Republican

Did You Know?

The two Twentieth Century landmark civil rights laws, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and ‎the Voting Rights Act of 1965, were supported by a greater proportion of Republican Congresspersons and Senators than Democratic ones.[1]

Did You Know?

George Romney, the popular and successful liberal Republican Governor of Michigan and a leading Republican Presidential candidate in 1968 (and also the father of the recent Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney), was one of America’s foremost advocates for the Federal Government playing a leading role in transforming America’s impoverished inner cities? He pushed for the creation of low-cost housing throughout metropolitan Detroit (including its suburbs), both as Michigan’s Governor and later as President Richard Nixon’s Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. He stated, “some already are saying the answer [to inner city riots] is brute force such as would be used on mad dogs…Force alone will not eliminate riots‎. We must eliminate the problems from which they stem.”

Did You Know? ‎

Nelson Rockefeller, the four-term Republican Governor of New York whose name came to be identified with the liberal and moderate Republicans who were a predominant force in American politics from the 1940’s through the 1970’s (so-called “Rockefeller Republicans”), was castigated by right-wing white racists ‎”as a dangerous Northern agitator bankrolling Dr. [Martin Luther] King and other troublemakers.”

“After hundreds of Birmingham [Alabama] youngsters, responding to King’s appeal, were jailed for taking part in the so-called Children’s March on May 2, [1963], King’s lawyer Clarence Jones was summoned to the vault of the Chase Manhattan Bank‎. There he was handed a briefcase full of Rockefeller cash. Officially described as a loan, the money helped pay bail costs for the movement’s youngest foot soldiers. On his return to Birmingham, Jones found in his mail an unsigned receipt, informing him that his ‘loan’ had been fully repaid.”[2]

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If you are in your Forties or younger, you are unlikely to know how diverse the politics of the Republican Party were when your parents and grandparents were young. In fact, you may be flabbergasted by how many prominent liberal Republicans there were and for what they stood.  While the Party always included conservatives (like most Republican politicians today), conservatives did not dominate the Party, let alone control it. Today’s Republican Party is an aberration (or at most a cyclical trend). It is the thesis of this website that the rebirth of liberal Republicanism is where Americans are most likely to find the middle political ground that could end the dysfunction that today paralyzes much of our public discourse and our government.

Most people know the Republican Party was founded in opposition to slavery and that Abraham Lincoln was the first Republican President. (In fact, the Republican Party was long known as “the Party of Lincoln.”) Many people also know that Teddy Roosevelt, the early Twentieth Century progressive President who took on powerful business interests and led the enactment of much of the first major social welfare legislation in America, was a Republican. But most people do not know that until recently liberal and moderate Republicans had an even greater voice in the Party than conservatives, or that these Republicans aligned with like-minded Democrats on an issue-by-issue basis to enact major civil rights laws, major infrastructure legislation and laws and policies that underpinned America’s foreign policy in defense of democracy and liberty around the world. (Conservative Republicans used to be predominantly isolationists. In fact,  America’s support of the Allies in World War II, up until Pearl Harbor, would not have been possible without the efforts of liberal and moderate Republicans who worked with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to defeat the efforts of isolationist Republican and Democratic Congressmen.)[3]

The Republican Party was founded in 1854 as the anti-slavery party.[4] It also originated and developed as the party advocating liberal capitalism as the best means to achieve broad economic prosperity (by advocating for national infrastructure development and against the abuses of great wealth, including business trusts and monopolies); the party advocating for ethics and competency in government (rather than the vote-buying, job patronage and electoral horse-trading which were all characteristic of  Democratic machine politics of the time); and the party most associated with a preference for individual initiative, decentralized government and fiscal conservatism.[5]

While today the Democratic Party is consistently the more “liberal” political party, this was not the case for most of American history.[6] When Republicans today accuse Republicans they regard as too liberal of being RINO’s (“Republicans in Name Only”), they ignore history. It is important for the American people, especially young people whose involvement in politics will increasingly determine America’s future, not to cede control of the Republican Party, which represents half of our established political infrastructure, to its conservative members. This is especially important since for some of these passionate conservatives (as is the case for some of the most passionate liberal Democrats), “consensus” is a dirty word.

The term “Liberal Republican” has often been used to describe both progressives and moderates. Like most political factions, it’s been a big tent, including people who espouse divergent views on many issues, as well as politicians who have drifted into the space with experience and changing political times. (Interestingly, this also is true of the conservative wing of the Republican Party. Ronald Reagan started his political career as a Democrat and as the head of a labor union, the Screen Actor’s Guild.)[7]

This chapter will introduce (or reintroduce) you to nine Liberal Republican politicians, all prominent in the 1960’s or later. Their politics will undoubtedly surprise you.  I hope that familiarizing yourself with them will also help you realize that Liberal Republican politicians could once more play a meaningful role in the Republican Party, and enable Republicans and Democrats to find common political ground. Liberal Republicans would not have to dominate the Party to make such a difference. Just a handful or two would likely suffice.

Nelson Rockefeller

Nelson Rockefeller, the grandson of the oil tycoon  John D. Rockefeller (who at one-time was the wealthiest man in America), was Governor of New York from 1959 to 1973. After unsuccessfully seeking the Republican presidential nomination in 1960, 1964, and 1968, he served as Vice President from 1974 to 1977 under President Gerald R. Ford.

Rockefeller was “a man who got things done.” According to his biographer, Richard Norton Smith, he was “the optimist to end all optimists.” “He would be the first to tell you he’s a pragmatist. He was not an ideologue. But more important than that, he believed every problem had a solution. And the contrast between then and now- when there’s such pervasive cynicism… [and] a notion that government isn’t working and the seeming total inability of government – right, left, liberal, conservative- to address those issues. There’d be none of that with Rockefeller.”[8]

As Governor of New York, Rockefeller vastly increased the state’s role in education (including by quadrupling state aid to primary and secondary schools, and vastly expanding state higher education)[9], in environmental protection[10], in transportation (for example, by winning approval for the largest state bond issue to date, $2.5 billion, for the coordinated development of mass transportation, highways, and airports)[11], in housing (by completing or starting over 88,000 units of housing for limited income and aged families)[12], in welfare and medical aid (by carrying out the largest state medical care program for the needy in the United States)[13], in civil rights[14], and in the arts.[15] When Rockefeller later ran for President, he was asked if his stance on racial justice might harm Republican prospects in the Southern United States. Rockefeller replied, “We have certain responsibilities that transcend political advantages… and one of them is certainly in the field of civil rights.”[16]

Prior to running for Governor, Rockefeller served in Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal Administration and in the Truman and Eisenhower Administrations. His recommendations fostered the creation of the federal Department of Health, Education and Welfare. Rockefeller was active in implementing measures that added coverage for ten million people under the Social Security program.[17]

As New York’s Governor, Rockefeller worked with the State legislature and unions to create generous pension programs for many public workers, including teachers, professors, firefighters, police officers, and prison guards. (Rockefeller had good relations with unions, especially the construction trades, which benefited from his extensive building programs.) He proposed the first statewide minimum wage law in the U.S., which was increased five times during his administration.

