Who was the last republican nominee to win new york city?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

It surprises me that both the "progressive/liberal" republican party of the 19th and early 20th century and the conservative republican party of today both get crushed there.

Did NYC switch from conservatism to liberalism at the same time the Rs switched from liberalism to conservativism?

The Republicans have generally always been the party of business and of religiously (Protestant) motivated crusades (In those day's abolition and prohibition/temperance, as well as the public schools).

All of those reforms were opposed by the German and Irish Catholic immigrant groups. Abolition would bring blacks into competition for their jobs whilst slavery kept them safely down south (Dred Scott is in my view the key that causes this viewpoint to shift as it raised the specter of slavery itself bringing about that very competition. Hence why Lincoln emphasized "all Slave or all free". It was brilliant political strategy as it forced these pro-slavery northerns to flip and vote for a moderate anti-slavery Republian like Lincoln both in 1858 [he won the collective popular vote but lost since Senators were elected by state legislature] and 1860. This did not include NYC where Lincoln lost and barely carried the state by a narrow margin thanks to solid support upstate and NYC was one of the hotbeds of copperhead sympath during the war (Fernando Wood?) as well as the site of the NYC draft riots (those same pro-slavery working class Irish Democrats against the blacks)). Prohibition of alcohol interferred with the strong heritage of strong spirits and beer amongst those immigrant groups. Also the Republicans being of Congregational (Puritan) New England and Midwestern stock largely, preferred that the King James Bible be read in said public schools and Catholic immigrants wanted nothing to do with that. So instead they opened parochial schools and Republicans tried to ban school choice to force them to go to public schools and be tought the "good (Protestant) Christian education lest they be condemned to hell for eternity".

You also had the nativist element from both the Whigs and Know-Nothings, which in the north was folded into the Republican Party. From the Whigs and before them, The Federalists, you inherited those that opposed the extension of the vote to all white males (they preferred property and wealth requirements).

In contrast, as far back as Jefferson, the Democrats ascribed to be the Party of the common man against the elites and the Party of immigrants. They supported the extension of the franchise to all white males and welcomed the immigrants from Ireland and elsewhere, particularly in NY, where they used the corruption of Tammany Hall to get them jobs and other forms of assistance.

Therefore, heavily Catholic and immigrant heavy New York City was the Democratic base whilst, WASP upstate NY was the Republican one. The wealthy in NYC voted Republican as did large segments of the middle class but after the franchise was extended, they were outvoted and more so with each new boatload of Irishmen coming in. Also, demographics have changed areas of the country dramatically. New England's puritanical nature was frowned upon by Southerners who consider it overbearing and controlling (I ran across a quote from a Southern Congressmen in the 1880's expressing this sentiment regarding a Senator from Vermont). Federalists also tried to contrast Jefferson as an atheist compared to the devout Adams. Only the mid 20th century brings this to a complete end in its last holdouts in rural New England.

This notion of the the Parties simply flipping is one of the worst distortions and oversimplifications that is being put out there in American History in the modern era. Very little of the core aspirations of either Party has changed (save maybe for The Democrats with their embrace of Wall Street as part of the DLC and Clinton in 1992) much in the past two hundred years. What has changed is that ethnic, religious and geographic based voting has given way to ideological based voting.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

The idea that the core aspirations of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party haven't changed much over the past two centuries is utter rubbish and that's putting it rather politely. Unless you believe that political philosophy is irrelevant, there's no basis for that claim. It's one thing to say that there is some kind of continuum between the Democratic Party of Jackson and the Democratic Party of Obama and quite another to say that the Democratic Party's core aspirations are the same. That strikes me as historical revisionism in its worst form.

Republicans aren't the Party of business? The Republicans Aren't the Party of Religious Zealotry? The Republicans aren't the Party of nativism in the modern era? Democrats aren't the Party of Workers and Immigrants (at least relative to the Republicans, as I said they surrendered some of there core in 1992 with the DLC and Clinton)?  You mistake tools for objectives, you mistake contextual histocial realities as being the whole affair, and you place rhetorical flavor over interests served (It is not what and how, but for who and why). A Southern Party was going to be pro-slavery and anti-NAtive American, a New England Party was going to be nativist, elitist and dogmatically Protestant. History is won by imperfect men. The former established the concept of people other then the elities running society and the latter ended slavery.

Former plantation owners, who always voted for Democrats, certainly aren't "common men".

lol, no. That is completely incorrect. Notice I emphasized northern in my previous post and that analysis is limited to the north for this reason. Slave owners (with some variances by states) were elites and were drawn to the Party of elites against the party of the populist mob. Where the hell do you think Pinkney came from?  The Deep South Whigs?  Only just before and following the Civil War did they get folded into the Democrats as part of the regionalization of politics.

Lord have mercy where in the world do you get the nerve to say "always", a rather obvious trap in any historical discussion.      

Neither are Yankee smallholding farmers or Lutheran machinists/craftsmen, who tended to vote for Republicans. The proletarian "commen men" of immigrant stock in the North didn't care all that much about two party politics. This is why the New Deal transformed Americans: they finally had a reason to lay claim to American civic life. Before this, the two parties didn't stand for much besides patronage jobs, contacts with various bureaucrats within party machines and standing up for cultural traditions, either of the Old World (Papist, Democrats) or of the New World (Yankee Puritan, GOP).

