Ike vs. JFK

[RINO Tom]

LOL at the Democrats praising Ike for not completely dismantling something as ingrained as the New Deal when they would have been calling him an oblivious corporatist had they been around in the '50s.

Anyway, obviously Eisenhower, who was the best President of the Twentieth Century.  Yeah, I said it.

[RINO Tom]

On the issue of Ike's party identification, I remember Cathcon quoting a book called The President's Club along the lines of "Truman was good personal friends with Eisenhower and lobbied him to be the Democratic nominee, to which Ike responded, 'But I'm a Republican.'"

I thought this was very interesting, so I started reading the book while in Barnes and Noble the other weekend, and I will vouch for Ike being a lifelong Republican.  One memorable line during the section on when Truman's and Ike's friendship started to fall apart was Eisenhower writing to a friend, "He (Truman) had never even considered the possibility that I didn't share his political view, and let me tell you I didn't; I have been a Republican my whole life."

[RINO Tom]

I don't think anyone is arguing Ike was a "huge conservative," let alone as conservative as Barry Goldwater (I mean, literally, in 1964 who was?).  The main argument I've seen is, in essence, that Eisenhower was more ideologically conservative than Kennedy, which I most certainly agree with.  He governed as a moderate, and I guess you could say Kennedy did, too; however, how someone governs doesn't necessarily describe his ideology.  You could make a rather coherent argument that Clinton governed to the right of George W. Bush if you simply use wedge phrases like "running up the debt," but I don't think anyone in his right mind would say that Clinton's personal positions/philosophy is more conservative than Bush 43's.