For more about Rockefeller, please visit our video page or click here.

Margaret Chase Smith

Margaret Madeline Chase Smith (December 14, 1897 – May 29, 1995) was a member of the Republican Party and served as a U.S Representative (1940-1949) and a U.S. Senator (1949-1973) from Maine.[18] She was the first woman to serve in both houses of the United States Congress. Smith is best remembered for her 1950 speech, “Declaration of Conscience,” in which she criticized the tactics of McCarthyism.[19]

Smith earned a reputation as a moderate Republican who often broke ranks with her party. For example, she supported much of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal legislation. Congresswoman Smith was also a strong supporter of women in the armed services.[20]

Smith was sworn into the Senate on January 3, 1949. [21] After less than a year in office, she gained national attention when she became the first member of Congress to condemn the anti-Communist witch hunt led by her fellow Republican Senator, Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin.[22] In a well-publicized speech in Wheeling, West Virginia, four months earlier, McCarthy claimed to possess the names of 205 card-carrying Communists in the State Department. Smith, like many of her colleagues, shared McCarthy’s concerns about Communist subversion, but she grew skeptical when McCarthy repeatedly ignored her requests for evidence to back up his accusations.[23]

On June 1, 1950, Smith delivered a fifteen-minute speech on the Senate floor, known as the “Declaration of Conscience,” in which she refused to name McCarthy directly (bowing to Senate rules on comity) but denounced “the reckless abandon in which unproved charges have been hurled from this side of the aisle.”[24]She said McCarthyism had “debased” the Senate to “the level of a forum of hate and character assassination.”[25] While acknowledging her desire for Republicans’ political success, Smith said, “I don’t want to see the Republican Party ride to political victory on the four horseman of calumny — fear, ignorance, bigotry, and smear.”[26] Six other moderate Senate Republicans signed onto her Declaration, including Wayne Morse of Oregon, George Aiken of Vermont, Edward Thye of Minnesota, Irving Ives of New York, Charles Tobey of New Hampshire, and Robert C. Hendrickson of New Jersey.[27] [28] [29]

Smith’s speech triggered a public explosion of support and criticism. “This cool breeze of honesty from Maine can blow the whole miasma out of the nation’s soul,” stated the Hartford Courant. “By one act of political courage, [Smith has] justified a lifetime in politics,” commented another. Newsweek magazine ran a cover story entitled “Senator Smith: A Woman Vice President?” But critics called her “Moscow-loving,” and much worse. McCarthy dismissed her and her supporters as “Snow White and the Six Dwarfs.”[30]

In the 1952 election, Smith was widely mentioned as a Vice-Presidential candidate to run with General Dwight D. Eisenhower.[31] When asked by a reporter what she would do if she woke up one morning and found herself in the White House, she replied: “I’d go straight to Mrs. Truman and apologize. Then I’d go home.”[32]

Smith was an unsuccessful candidate for the Republican nomination in the 1964 presidential election. Nonetheless she was the first woman to be placed in nomination for the United States Presidency at a major Party’s convention.[33] Upon leaving office, she was the longest-serving female Senator in history.

Smith was the first (and as yet only) woman to serve as chair of the Senate Republican Conference, serving from 1967 to 1972.[34] She voted against President Nixon’s unsuccessful nominees to the Supreme Court, Clement Haynsworth in 1969 and G. Harrold Carswell in 1970.[35]  Smith was a strong supporter of the space program.[36]  NASA administrator James E. Webb once commented that the United States never would have placed a man on the Moon if it were not for Smith. She also supported increased educational funding, civil rights, and Medicare.[37]

Recently retired Republican Maine Senator Olympia Snowe was asked what Senator Smith would think of today’s Republican Party. Snowe responded, “Oh my gosh! She’d be appalled. I don’t think she could conceive of how it’s all evolved today. Even in my own experience, it’s hard to comprehend.”[38]

Listen to Senator Susan Collins’s tribute to Senator Smith to learn more about her life here.

George Romney

George Wilcken Romney (July 8, 1907 – July 26, 1995) was an American businessman and Republican Party politician. He was chairman and president of the American Motors Corporation from 1954 to 1962, the 43rd Governor of Michigan from 1963 to 1969, and the United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development from 1969 to 1973. He was the father of Mitt Romney, the former Governor of Massachusetts and the 2012 Republican presidential nominee.[39]

Romney served as a Mormon missionary in the United Kingdom and attended several colleges in the U.S. but did not graduate from any. He served as the chief spokesman for the automobile industry during World War II. He became the chief executive of American Motors Corporation in 1954. At American Motors he turned around the then struggling firm by focusing all efforts on the compact Rambler car. Romney mocked the products of the “Big Three” automakers as “gas-guzzling dinosaurs.”[40]

Romney ran for Governor of Michigan in 1962 as an independent-minded reformer defending the individual against the power of “Big Labor, Big Industry, and Big Government.” [41] He was elected and then subsequently re-elected in 1964 and 1966 with increasingly large support. As Governor, Romney worked to overhaul the state’s finances, greatly expanding the size of state government and introducing Michigan’s first state income tax. He succeeded in attracting businesses to the state and in cutting unemployment to below the national average.[42] Romney had also inherited an $85 million budget deficit, but he left office with a surplus.[43]Romney led the way for a large increase in state spending on education, and Michigan thereby began to develop one of the nation’s most comprehensive systems of higher education. [44] [45]

Romney also was a strong supporter of the American Civil Rights Movement. [46] During his first State of the State address in January 1963, Romney declared that “Michigan’s most urgent human rights problem is racial discrimination—in housing, public accommodations, education, administration of justice, and employment.” [47]