The New Deal had a transforming effect, but the rise of JAckson was cosnidered just as transforming to the immigrants of the 1820's and 1830's, which meant they could actually vote, unlike before. History is incrementally won by imperfect men. But of course Democrats have been throwing the baby out with the bathwater for two decades now, so it comes as no surprise that you would reject the progress made pre-1932, without which, 1932 would not be possible.

Without the expansion of suffrage in the 1830's, you don't get FDR in the 1930's.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Where have you gone, Mechaman,
we need you now more then you will know....


He would share you cynicism regarding the Democratic Party, but he would agree with my narrative as it is largely in line with the points he made in his inconvenient history thread.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

It surprises me that both the "progressive/liberal" republican party of the 19th and early 20th century and the conservative republican party of today both get crushed there.

Did NYC switch from conservatism to liberalism at the same time the Rs switched from liberalism to conservativism?

The Republicans have generally always been the party of business and of religiously (Protestant) motivated crusades (In those day's abolition and prohibition/temperance, as well as the public schools).

All of those reforms were opposed by the German and Irish Catholic immigrant groups. Abolition would bring blacks into competition for their jobs whilst slavery kept them safely down south (Dred Scott is in my view the key that causes this viewpoint to shift as it raised the specter of slavery itself bringing about that very competition. Hence why Lincoln emphasized "all Slave or all free". It was brilliant political strategy as it forced these pro-slavery northerns to flip and vote for a moderate anti-slavery Republian like Lincoln both in 1858 [he won the collective popular vote but lost since Senators were elected by state legislature] and 1860. This did not include NYC where Lincoln lost and barely carried the state by a narrow margin thanks to solid support upstate and NYC was one of the hotbeds of copperhead sympath during the war (Fernando Wood?) as well as the site of the NYC draft riots (those same pro-slavery working class Irish Democrats against the blacks)). Prohibition of alcohol interferred with the strong heritage of strong spirits and beer amongst those immigrant groups. Also the Republicans being of Congregational (Puritan) New England and Midwestern stock largely, preferred that the King James Bible be read in said public schools and Catholic immigrants wanted nothing to do with that. So instead they opened parochial schools and Republicans tried to ban school choice to force them to go to public schools and be tought the "good (Protestant) Christian education lest they be condemned to hell for eternity".

German immigrants typically did not have any particular opposition to abolition itself.  The Kansas-Nebraska Act was deeply unpopular, and the "forty eighter" immigrants especially were strongly anti slavery. The main obstacle to German immigrants in supporting the Free Soil and Republican parties was the association with nativism and prohibition, and the traditional allegiance to Democrats of German Americans from older waves of immigration. Germans ended up voting Republican, bringing an anti-nativist, anti-prohibition voice into the party.
Looking at the House vote on the 18th amendment,  the Republican and Democratic parties both voted roughly 2-1 in favor.  The opposition to prohibition among Democrats in the North was overwhelmed by the support for it among Democrats in the rest of the country.

That is correct, my point was never to say that thse three items determined equally and fully on each immigrant group, but from amongst them at least one of two of those matters made the GOP a rather unappealing group to immigrants overall and especially to the Irish for whome all three probably applied at one time at several different instances prior to the Civil War. That said when the GOP did bottle it up and focus on the matter of containing slavery, especially once its preservation was no longer a gurrantee of keeping "them down south", the Republicans did rather well amongst Germans. And then in 1874 and 1884 they made the mistake of letting loose that sentiment and they lost.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

The Republican Party isn't the party of business, the Republican Party is not the party of religious zealotry, the Republican Party is not the party of nativism etc. These terms strike me as being very imprecise, especially when you're describing the core values of a diverse party that has existed for 170 years.

The Republican Party has consistently throughout its history been the favored party of business throughout its existance. Were their progressive elements like TR and alike in the party, yes, because Party's are coalitions and also that in that era, wealth, ethnicity and money determined party as well as geography. But can you really say that TR was more then an aberation when you look at the consistent corporatism of the 1800's, the laissez faire 1920's, 1930's opposition to the New Deal and so on through the 20th century. A lot changes, my purpose to indentify what largely stays the same so as to connect these Parties throughout history. It is easier for someone who is not a Republican to do because the easiest path is through the cynical approach of a Mechaman.

The Republican Party has consistently been dominated by Protestant religious groups (and I would point out that New England Puritans and Southern Baptists today, both shared a Calvinist connection). They then have been the vehicle by which those political views were translated into policy from a moralistic perspective. From the end of prohibition, to rise of the moral majority, there is a mere gap of 40 years, and then we get a return to the norm for the GOP (not a takeover by theocrats or some flipping of the Parties). Protestant religious fervor had bled away in New England and only the prsence of the new Southern base allowed the GOP to return unto itself, almost the exact opposite of the narrative of the Parties flipping.

