What parties would America's first thirty-two Presidents belong to today?

[WillK]

George Washington - a Republican-leaning Independent with a strong nationalist streak who may, however, not be altogether sympathetic to the more radically laissez-faire tendencies of the modern Republicans.

I think he'd be very much like Eisenhower and 'true conservative' republicans would be calling him a RINO.

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While I agree that the Teabaggers would hate Adams, I dont follow you regarding  him being 'very fond' of Hamiltonian statist economics and I dont understand what you mean by Liebermanesque. 

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Oh i can see him being right at home in the Republican party -- like say Newt Gingrich.

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I think you are.  Monroe would be nothing like a Paulite.

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HUH?  I dont see any justification for thinking he would be on the left.  He would be a tea party favorite.

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Was he relatively liberal or just a political opportunist?  Perhaps like a Giuliani or Romney type.

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See  Lieberman.

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I think you assume to much about his role in the 1856 election.  In my understanding, for Filmore the American party was a vehicle for him to use in making a run for the president, since the Whigs had collapsed. 

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Buchanan was a career politician who I dont see as having any populist views.   He is the guy running for president becuase over the previous 35 years he has already been congressman, senator, ambassador and cabinet secretary, so he feels he earned the presidency.

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I don't think he would have been quite conservative on anything.   The guy was advocating for national public education and was big on separation of church and state.

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No, that was Grant. 

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The author of the McKinley tariff would be enthused over abandoning protective tarriffs???

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IMO, see GW Bush.

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Damn.   I see him as more of a John Edwards or Bill Clinton type.

[WillK]

The political spectrum in the eighteenth and early ninteenth centuries, if there was such a thing, was almost the reverse of todays: the "big government" position was mercantilism, the policy of choice of the European monarchies and the ancien regime in particular. Jeffersonian agrarianism was perceived similarly to how left-wing economic policies are perceived today: as championing the cause of the common man as against the elite. It's counterintuitive, but it's true ...

No, its an opinion.  

Paulite policies and Teabagger policies are also presented as championing the common man against the elite.   GOP congressman rant on and on about helping 'main street', 'the little guy', 'small business' against the urban NY/Hollywood elites.  These aren't left-wingers.

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See my discussion of John Adams above. A lot of this probably lingers on today in the influence of right-wing populism in America.
[/quote]

See my response about Adams/Jefferson.  Right-wing populism is a good way to put it.  I see nothing 'left' about Jackson.  

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Almost the opposite, in fact. Tyler was involved in disputes with the Whigs in Congress who wanted to increase the size and scope of the Navy, something which horrified the Anglophone Tyler. Lieberman, on the other hand, would almost have certainly been in favor of increasing the size of the Navy.[/quote]

No, the opposite:  Tyler pushed for expansion of the navy.   He was also someone who was VP candidate for a party he really doesnt belong in and who tried to make his own party to run for reelection, similar to the Connecticut for Lieberman party, though Tyler was unsuccessful.

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That was Hayes ... [/quote]

Grant advocated for compulsory national education before Hayes was president and Grant's support of federal involvement in civil right was much greater than Hayes.  

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No, the bill he signed in his first year in office raised tarriff rates:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dingley_Act

[WillK]

Except in the case of the early American agrarians they actually were putting forward objectively more progressive policies than the mercantilists of the monarchies and the Federalists who inherited that legacy.

I disagree that the policies of Jefferson or Jackson were objectively more progressive than the policies of the Adamses.

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Made some tweaks.

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So your saying that Sarah Palin is a left-winger?

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In his first State of the Union he asked Congress to expand it -- "I take upon myself, without a moment of hesitancy, all the responsibility of recommending the increase and prompt equipment of that gallant Navy" .