Romney decried both the large influence of labor unions within the Democratic Party and the similarly large influence of big business within the Republican Party.[48]  Romney opened his office in the Michigan State Capitol to visitors, spending five minutes with every citizen who wanted to speak with him on Thursday mornings,[49] and he was always sure to shake the hands of schoolchildren visiting the capitol.[50] He almost always eschewed political activities on Sunday, the Mormon Sabbath.[51] Romney saw a moral dimension in every issue and he held his political views with as much fervor as his religious ones. [52] Writer Theodore H. White said “the first quality that surfaced, as one met and talked with George Romney over a number of years, was a sincerity so profound that, in conversation, one was almost embarrassed.”[53]

In the 1964 U.S. presidential election, Senator Barry Goldwater quickly became the likely Republican Party nominee. Goldwater represented a new wave of American conservatism, of which the moderate Romney was not a part. [54] Romney declared, “If [Goldwater’s] views deviate as indicated from the heritage of our Party, I will do everything within my power to keep him from becoming the Party’s Presidential nominee.”[55] [56]During the Fall 1964 general election, Romney cut himself off from the national ticket, refusing to appear on the same stage with Goldwater.[57] Romney campaigned for Governor in mostly Democratic areas and, when pressed at campaign appearances about whether he was supporting Goldwater, he replied, “You know darn well I’m not!”[58] Romney was re-elected as Governor of Michigan in 1964 by a large margin, despite Goldwater’s landslide defeat to President Lyndon B. Johnson that swept away many other Republican candidates. [59] [60] [61]

Romney was a front runner for the Republican nomination for President of the United States in the 1968 election, but Richard Nixon won the nomination and the election.[62] Nixon later appointed Romney as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

The 1968 Fair Housing Act, passed months earlier in the aftermath of the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., directed the government to ‘affirmatively further’ fair housing. When Romney became the Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, he believed those words gave him the authority to pressure predominantly white communities into building more affordable housing and end discriminatory zoning practices. Romney sought to use his power as secretary of Housing and Urban Development to remake America’s housing patterns, which he described as a “high-income white noose” around the Black inner city. Romney ordered HUD officials to reject applications for water, sewer and highway projects from cities and states in which local policies fostered segregated housing.[63] He dubbed his initiative ‘Open Communities’ but did not clear it with the White House. As word spread that HUD was turning down grants, Nixon’s supporters in the South and in white Northern suburbs took their complaints directly to the President.”[64]

Open Communities conflicted with Nixon’s so-called “Southern strategy” forcing Romney to back down and release federal monies unconditionally in cities that resisted Romney’s policies.[65] At one point, Nixon told his chief of staff, Haldeman, “Just keep [Romney] away from me.”[66] [67] [68]

Romney was a proud member of the Ripon Society, a centrist public policy organization that was the intellectual heart of moderate Republicanism. While Romney condemned the violence that befell Detroit during the riots there in 1967, he acknowledged that urban unrest was deeply rooted in economic deprivation. Speaking days after the riot, he affirmed, “The drive for human justice has gained ground during the past few years. All our efforts have not been wasted, all our programs designed to bring about equal opportunity are not now valueless. We must not permit a backlash to weaken the valuable programs and policies designed to bring about first-class status for all citizens.[69] ‘We must arouse ourselves from our comfort, pleasure, and preoccupations,’ and “listen to the voices from the ghetto.’”[70]

Mark Hatfield

Mark Odom Hatfield (July 12, 1922 – August 7, 2011) was a Republican politician from Oregon. Hatfield served two terms as Governor of Oregon before being elected to the United States Senate, an office he held for 30 years.[71] [72]

Hatfield was one of the most openly religious men in American politics at that time but, unlike most other evangelical Baptists, his faith led him toward a generally progressive philosophy.[73] For example, during the Vietnam War (even in an election year and at a time that the war was supported by 75 percent of the public) Hatfield was the only person to vote against a resolution by a Governors’ conference that expressed support for the U.S. involvement in the war in Vietnam.[74] [75] Later, in 1970, along with Senator George McGovern (D-South Dakota), Hatfield co-sponsored the McGovern-Hatfield Amendment, which called for a complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from Vietnam.[76] The American bombing of North Vietnam struck him as especially immoral. “Terroristic or indiscriminate bombing must involve the deaths of non-combatant men, women, and children and merits the general condemnation of humanity,” he insisted. “It cannot be justified as an instrument for the fulfillment of United States foreign policy.”[77]

Although a prominent evangelical Christian, Hatfield opposed government-sponsored school prayer and supported civil rights for minorities.[78] Hatfield frequently broke with his party on issues of national defense and foreign policy, such as military spending and the ban on travel to Cuba.[79] [80] In the 1980s, Hatfield co-sponsored nuclear freeze legislation with Democratic Senator Edward M. Kennedy.[81] He was the lone Republican to vote against the appropriations bill for the Department of Defense in fiscal year 1981.[82] In 1990, Hatfield voted against authorizing military action against Iraq in the Gulf War, one of only two members of the Republican Party to do so in the Senate.[83] [84]

Hatfield was rated as the sixth most respected Senator in a 1987 survey of fellow senators.[85] Sometimes referred to as “Saint Mark”, Hatfield enjoyed warm relations with members of both the Republican and the Democratic parties.[86] [87]

Edward Brooke

In 1966, Edward William Brooke III (October 26, 1919 –January 3, 2015) a Republican politician, became the first African American popularly elected to the United States Senate.[88]Brooke grew up in Washington, D.C. at a time when the nation’s capital was still highly segregated. He attended all-black schools, graduated from Howard University, fought in Italy with a segregated infantry unit in World War II, and then returned to the United States to earn a law degree from Boston University. Entering state politics in Massachusetts in the 1950s, Brooke ran as a Republican because of his family tradition, and because he admired the Republican virtues of duty, self-help, thrift, and free enterprise. He distrusted big government and agreed with Lincoln that “government should do for the people only that which they cannot do for themselves.”[89] Brooke viewed the Massachusetts Democratic Party as corrupt and mean-spirited, launching McCarthyite attacks on Harvard and resisting antidiscrimination laws, preferring the state’s moderate-dominated Republican Party, which upheld civil rights and civil liberties.

