Rockefeller Republicans

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

As we all know, there used to be conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans. Now, the fact that the Dems were able to hold together their liberal northern wing and conservative southern wing before the mid-to-late 20th century isn't that surprising - the south hated Republicans, and before the 1960s, it wasn't that hard for national Democrats to finesse the race issue.

What I don't understand though is, why were liberal Republicans in the mid-20th century...Republicans? As far as I can tell, mid-century liberal Republicans agreed with people like the Kennedys and Hubert Humphrey on just about everything. On economics, they supported Keynesianism, the New Deal, social programs, intervention, and even on labour unions they seemed to occupy a similar space as JFK for example. On foreign policy, they were internationalist and supported combatting communism by promoting a liberal world order, just like like the Democratic establishment of the time. On social issues, again, they were not that far off from the Democrats that came from the same states as them. So what exactly was the distinction between liberal Republicans and Democrats in this era? In other words, had Nelson Rockefeller beat Barry Goldwater for the 1964 GOP nomination, what issues would he have disagreed with LBJ on?

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Ironically, despite the name, Nelson Rockefeller was far from the best example of a liberal Republican in the period. He did have somewhat of a populist conservative streak, especially on law and order. The most liberal Republicans were the likes of Jacob Javits, Edward Brooke, John Lindsay (who ended up switching parties), and, at least by his 1968 run, George Romney.

In general, the moderate Republican line on social programmes at the time was that they would essentially preserve the New Deal legacy, but run them more ‘efficiently’ than the Democrats; that is, taking a somewhat more pro-businesses and fiscally conservative stance. Ultimately, these Republicans viewed the New Deal paradigm as having become entrenched consensus, and out of pragmatic concern they realised they had to operate within it to survive. You can see this in the geographic distribution of liberal Republicans; most were from places like New England, New York, and the Bay Area, the liberal reputation of which obviously goes without saying. To name just one example, these coastal urban area were heavily unionised, so a Republican running as a union-buster wasn’t going to get very far.

In addition, cultural, ethnic and class identities played a huge role in the phenomenon of liberal Republicans. The mid-20th century saw the height of class-based voting in the United States; if you were from an upper middle class or higher background, then becoming a Republican was simply the ‘natural’ thing to do, even if you had generally liberal views. As the name ‘Rockefeller Republican’ suggests, a disproportionate number of liberal Republican politicians came from patrician WASPy backgrounds. When you wonder why some of them, despite their very liberal positions, weren’t Democrats, the answer is often probably that they simply felt uncomfortable with the class connotations of doing so.

Related to this, New England, which had the greatest concentration of liberal Republicans of any part of the country, had been riven by a sharp political divide between WASPs and ‘white ethnics’ (usually Irish-Americans, especially in Massachusetts) since the early 20th century. Even as the region liberalised as the century drew on (most early 20th century New England WASP Republicans were decidedly not liberal) this divide certainly still remained, and again, as a New England WASP, being a Republican was just the default option. Similarly, New York City’s fondness for liberal Republicans can be explained by the perception that the city’s Democratic Party was controlled by Irish-Americans, and was extremely corrupt. This led to resentment towards the Democrats not just from WASPs, but also from Italians (e.g. Fiorello La Guardia) and Jews (e.g. Jacob Javits), who would often form a powerful coalition to power liberal Republicans to victory.

Interesting, I hadn't considered the ethnic divides. I knew La Guardia mainly identified as a Republican because he was against Tammany Hall, although Italian-Americans were also usually part of the Democratic coalition, no? And Edward Brooke, who served as a liberal Republican even after the GOP became very much the conservative party, was of course black - but again, most black northerners had become Democrats by the time he entered politics. But I get why liberal northeastern WASPs would favour Republicans, since the GOP was always the party of WASP interests, and Democrats were more friendly with Catholics and immigrants.

Opposing corrupt Democratic political machines like Tammany Hall seems like a no-brainer move for any northern Republican, but what about public policy? I mean, "we support the New Deal but will run it more efficiently" makes sense as a political message, but it's a pretty weak one and doesn't really differentiate you much from the opponent. Even in times less polarizing than ours, there are always some issues that fire people up, did liberal Republicans have any that differentiated them from their Democratic opponents? Or was it just "Democrats are the party of corrupt Irish machines, Republicans are the party of prudency and accountability"?