P. 15
- ^ Wachino, Victoria (2005-03-10). "The House Budget Committee's Proposed Medicaid and SCHIP Cuts Are Larger Than Those The Administration Proposed". Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. http://www.cbpp.org/3-10-05health.htm. Retrieved 2006-11-18.
- ^ http://www.ontheissues.org/House/Bobby_Jindal.htm
- ^ On the Issues: Supreme Court
- ^ Judicial Restraint
- ^ Washington Times - House to debate court stripping
- ^ Bush challenges hundreds of laws Pulitzer Prize winner.
- ^ "Why The Court Said No" by David Cole, New York Review of Books —
- ^ Opinion of the court, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, pg 72
- ^ Filler, Daniel. "[http://pantheon.cis.yale.edu/~thomast/essays/filler/filler.html Theodore Roosevelt: Conservation as the Guardian of Democracy]". http://pantheon.cis.yale.edu/~thomast/essays/filler/filler.html. Retrieved 2007-11-09.
- ^ Nixon, Richard (1970-07-09). "Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1970". http://www.epa.gov/history/org/origins/reorg.htm. Retrieved 2007-11-09.
- ^ Schwarzenegger, Arnold (2007-12-07). "California will Sue Federal Government". CNN. http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/12/20/california.emissions/. Retrieved 2008-01-08.
- ^ Bush, George W. (2001-03-13). ""Text of a Letter from the President"". http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/03/20010314.html. Retrieved 2007-11-09.[dead link]
- ^ "Encourage Market-Based Solutions to Environmental Problems". OnTheIssues. 2000-08-12.
- ^ "Fact Sheet: Harnessing the Power of Technology for a Secure Energy Future". 2007-02-22. http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2007/02/20070222-2.html. Retrieved 2007-11-09.
- ^ Kudlow & Company (2007-03-26). "Interview with Rudy Giuliani". http://www1.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/03/interview_with_rudy_giuliani_1.html. Retrieved 2007-11-09.
- ^ "Issue Watch: Achieving Energy Independence". http://www.mittromney.com/Issue-Watch/Energy. Retrieved 2007-11-09.
- ^ "The Candidates: Rep. Duncan Hunter". Washington Post.com. 2007-10-12. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2007/10/01/DI2007100101460.html. Retrieved 2007-11-09.
- ^ http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/LATEST-NEWS/Most-Californians-now-favor-offshore-oil-drilling/articleshow/3312517.cms
- ^ CNN.com - Bush criticizes university 'quota system' - Jan. 16, 2003
- ^ Eilperin, Juliet (1998-05-12). "Watts Walks a Tightrope on Affirmative Action". The Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/affirm/stories/aa051298.htm. Retrieved 2007-01-22.
- ^ http://canadiancoalition.com/adbusters01/
- ^ Blanton, Dana (2006-11-08). "National Exit Poll: Midterms Come Down to Iraq, Bush". Fox News. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,228104,00.html. Retrieved 2007-01-06.
- ^ gop.com 2004 Republican Platform
- ^ Let Puerto Rico Decide: An Introduction to Puerto Rico's Status Debate
- ^ 2008 Republican Platform
- ^ Fried, Joseph, Democrats and Republicans — Rhetoric and Reality (New York: Algora Publishing, 2008), 104–5, 125.
- ^ a b c d e "Exit Polls". CNN. 2006-11-07. http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2006/pages/results/states/US/H/00/epolls.0.html. Retrieved 2006-11-18.
- ^ Harvard Sitkoff, A New Deal for Blacks (1978).
- ^ a b "Exit Polls". CNN. 2004-11-02. http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/US/P/00/epolls.4.html. Retrieved 2006-11-18.
- ^ http://www.deccanherald.com/content/31998/bobby-jindal-may-become-first.html
- ^ Fried, Joseph, Democrats and Republicans — Rhetoric and Reality (New York: Algora Publishing, 2008), 321.
- ^ Affordable Family Formation–The Neglected Key To GOP’s Future by Steve Sailer
- ^ Unmarried Women in the 2004 Presidential Election (PDF). Report by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, January, 2005. Page 3: "The marriage gap is one of the most important cleavages in electoral politics. Unmarried women voted for Kerry by a 25-point margin (62 to 37 percent), while married women voted for President Bush by an 11-point margin (55 percent to 44 percent). Indeed, the 25-point margin Kerry posted among unmarried women represented one of the high water marks for the Senator among all demographic groups."
- ^ "Lobe, J. (January 1, 2004). Military More Republican, Conservative Than Public — Poll. LewRockwell.com.". http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:GDeFkKSDCpoJ:www.lewrockwell.com/ips/lobe43.html+army+percent+Republican&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us. Retrieved 2007-07-11.
- ^ Fried, Joseph, Democrats and Republicans — Rhetoric and Reality (New York: Algora Publishing, 2008), 74–5.
- ^ Frank Newport, "Who are the Democrats?," The Gallup News Service(August 11, 2000), as cited in Joseph Fried, Democrats and Republicans — Rhetoric and Reality (New York, Algora Publishing, 2008) 74.
- ^ Fried, Joseph, Democrats and Republicans — Rhetoric and Reality (New York: Algora Publishing, 2008), 76–7.
- ^ "Kurtz, H. (March 29, 2005). College Faculties A Most Liberal Lot, Study Finds. The Washington Post.". http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8427-2005Mar28.html. Retrieved 2007-07-02.
- ^ "Republican Party on the Issues Civil_Rights Republican Party on the Issues". http://www.ontheissues.org/Republican_Party.htm#Civil_Rights Republican Party on the Issues. Retrieved 2007-02-21.