In 1962, Brooke was elected the first African-American Attorney General of a U.S. state.[90]  In this position, he gained a reputation as a vigorous prosecutor of organized crime and corruption.[91]

In 1966, Brooke was elected to the U.S. Senate. [92] He served for two terms, from 1967 to 1979. The Black vote had, according to an article in Time Magazine, “no measurable bearing” on the election as less than 3% of the state’s population was Black, and Brooke’s Democratic opponent also supported civil rights for Blacks. Brooke said, “I do not intend to be a national leader of the Negro people”, and Time Magazine further reported that Brooke “condemned both Stokely Carmichael and Georgia’s Lester Maddox” as extremists.[93]

Brooke organized the Senate’s “Wednesday Club” of progressive Republicans who met for Wednesday lunches and strategy discussions.[94] Brooke supported Michigan Governor George W. Romney’s[95] and New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller’s bids for the 1968 GOP presidential nomination against that of Richard Nixon, and Brooke often differed with President Nixon on matters of social policy and civil rights.[96]

By his second year in the Senate, Brooke had taken his place as a leading advocate against discrimination in housing and on behalf of affordable housing. With Walter Mondale, a Minnesota Democrat and future U.S. Vice President and Democratic Presidential nominee, Brooke co-authored the 1968 Fair Housing Act, prohibiting discrimination in housing. Brooke continued to propose adding stronger enforcement provisions to housing laws during his Senate career.  In 1969, Congress enacted the “Brooke Amendment” to the federal publicly assisted housing program, which limited a tenant’s out-of-pocket rent expenditure to 25 percent of his or her income.[97]

During the Nixon presidency, Brooke opposed repeated Nixon Administration attempts to close down the Job Corps and the Office of Economic Opportunity and to weaken the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission—all foundational elements of President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society.[98]

In 1969, Brooke was a leader of the bipartisan coalition that defeated the Senate confirmation of Clement Haynsworth, the President’s conservative nominee to the Supreme Court. A few months later, Brooke again organized sufficient Republican support to defeat Nixon’s second Supreme Court nominee, Harrold Carswell. On November 4, 1973, shortly after the Watergate-related “Saturday night massacre,” Brooke became the first Republican to call on President Nixon to resign.[99]

Brooke was a leader in the enactment of the Equal Credit Act, which ensured married women the right to establish credit in their own name. [100] In 1974, with Indiana Democratic senator Birch Bayh, Brooke led the fight to retain Title IX, a 1972 amendment to the Higher Education Act of 1965, which guaranteed equal educational opportunity (including athletic participation) to girls and women.[101]  In 1975, with the extension and expansion of the Voting Rights Act at stake, Brooke faced senator John Stennis (D-Mississippi) in “extended debate” and won the Senate’s support for its extension. In 1976, he also took supported wide-scale, legalized abortion. [102] [103]

Brooke was far ahead of his time in envisioning a post-racial America. He lamented that “Like a life form trapped in amber, I was forever categorized in terms of race.” He wanted to prove that an African American could impartially represent people of all races, and that “white voters would vote for qualified Negro candidates, just as Negroes had voted for qualified white candidates.”[104] At a time of Black Power separatism and rising black-white antagonism, Brooke believed the Republicans had a more hopeful vision of race relations. His victories implied that equal opportunity for blacks was possible both within the Republican Party and within the American political system. [105]

In place of radical rhetoric, Brooke supported progressive alternatives to Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty, such as the Ripon Society’s negative income tax, which would benefit lower-income Americans of all races .[106][107]

For more about Brooke, check out the video page. or click here.

William Scranton

William Warren “Bill” Scranton (July 19, 1917 – July 28, 2013) was a Republican politician.[108] Scranton served as the 38th Governor of Pennsylvania from 1963 to 1967. From 1976 to 1977, he served as United States Ambassador to the United Nations.[109]

Scranton represented Pennsylvania’s 10th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1961 to 1963. Though a freshman Republican, he quickly gained a reputation as an outspoken centrist and supported much of President John F. Kennedy’s social agenda, including civil rights and the Peace Corps. The media quickly dubbed him a “Kennedy Republican.”[110]

Later, as Governor of Pennsylvania, Scranton signed into law legislation expanding and reforming the state’s education system. He also created a program designed to promote the state in national and international markets.[111]

Although Scranton did not actively seek the 1964 Republican nomination for President, a “Draft Scranton” movement quickly gathered momentum among moderate and liberal Republicans who saw him as an alternative to the conservative front-runner, Senator Barry Goldwater. This gained speed after the campaign of Goldwater’s liberal opponent, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, floundered. Scranton won the support of ten state delegations, but Goldwater went on to win the nomination on the first ballot.[112]

Under a then-existing Pennsylvania law, Scranton was limited to a single term and could not run for reelection in 1966. He announced shortly thereafter that he would never again seek elected office. (He kept his promise and never did.) In 1968, President-elect Richard Nixon asked Scranton to become Secretary of State, but Scranton declined.

In 1976, Scranton was chosen by President Ford to become United States Ambassador to the United Nations. His moderation and focus on human rights earned him much respect while in office. Some in the Republican Party pushed for Scranton to be named as Gerald Ford’s running mate for the 1976 presidential election, but Ford instead chose Senator Robert Dole of Kansas.

Millicent Fenwick

Millicent Vernon Hammond Fenwick (February 25, 1910-September 16, 1992) was a Republican Congresswoman from New Jersey, “the Katharine Hepburn of politics” [113], who served four terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. She was first elected to Congress in 1974 at the age of sixty-four. (Her election was portrayed in the media as a “geriatric triumph” [114], remarkable given the advanced age of many leading politicians in Washington D.C. today.) Fenwick became, in the words of television anchorman Walter Cronkite, “the conscience of Congress.” [115]

Fenwick was born into a wealthy family and raised in New Jersey. Millicent’s mother died while a passenger aboard the ocean liner Lusitania, which was struck by a torpedo from a German submarine. Her mother had been traveling to Paris for the purpose of creating a hospital for World War I victims. Millicent was just five years old at the time.

Fenwick attended an elite school in Virginia but never received a high school or college degree, having left school to accompany her father to Spain where he served as the United States ambassador under President Calvin Coolidge. However, she studied at the New School for Social Research and Columbia University in New York, and spoke fluent Italian, French and Spanish. Before entering politics she modeled briefly for Harper’s Bazaar magazine, then worked as a writer and editor for Vogue magazine for fourteen years.

