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Title: did Nixon drive certain republicans out of the party? Post by: freepcrusher on April 15, 2012, 11:49:15 PM One thing I've noticed is how there have been a lot more D to R turncoats than R to D turncoats. But of the few R to D turncoats that I know of, a lot of them happened during the Nixon administration:
1969 - John Lindsay, former Republican congressman and current mayor of New York, loses renomination and is forced to run on the Liberal line. In 1971, he joins the Democratic Party. 1970 - Floyd Haskell, the Speaker of the Colorado House, switches to the democrats. In 1972, he unseats incumbent senator Gordon Allott. 1972 - Ogden Reid, congressman from Westchester County, bolts from the Republicans to the Democrats 1973 - a few weeks into his fourth term, Donald Riegle, a Flint congressman, switches to the Democrats. Do you think this is a coincidence or do you think that it was mostly Nixon's fault? Title: Re: did Nixon drive certain republicans out of the party? Post by: tpfkaw on April 16, 2012, 12:10:37 AM A coincidence. In Lindsay's case, the man was literally a borderline-Communist.
Edit: There were certainly plenty of Republicans who left the party because of the Nixon administration, especially after Watergate, but not too many elected officials. |