If the Parties had never flipped, what politicians would have stayed behind?

[Scam of God]

That's a little vague, but I couldn't really think of anything else to compress into the space allotted for the title that retained the meaning I really wanted. To rephrase it: if the Republican Party were still identified as the generally 'left' Party of the American political spectrum, and the Democrats likewise on the 'right', and had never re-aligned ideologically, what politicians either living today or within recent historical memory would have stayed in the Party they were really in?

There are a few obvious answers - Eisenhower and Clinton, the great centrists of our time, would likely as not been just at home in their respective Parties had they retained their historical connotations as they were in our own timeline. Certainly Zell Miller would have preferred the Democrat of old, and the Maine twins would likely have belonged to whatever DLC equivalent a left-Republican Party would have.

What others are there?

[All Along The Watchtower]

I reject the notion that the parties "flipped."

The Republican Party was always economically conservative and pro-business. The Democratic Party was always a big tent.

[Scam of God]

I reject the notion that the parties "flipped."

The Republican Party was always economically conservative and pro-business. The Democratic Party was always a big tent.

What matters is how they are perceived. In many ways, on objective policy, Bill Clinton was to the right of George H.W. Bush; that didn't keep him from being understood in the popular consciousness as an agent of left-ish change in 1992.

Moreover, it is certainly clear in one sense that they've flipped: in their concrete electoral coalitions. Obama won every McKinley state except North Dakota, West Virginia, and Tennessee; and McCain took every Bryan state save Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Washington, and Nevada.

[All Along The Watchtower]

I reject the notion that the parties "flipped."

The Republican Party was always economically conservative and pro-business. The Democratic Party was always a big tent.

What matters is how they are perceived. In many ways, on objective policy, Bill Clinton was to the right of George H.W. Bush; that didn't keep him from being understood in the popular consciousness as an agent of left-ish change in 1992.

Moreover, it is certainly clear in one sense that they've flipped: in their concrete electoral coalitions. Obama won every McKinley state except North Dakota, West Virginia, and Tennessee; and McCain took every Bryan state save Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Washington, and Nevada.

Ah, I understand what you're saying.

Well, I think Larry McDonald of Georgia would have remained a Democrat. He was an ultraconservative Democratic congressman and a leader in the John Birch Society.

The Rockefellers would have remained powerful in the GOP.

[Psychic Octopus]

If the Republicans were percieved as the leftist party today, I can see Governor Jim Douglas staying with the Republicans.

[hcallega]

The Kennedy's would have, because they were really a creation of the urban Democratic machines of the late 1800s. In fact the Irish first were drawn to the Democrats because they were mostly farmers back in Ireland and they related to the agrarian Democrats.