In the 1950’s she became involved in the Civil Rights movement. While serving in Congress she supported civil rights, the women’s movement [116], human rights (she was a lead sponsor of the resolution creating the commission to monitor the 1975 Helsinki Accords, which eventually gave rise to the organization Human Rights Watch), and opposed government corruption and special interest groups.  (She stated, somewhat ironically given the state of American politics today,  “The money that is spent in elections is absolutely unconscionable – even if it’s private money. It’s true that one’s not corrupted by the expenditure of one’s own money, but to some extent the system is. We cannot have a system in which the only people you can count on for a vote that doesn’t look as though it might be a vote for a special-interest group are people with enormous fortunes.”) She fought for bathrooms for migrant workers (which won her the name “Outhouse Millie”), to protect car buyers from deceptive advertising, and to require funeral directors to itemize bills in advance. She was an advocate for gun control and prison reform.

Fenwick smoked a pipe (a habit begun after her doctor discouraged her from smoking cigarettes). She was in many other ways a colorful figure, purportedly inspiring the Lacey Davenport character in Garry Trudeau’s Doonsbury cartoon. She inherited a fortune when her father passed in 1956, but remained frugal, driving a Chevrolet in a community of luxury automobiles. She placed her assets in a blind trust to avoid political conflicts of interest.[117]

Charles Percy

Charles Harting Percy (September 27, 1919 – September 17, 2011) was an American businessman and politician. He was president of the Bell & Howell Corporation from 1949 to 1964. In 1966, he was elected to the United States Senate from Illinois as a Republican. He served for three terms, until 1985. He was mentioned as a GOP presidential hopeful from 1968 through 1988.[118]

Percy was the GOP’s candidate for the Illinois governor’s race in 1964, but lost in part because he was tied to the unpopular Goldwater and neglected to take a forthright stand in favor of civil rights.[119]  Thereafter, Percy created the New Illinois Committee (NIC). The Committee offered a way to put into practice Percy’s call for private sector assistance for America’s impoverished inner cities. Funded by Percy and his corporate allies, the NIC conducted literacy classes, posted job openings, offered legal aid and day care, and connected local minority-owned businesses with Republican executives who offered advice and assistance.[120] The NIC’s highest-profile operation was its “Call for Action,” a telephone help line that inner-city residents could call with complaints about absentee landlords, ineffective city departments, and abusive merchants. The NIC succeeded in helping its minority clientele on issues such as trash removal, welfare-check processing, and rat control.[121]

In 1967, Senator Percy introduced a bill to establish a program to stimulate production of low-cost housing. Percy’s proposal was the first of its kind to provide home ownership to low-income families, and it received strong support from Republicans in both the House and the Senate.

Percy opposed centralized, high-rise public housing, which he believed destroyed any sense of neighborhood community and allowed criminals to operate with impunity. He collaborated in creating the “New Dawn of Our Cities” plan, which proposed that high-rise public housing be replaced with scattered-site public housing units no more than three stories high, and he advocated for urban home ownership, so that public housing tenants could purchase their apartments.”[122]

In 1977, Percy and Democratic [Senator and] former Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey – responding to the 1973 OPEC oil embargo and high energy prices in general – created the Alliance to Save Energy [123] to encourage a national commitment to energy efficiency.

Percy also successfully advocated for ending the practice of nominating federal judges from a pool of candidates generated by the Chicago political machine. He implemented a system of consultation with groups of legal experts, including the professional bar associations, a practice that though novel at the time was consistent with the longstanding Republican Party commitment to good government and against corrupt political machines. [124]

Percy, like some other moderate Republicans, called for a reevaluation of America’s involvement in the Vietnam War. “If we continue to spend $66 million a day trying to save the people of South Vietnam,” Percy argued, “while leaving the plight of the twenty million poor in our own country unresolved, then I think we have our priorities confused.”[125]

Jacob Javits

Jacob Koppel “Jake” Javits (May 18, 1904 – March 7, 1986) was a Republican politician who served as a U.S. Representative and as a U.S. Senator from New York from 1957 to 1981. He was one of the most liberal of the liberal Republicans. [126] Javits originally was allied with Governor Nelson Rockefeller, as well as fellow Senators Irving Ives and Kenneth Keating. Javits voted with Democrats more often than with Republicans.

The son of Ida and Morris Javits, the latter a janitor, Javits grew up in a teeming Lower East Side tenement. When not in school, he helped his mother sell dry goods from a pushcart in the street.[127] In his youth, Javits had watched his father work for Tammany Hall, and he experienced firsthand the corruption and graft associated with New York’s notorious Democratic political machine. Tammany’s operations repulsed Javits so much that he forever rejected the city’s Democratic Party, and in the early 1930s, he joined the Republican-Fusion Party, which then was supporting the mayoral campaign of Fiorello H. La Guardia (also a reformist Republican).[128]

Although he frequently differed with the more conservative members of his party, Javits always maintained that a healthy political party should tolerate diverse opinions among its members. He rejected the idea that either Party should reflect only one point of view. Javits liked to think of himself as a political descendant of Theodore Roosevelt’s Progressive Republicanism. He was strongly committed to social issues, believing that the Federal government should have a role in improving the lives of Americans. Nevertheless, as a lawyer who for years represented business clients, Javits also advocated an economy in which business and government would cooperate to further the national welfare, instead of government regulating business too much, which he felt was an erroneous policy of Democrats.[129]

During Javits’ first two terms in the House of Representatives, he often sided with the Truman Administration. For example, in 1947, Javits supported Truman’s veto of the Taft-Hartley Bill, which he believed was antiunion. A strong opponent of discrimination, Javits also endorsed anti-poll tax legislation in 1947 and 1949 and, in 1954, he unsuccessfully supported a bill banning segregation in federally funded housing projects.

Javits supported Democratic President Lyndon Johnson’s civil rights measures and generally endorsed Johnson’s Great Society programs. Javits initially backed Johnson during the early years of America’s involvement in the Vietnam War.  By the end of 1967, however, he joined twenty-two other Senators in calling for a peaceful solution to the conflict. [130] In 1964, Javits refused to support his party’s conservative presidential nominee, Barry M. Goldwater.

Javits was especially proud of his work in creating the National Endowment for the Arts; of his sponsorship of the ERISA Act, which regulated corporate pension plans; and of his leadership in promoting the cause of Federal support of education for gifted individuals (so-called “Javits Grants”).

In an essay [131] published in 1958 in Esquire, the magazine, Javits predicted the election of the first African-American president by the year 2000.

