Which historical figures of an opposing ideology...

[Rob]

... do you admire? Two leftists I have a great deal of respect for are Eugene Debs and Robert LaFollette. They stood up for their beliefs, and did what they thought was right.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Barry Goldwater

[J. J.]

Martin Luther King, Jr.,  Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Gary Hart.

I wouldn't necessarily say that any of these gents had a different ideology.

[Cubby]

Barry Goldwater

Because even though most (not all) of the people who voted for him in '64 were anti-civil rights racists, he wasn't one and stood up for his beliefs when it was unpopular. He even wanted to dismantle the New Deal, which is the holy grail of the Democratic Party yet I've always had a lot of respect for him.

One thing that is swept under the rug is that Goldwater tried to testify in favor of allowing gays in the military in 1993. He felt the government had no business intruding in people's personal lives.  But Sam Nunn refused to allow it because he knew that it would seriously weaken all opposition.

Goldwater knew that religious fundamentalism would split the Republican party, and it certainly will in the near future.
You can be against big government and still be a secular person.

[dazzleman]

You can be against big government and still be a secular person.

That is definitely true.  The two-party system, for better or worse, forces all types of political alliances among groups who might otherwise be in different parties.  This is good because it brings a greater amount of cohesion, rather than a breakup into a million different one-issue parties.  That is one reason I favor the electoral college approach to electing a president rather than popular vote - it buttresses the two-party system, forces alliances among different interest groups, and adds to our political stability.  Countries with large numbers of parties are usually politically unstable.

[Hitchabrut]

David Ben-Gurion

[??????????]

Andrew Jackson

[bgwah]

Barry Goldwater! I probably would've voted for him.

[PBrunsel]

Cordell Hull

[7,052,770]

Richard Nixon

[Max Power]

Martin Luther King, Jr.,  Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Gary Hart.

I wouldn't necessarily say that any of these gents had a different ideology.

Actually, MLK was Social-Democratic, though one of if not the greatest American of all time.

As for me, I'd have to say Richard Nixon and Dwight Eisenhower.

[Beet]

Richard Nixon

Thank God, the first one not to say Barry Goldwater.

[phk]

Eisenhower and Goldwater

[Frodo]

Theodore ('Teddy') Roosevelt

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Theodore ('Teddy') Roosevelt

I would not consider him a conservative. At the time, Republican != conservative.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

T. Rossevelt, Wilkie, Dewey, Eisenhower, and Goldwater are all very different from the current brand of Republicans. It's the current brand of Republicans that I hate.

[J.R. Brown]

Richard Nixon
Ronald Reagan

[WalterMitty]

im not sure how to accurately define my ideology....so ill just name some people from the opposing party that i admire...

lbj
terry sanford
robert kennedy

[No more McShame]

Harry Truman, probably a polar opposite of me politically, but not one to be pushed around.