- ^ "[http://www.slate.com/id/2091413/ A Common Missed Conception: Why religious people are against gay marriage.]". http://www.slate.com/id/2091413/.
- ^ Robert Booth Fowler et al., Religion and Politics in America: Faith, Culture, and Strategic Choices (2004)
- ^ "CNN.com Election 2004". http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/US/P/00/epolls.0.html. Retrieved 2007-06-01.
- ^ Earl Black and Merle Black. Politics and Society in the South (2005)
- ^ Gould (2003)
- ^ Judis, John B.; Teixeira, Ruy (2005-01-04). "Movement Interruptus". The American Prospect. http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=8955. Retrieved 2006-11-18.
- ^ http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/generic_congressional_vote-901.html
- ^ http://townhall.com/columnists/LindaChavez/2009/11/06/blueprint_for_gop_victories
- ^ Wooldridge, Adrian and John Micklethwait. The Right Nation (2004).
- ^ "Evans, B. (December 15, 2005). Ex-Rep. Barr Quits GOP for Libertarians. The Associated Press.". http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=2730251. Retrieved 2007-07-11.
- ^ How Huckabee Scares the GOP. By E. J. Dionne. Real Clear Politics. Published December 21, 2007. Accessed August 22, 2008
References
Main article: References regarding the United States Republican Party
- American National Biography (20 volumes, 1999) covers all politicians no longer alive; online at many academic libraries.
- Aistrup, Joseph A. The Southern Strategy Revisited: Republican Top-Down Advancement in the South (1996)
- Barone, Michael, and Grant Ujifusa, The Almanac of American Politics 2006: The Senators, the Representatives and the Governors: Their Records and Election Results, Their States and Districts (2005).
- Black, Earl and Merle Black. The Rise of Southern Republicans (2002)
- Brennan, Mary C. Turning Right in the Sixties: The Conservative Capture of the GOP (1995)
- Crane, Michael. The Political Junkie Handbook: The Definitive Reference Books on Politics (2004) covers all the major issues explaining the parties' positions
- Donald, David. Lincoln (1999)
- Ehrman, John, The Eighties: America in the Age of Reagan (2005)
- Frank, Thomas. What's the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America (2005)
- Frum, David. What's Right: The New Conservative Majority and the Remaking of America (1996)
- Gould, Lewis. Grand Old Party: A History of the Republicans (2003)
- Jensen, Richard. Grass Roots Politics: Parties, Issues, and Voters, 1854–1983 (1983)
- Judis, John B. and Ruy Teixeira. The Emerging Democratic Majority (2004) two Democrats project social trends
- Kleppner, Paul, et al. The Evolution of American Electoral Systems (1983), applies party systems model
- Lamis, Alexander P. ed. Southern Politics in the 1990s (1999)
- Mayer, George H. The Republican Party, 1854–1966. 2d ed. (1967)
- Perlstein, Rick. Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus (2002) broad account of 1964
- Reinhard, David W. The Republican Right since 1945 (1983)
- Rutland, Robert Allen. The Republicans: From Lincoln to Bush (1996)
- Sabato, Larry J. Divided States of America: The Slash and Burn Politics of the 2004 Presidential Election (2005)
- Sabato, Larry J. and Bruce Larson. The Party's Just Begun: Shaping Political Parties for America's Future (2001) textbook.
- Schlesinger, Arthur Meier, Jr. ed. History of American Presidential Elections, 1789–2000 (various multivolume editions, latest is 2001). Essays on the most important election are reprinted in Schlesinger, The Coming to Power: Critical presidential elections in American history (1972)
- Shafer, Byron E. and Anthony J. Badger, eds. Contesting Democracy: Substance and Structure in American Political History, 1775–2000 (2001), long essays by specialists on each time period:
- includes: "'To One or Another of These Parties Every Man Belongs;": 1820–1865 by Joel H. Silbey; "Change and Continuity in the Party Period: 1835–1885" by Michael F. Holt; "The Transformation of American Politics: 1865–1910" by Peter H. Argersinger; "Democracy, Republicanism, and Efficiency: 1885–1930" by Richard Jensen; "The Limits of Federal Power and Social Policy: 1910–1955" by Anthony J. Badger; "The Rise of Rights and Rights Consciousness: 1930–1980" by James T. Patterson; and "Economic Growth, Issue Evolution, and Divided Government: 1955–2000" by Byron E. Shafer
- Shafer, Byron and Richard Johnston. The End of Southern Exceptionalism (2006), uses statistical election data & polls to argue GOP growth was primarily a response to economic change
- Steely, Mel. The Gentleman from Georgia: The Biography of Newt Gingrich Mercer University Press, 2000. ISBN 0-86554-671-1.
- Sundquist, James L. Dynamics of the Party System: Alignment and Realignment of Political Parties in the United States (1983)
- Wooldridge, Adrian and John Micklethwait. The Right Nation: Conservative Power in America (2004).
External links
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| History Q&A: How did the Republican Party begin? |
The Republican Party, one of the two principal political parties of the United States, was founded in 1854 by those opposing the extension of slavery into new territories. The party mustered enough support to elect their candidate in 1860, Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865). During the 1880s party members nicknamed themselves the Grand Old Party; the vestige of this nickname is still around today, as the GOP. There have been 17 Republican presidents.
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- GOP (Politics)
- Democratic Party
- Judge (literature)
- Robert A. Taft: Mr. Republican (1954 Film)
- Medill, Joseph (American newspaperman)
- Welles, Gideon (American editor and politician)
- Democratic-Republican Party
- scalawags (history, United States)
- gender gap (Politics)
- girondist
- How did the Republican Party begin? (history)
- "Chicken in Every Pot" (American history)