*             *             *

In addition to these notable politicians, many, many other progressive and moderate Republicans were leading legislators or served as Cabinet and Judicial officials from the 1940’s to the 1970’s, and later. They include Lowell Weicker of Connecticut,[132] John Anderson of Illinois,[133] Olympia Snowe of Maine,[134] Elliott Richardson of Massachusetts,[135] Robert Packwood of Oregon,[136] Earl Warren of California,[137]Thomas Kuchel of California,[138] Hugh Scott of Pennsylvania,[139] Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island,[140]  John Lindsay of New York,[141] Howard Baker of Tennessee,[142] Richard Lugar of Indiana,[143] Arlen Spector of Pennsylvania,[144] and Richard Schweiker of Pennsylvania.[145] These public servants represented a wide spectrum of views. Sometimes they were very liberal on some issues and not on others. Many held views that became more liberal the longer they served. Unfortunately, none would have a place in today’s Republican Party.

If America is again to be a place where consensus politics is mainstream, it is essential that the Republican Party again becomes a place where politicians such as these are welcome. And unless consensus politics again becomes mainstream, the U.S. is likely to be condemned to slowly decline, as our current gridlocked political system fails to deal effectively with matters that only an effective government can address.[146]

[1] In regards to the Civil Rights Bill, “Eighty percent of House Republicans supported the bill, as opposed to sixty percent of House Democrats. The measure went to the Senate, where it was filibustered by Southern Democrats and championed by liberals of both parties, with Thomas Kuchel, Jacob Javits, Kenneth Keating, and Clifford Case as the GOP representatives on the steering committee for the bill… As with the House vote, a greater proportion of Senate Republicans than Democrats voted for cloture and passage of the bill: more than four-fifths of the Republicans but only some two-thirds of the Democrats.” (Geoffrey Kabaservice, Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party, From Eisenhower to the Tea Party (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012) 100-101. Kindle edition) A greater percentage of Republicans than Democrats also supported the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (Geoffrey Kabaservice, Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party, From Eisenhower to the Tea Party (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012) 141. Kindle edition)

[2] Richard Norton Smith, On His Own Terms: A Life of Nelson Rockefeller (New York: Random House, 2014)

[3] Arguably Wendell Willkie, the Liberal republican who was FDR’s opponent in the 1940 Presidential election, was the single politician most responsible for FDR providing help to Great Britain after the Nazis conquered mainland Europe and were bombing England every night. In Those Angry Days, Lynne Olsen’s history of American isolationists prior to the outbreak of World War II, Roosevelt is quoted as saying to his closest advisor, Harry Hopkins (who had made a negative comment about Willkie), “Don’t ever say anything like that around here again. Don’t even think it. You of all people ought to know that we might not have had Lend-Lease or Selective Service or a lot of other things [crucial to Great Britain’s and later America’s war effort] if it hadn’t been for Wendell Willkie. He was a godsend to this country when we needed him most.” (Lynne Olson, Those Angry Days: Roosevelt, Lindbergh, and America’s Fight Over World War II, 1939-1941 (New York: Random House, 2014). Nonetheless, Willkie’s support of FDR materially contributed to his losing the 1940 Presidential election.

[4] Lewis L. Gould, Grand Old Party: A History of the Republicans (New York: Random House, 2003) 14.

[5] This is somewhat ironic in that it was President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, who left office in 2001 with the Federal Government running a surplus, while Presidents Reagan and George W. Bush, one of Clinton’s conservative Republican predecessors and his immediate successor, ran huge deficits.

[6] “The Democratic Party, usually considered to be the more liberal party, derived much of its strength from its monopoly of the racially segregated South, and Southern Democrats were the most conservative element in the U.S. Congress. The Republican Party, though considered to be the party of small government, had laid the groundwork for modern society through such active-government achievements as abolishing slavery, opening up public lands in the West for settlement by homesteaders, chartering the first transcontinental railroad and establishing a national banking system and land-grant colleges. Republican Administrations had also reformed the civil service, passed the first conservation legislation, and created the rudiments of a social welfare safety net.” (Geoffrey Kabaservice, Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party, From Eisenhower to the Tea Party (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012) 2. Kindle edition)

[7] Reagan stated, “At the end of World War II, I was a New Dealer to the core. I thought government could solve all our postwar problems just as it had ended the Depression and won the war. I didn’t trust big business. I thought government, not private companies, should own our public utilities; if there wasn’t enough housing to shelter the American people, I thought government should build it; if we needed better medical care, the answer was socialized medicine.” (H.W. Brands, Reagan: The Life. (New York: Doubleday, 2015), Kindle edition, location 1018)

[8] Smith, Richard Norton. Interview with William O’Shaughnessy. The O’Shaughnessy Files. WVOX, WVIP, October 29, 2014.

[9] Education: Rockefeller was the driving force in turning the State University of New York into the largest system of public higher education in the United States. Under his governorship, it grew from 29 campuses and 38,000 full-time students to 72 campuses and 232,000 full-time students. Other accomplishments included providing the first state financial support for educational television; and requiring public schools to provide special education for children with disabilities. (State of New York, Public Papers of Nelson A. Rockefeller, Fifty-third Governor of the State of New York, vol. 15, 1973 (Albany, NY: State of New York, 1973), p. 1380)

[10] Environmental Protection: Consistent with his personal interest in design and planning, Rockefeller began expansion of the New York State Parks system and improvement of park facilities. He persuaded voters to approve three major bond acts to raise more than $300 million for acquisition of park and forest preserve land. (“Theodore Roosevelt – Alfred E. Smith – Nelson Rockefeller – George Pataki.” The New York State Preservationist. NYS Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. Fall/Winter 2006, p. 20)

[11] Transportation: In 1967, Rockefeller initiated the creation or expansion of over 22,000 miles of highway, which vastly improved road transportation in the state of New York. (State of New York, Public Papers of Nelson A. Rockefeller, Fifty-third Governor of the State of New York, vol. 15, 1973 (Albany, NY: State of New York, 1973), p. 1385) Rockefeller also introduced the state’s first support for mass transportation. He reformed the governance of New York City’s transportation system, creating the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) in 1965.

[12] Housing: In order to create more low-income housing, Rockefeller created the New York State Urban Development Corporation (UDC), granting it unprecedented powers to override local zoning, condemn property, and create financing schemes to carry out desired development. By 1973, the Rockefeller administration had completed or started over 88,000 units of housing for limited income families and the aging (State of New York, Public Papers of Nelson A. Rockefeller, Fifty-third Governor of the State of New York, vol. 15, 1973 (Albany, NY: State of New York, 1973), p. 1382).