As for nativism/reluctance towards immigration, the range of viewpoints from opposing immigration entirely to limiting it or expressing reluctance in this day and age has almost consistently been expressed through the Republican Party more so then the Democratic Party. Even when the whole of the South was Democratic, the GOP still led them on this front leading the drive to restrict immigration in the mid 1920's.

The Republican Party is a sprawling big tent coalition that serves many interests and goals depending on the locale and its support base. A few decades it was an entirely different beast than it was in 2014, just as the Republican Party of the 1950s was an entirely different beast than the Republican Party of the 1980s. I think you're making the classic mistake of treating interests in a big tent, two-party system as static variables. In the American two party system, there has always been the presence of dynamic push-pull factors that destroy the notion of static coalitions, which are constantly shifting.

As for the comment about plantation owners, there's a reason why I used the term "former plantation owners": I was clearly alluding to the period after Reconstruction in the South.

The Republican Party of the 1950's though was at best an aberation determined by the fact that the North had changed, The South was still Democratic and therefore that left but one option and that was to change with the times in those regions. That is the source of Dewey and Rockefeller. But notice how long it lasted, when it came to choosing between a pro-business big gov't liberal party, and a Conservative Republican Party that sustained itself off of the South and West, it is patently obvious where the Party went. Not to change itself into something it had not been, but to prserve its own core objectives. Did the Party change, yes, but it didn't change on that key front and that is my point. THe price has been ideological polarization as liberals realized the GOP had made its choice and the Conservatives likewise with the Democrats.

I have stated repeatedly that the Parties were divided ideologically precisely because of that voting along cultural, ethnic, geographic, religious and income lines and that such gave way once ideology took paramount. But what is the political understanding of ideology and is not the political construction of certain lead figures. The Democrats want to help the poor and middle class, using gov't as a tool. The Democrats have always claimed to do the former, they just came to embrace the latter as the tool to do that about midway through their existance. The Reagan Conservative wants a strong military (goes all the way back to the beginning), strong economy by getting gov't outo f the way of business (business loved gov't in 1789 a big difference that is forgotten also and that didn't change until the Progressive Era), and traditional values (with a strong religious motivation, goes all the way back).

I barely even touched on defense and crime and other such issues where the Republican Party (or at least the one that only likes gov't when it does what it wants) acts very much like the Federalist Party of Adams and Hamilton even as they use the rhetoric and tools of Jefferson and Madison. There is a reason for that. 

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

It was actually from a correspondant, not a congressman but I found the quote:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

The man referenced was Senator George F. Edmunds of Vermont.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I might add that there were different strains of WASPs in the republican party. Much of New England was of a Unitarian/Anglican background that tended to be more moderate. Those that settled in the midwest (Kansas, Indiana) tended to be more of a Calvinist bent.

The story of New England in terms of Protestant Religious fervor amongst the Congregationalists at least, is one of steady decline. By the 20th century that was coming into full force, but the politics lagged considerably in this and therefore it was not until the mid 20th century that you began to see liberals like Aiken and Progressives like Prouty representing Vermont, whereas prior to them it was much more of the traditionalist almost paleoconservative bent that represented the state, who had by 1958 become unelectable in the state. Maine elected a similarly conservative Republican as late as 1946, and NH had Conservative Senators until 1960's and 1970's. The liberalism of the GOP establishment in Northeast (depending on your definition) is a post New Deal impact to respond to the demographic changes, both in the form of immigrants and increased unionization and as well as changes within the traditional GOP Yankee base in the region.

Also your previous point about voter awarenss is big. Voters weren't as informed as they are today and voted based on tribalism a lot, a point I have made at several points in this thread. And so yes you had liberals voting for the GOP because they had abolished slavery even though the PArty was hardly liberal overall (and such would be the case throughout 90% of its history). You had two ideological wings in both parties, a split on foreign policy in the GOP and the Wet/Anti-KKK versus Dry/Pro-KKK divide within the Democrats. That is why emphasizing the composition of the coalitions (and its changes over time) is not as indicative as my friend from Idaho would like to contend. They were such because the Party presented their bs in a way that seemed benign or relied a lot on sheer ignorance and legacy voting. That goes for both parties. These were both top down machines for much of the time that we are discussing and therefore it makes sense. No one doubts that The GOP was a corporatist shill in the 1880's, but a lot of working class voters voted for Harrison because of the tarriff. That hardly makes the GOP any less corporatist obviously.

You need to consider that those Calvinists in KS, IN, OH and MI came from New England.  Their seperation may have proved to be what preserved their Calvinism as it bled away in the home region. Also the use of the term moderate is rather misleading considering it is perhaps the most variable of any term throguhout history and could mean absolutely anything. It is fairly clear that the EAst in general was the more Conservative region within the GOP pre-New Deal. Most of the Progressives were out west with a few exceptions and most of their opponents were in the East like Wadsworth, Hanna, Penrose (I make policies beneficial to business and you reward me by donating to my campaign. He said that publically to a business group), Reed, Gillett, Aldrich to some extent, and of course Cannon being the farthest West in Illinois. You also had the anti-immigrant GOP politicians in rural protestant New England.