[13] Welfare and Medical Aid: In the area of public assistance, the Rockefeller administration carried out the largest state medical care program for the needy in the United States under the auspices of Medicaid; achieved the first major decline in New York State’s welfare rolls since World War II; required employable welfare recipients to take available jobs or job training; began the state breakfast program for children in low income areas; and established the first state loan fund for nonprofit groups to start day-care centers (State of New York, Public Papers of Nelson A. Rockefeller, Fifty-third Governor of the State of New York, vol. 15, 1973 (Albany, NY: State of New York, 1973), p. 1385).

[14] Civil Rights: Rockefeller meaningfully reduced discrimination in housing and places of public accommodation. He outlawed job discrimination based on gender or age; increased by nearly 50% the number of African Americans and Hispanics holding state jobs; appointed women as heads of the largest number of state agencies in state history; prohibited discrimination against women in education, employment, housing and credit applications; admitted the first women to the State Police; initiated affirmative action programs for women in state government; and backed New York’s ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Rockefeller outlawed “block-busting” as a means of artificially depressing housing values and banned discrimination in the sale of all forms of insurance (State of New York, Public Papers of Nelson A. Rockefeller, Fifty-third Governor of the State of New York, vol. 15, 1973 (Albany, NY: State of New York, 1973), pp. 1382, 1386). During his fifteen years as Governor, Rockefeller also doubled the size of the state police, established the New York State Police Academy, adopted the “stop and frisk” and “no-knock” laws to strengthen police powers, and authorized 228 additional state judgeships to reduce court congestion (State of New York, Public Papers of Nelson A. Rockefeller, Fifty-third Governor of the State of New York, vol. 15, 1973 (Albany, NY: State of New York, 1973), p. 1379).

[15] The Arts: Rockefeller created the first State Council on the Arts in the country, which became a model for the National Endowment for the Arts. (Benjamin, Gerald; Hurd, T. Norman, eds. (1984). “The Builder”.Rockefeller in Retrospect: The Governor’s New York Legacy. Albany, N.Y.: Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Govt. pp. 79–82)

[16] Richard Norton Smith, On His Own Terms: A Life of Nelson Rockefeller (New York: Random House, 2014)

[17] Cary Reich, The Life of Nelson A. Rockefeller (New York: DoubleDay, 1966) 521–527.

[18] “The Late U. S. Senator Margaret Chase Smith” The University of Maine at Augusta.

[19] “June 1, 1950: A Declaration of Conscience.” United States Senate

[20] “Margaret Chase Smith Library – Frequently Asked Questions” Margaret Chase Smith Foundation

[21] “Margaret Chase Smith (1897 – 1995)” Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.

[22] “Margaret Chase Smith: The Conscience of the Senate “Digital History”

[23] “June 1, 1950: A Declaration of Conscience.” United States Senate. June 1, 1950.

[24] “June 1, 1950: A Declaration of Conscience.” United States Senate. June 1, 1950.

[25]  “June 1, 1950: A Declaration of Conscience.” United States Senate. June 1, 1950.

[26] Severo, Richard. “Margaret Chase Smith Is Dead at 97; Maine Republican Made History Twice.” The New York Times, May 30, 1995

[27] “June 1, 1950: A Declaration of Conscience.” United States Senate. June 1, 1950.

[28] Nichola D. Gutgold. Paving the Way for Madam President. Maryland: Lexington Books, 2006.

[29] Smith later observed, “If I am to be remembered in history, it will not be because of legislative accomplishments, but for an act I took as a legislator in the U.S. Senate when on June 1, 1950, I spoke…in condemnation of McCarthyism, when the junior Senator from Wisconsin had the Senate paralyzed with fear that he would purge any Senator who disagreed with him.”  She voted for McCarthy’s censure in 1954.

[30] “Smith’s Declaration of Conscience did not end McCarthy’s reign of power, but she was one of the first senators to take such a stand. She continued to oppose him, at great personal cost, for the next four years. Finally, in December of 1954, the Senate belatedly concurred with the “lady from Maine” and censured McCarthy for conduct “contrary to senatorial traditions.” McCarthy’s career was over. Margaret Chase Smith’s career was just beginning.” (She was a freshman Senator when she made her speech.)

[31] “Current Biography Yearbook VI.” H.W. Wilson Company. 1971

[32] Richard Severo. “Margaret Chase Smith Is Dead at 97; Maine Republican Made History Twice.” The New York Times, January 25, 2010.

[33] “Margaret Chase Smith (1897 – 1995)” Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.

[34] “Margaret Chase Smith (1897 – 1995)” Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.

[35] “Expanded Biography.” Margaret Chase Smith Library

[36] “Expanded Biography.” Margaret Chase Smith Library

[37] “Margaret Chase Smith, Women in Congress” U.S. governmental website

[38] Fried, Amy. “What a Very Candid Olympia Snowe Had to Say About her Party, Women and What Margaret Chase Smith Would Think” Bangor Daily News, December 12, 2013. The article also points out that when Senator Smith wanted to use the restroom in the U.S. Capitol, she had to stand in line with the tourists. After retiring from the U.S. Senate, Senator Snowe founded an organization called “Olympia’s List” whose website declares, “Our future depends on government working. Government can work again, but only when Americans support and vote for individuals who will follow the principles of consensus-building. The purpose of this website is to provide a gathering point for all of us who believe our elected officials need to put the country ahead of politics, to facilitate the distribution of news about activities taking place to further that goal, and to identify and support like-minded candidates and office holders.” (Snowe, Olympia. “Olympia’s List.” Olympia’s List, 2012.)

[39] Tom Mahoney, The Story of George Romney. New York: Harper, 1960

[40] “The Dinosaur Hunter.” Time, April 6, 1959.

[41] “Politician in High Gear; George Wilcken Romney Wants a Citizen Party”. The New York Times. February 10, 1962

[42] “Politician in High Gear; George Wilcken Romney Wants a Citizen Party”. The New York Times. February 10, 1962

[43] Weaver, Warren, Jr. “Romney Sounds an Uncertain Trumpet.” The New York Times Magazine, November 19, 1967.

[44] Paul Brace, State Government and Economic Performance (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994) 54–55.

[45] I am a University of Michigan alumnus. Thank you Governor Romney and Go Blue!

[46] “Romney Leads a Protest.” The New York Times, March 10, 1965

[47]  Sidney Fine, Expanding the Frontiers of Civil Rights, (Michigan: Wayne State University Press, 2000) 216, 218. Romney’s advocacy of civil rights brought him criticism from some in his own church. In January 1964, Quorum of the Twelve Apostles member Delbert L. Stapley wrote Romney to say that a proposed civil rights bill was “vicious legislation” and telling him that “the Lord had placed the curse upon the Negro” and men should not seek its removal. Romney refused to change his position and increased his efforts towards civil rights. Regarding the church policy itself, Romney was among those liberal Mormons who hoped the church leadership would revise the theological interpretation, but Romney did not believe in publicly criticizing the church, subsequently saying that fellow Mormon Stewart Udall’s 1967 published denunciation of this policy “cannot serve any useful religious purpose.”

[48] “Politician in High Gear; George Wilcken Romney Wants a Citizen Party.” The New York Times, February 10, 1962

[49] “An Impatient Politician: George Wilcken Romney.” The New York Times, June 8, 1964

[50] Barnes, Bart. “George W. Romney Dies at Age 88; Michigan Governor, HUD Secretary.” The Washington Post.July 27, 1995

[51] “An Impatient Politician: George Wilcken Romney.” The New York Times, June 8, 1964

[52] Wallace-Wells, Benjamin. “George Romney for President, 1968.” New York Magazine, May 20, 2012.

[53] Theodore H. White, The Making of the President, (New York: Harper Perennial, 1968) 36.

[54] “An Impatient Politician: George Wilcken Romney.” The New York Times, June 8, 1964

[55] Theodore H. White, The Making of the President, (New York: Harper Perennial, 1964) 154–155, 157

[56] At the convention, Romney fought for a strengthened civil rights plank in the party platform that would pledge action to eliminate discrimination at the state, local, and private levels, but it was defeated on a voice vote.  He also failed to win support for a statement that condemned both left- and right-wing extremism without naming any organizations, which lost a standing vote by a two-to-one margin.

[57] Theodore H. White, The Making of the President, (New York: Harper Perennial, 1964) 351.

[58] Ajemian, Robert, “A Trio of G.O.P. Stars Fighting Hard Not to Be Buried with Barry,” Life, October 30, 1964, 35–38.

[59] Theodore H. White, The Making of the President, (New York: Harper Perennial, 1964) 37. Romney won 15 percent of Michigan’s black vote, compared to Goldwater’s two percent.

[60]  Theodore H. White, The Making of the President, (New York: Harper Perennial, 1964) 405.

[61] T. George Harris, Romney’s Way: A Man and an Idea, (New Orleans: Garrett County Press 2012) 241.

[62] Romney formally announced on November 18, 1967, at Detroit’s Veterans Memorial Building,  that he had “decided to fight for and win the Republican nomination and election to the Presidency of the United States” (“1967 Year In Review”. United Press International. Retrieved October 20, 2009). His subsequent release of his federal tax returns – twelve years’ worth, going back to his time as the head of the American Motors Corporation– was groundbreaking and it established a precedent with which many future presidential candidates would have to contend. (“Romney Reveals 12–Year Income.” The Pittsburgh Press, November 26, 1967. pp. 1, 9) (Shaxson, Nicholas. “Where the Money Lives.” Vanity Fair (August 2012).)

[63] HUD made Warren, Michigan a prime target for the Open Communities initiative and threatened to halt all federal assistance to the town unless it took a series of actions to end racial discrimination there. Town officials represented that progress was being made and that its citizens resented forced integration.  Romney rejected this response, partly because, during his tenure as Governor, Warren residents had thrown rocks and garbage and yelled obscenities for days at a biracial couple who moved into town.  Romney said, “The youth of this nation, the minorities of this nation, the discriminated of this nation are not going to wait for ‘nature to take its course.’ What is really at issue here is responsibility – moral responsibility.”

[64] Nikole Hannah Jones, “Living Apart: How the Government Betrayed a Landmark Civil Rights Law,” ProPublica, October 29, 2012.

[65] Charles Lamb, Housing Segregation in Suburban America since 1960 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 85–93.

[66] Richard Reeves, President Nixon: Alone in the White House, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002), 71

[67] Another of Romney’s initiatives was “Operation Breakthrough”, which was intended to increase the amount of housing available to the poor, an initiative that did have Nixon’s initial support.  Based on his automotive industry experience, Romney thought that the cost of housing could be significantly reduced if in-factory modular construction techniques were used. Romney said, “We’ve got to put an end to the idea of moving to suburban areas and living only among people of the same economic and social class.”  This aspect of the program brought about strong opposition at the local suburban level and it eventually lost support in the Nixon White House as well. The initiative was phased out once Romney left HUD, but side effects of the program did lead to more modern and consistent building codes and to the introduction of technological advances such as the smoke alarm.  In any case, using conventional methods, [under Romney] HUD set records for the amount of construction of assisted housing for low- and moderate-income families.

[68] Bonastia, Christopher. “Hedging His Bets: Why Nixon Killed HUD’s Desegregation Efforts.” Social Science History (28)1: 19-52 (2004)

[69] That Fall, Romney travelled 10,000 miles to visit the worst neighborhoods in 17 American cities. ‘I think it’s important for public officials—and through their eyes all citizens—to see … the horrible conditions which breed frustration, hatred and revolt,’ he declared. While many of the audiences he addressed were bemused to find a white Republican touring primarily black urban communities, he met with a respectful, if sometimes muted, reception. ‘At least he’s here and that is something,’ one community activist allowed. ‘It seems to show he’s really concerned. We haven’t seen any of those other guys down here in the streets.’ For Romney, the key takeaway of the ghetto tour was that America needed a ‘drastic revision’ of its priorities.

[70] Zeitz, Josh. “What Happened the Last Time Republicans Cared About Poverty,” POLITICO Magazine, April 20, 2015.

[71] Walth, Brent, “Mark of distinction,” The Oregonian, December 29, 1996.

[72] In 1968, Hatfield was considered as a running mate for Richard Nixon on the Republican Party presidential ticket.

[73] Geoffrey Kabaservice, Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party, From Eisenhower to the Tea Party (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 182 Kindle edition

[74] Balmer, Donald G.  “The 1966 Election in Oregon.” The Western Political Quarterly Vol. 20, No. 2, Part 2. (June, 1967), 593–60.