He was barely a Republican even then. I don't really think his views are substantially different from establishment Dems today. Maybe a little harder line on crime/drugs when he was governor of New York, but then again Clinton was plenty tough on crime when he was president.
The underlined part is NOT true. Rockefeller was not a CONSERVATIVE, but he was very much a REPUBLICAN.
Nelson Rockefeller controlled the Republican Party in NY State. Conservatives who didn't like Rockefeller and his spending left the GOP and formed NY's Conservative Party, but this was a very small portion of Republicans.
Here's where Rockefeller stood in his last three years of office:
1. Two Republican Senators (albeit one an anti-Rockefeller conservative, James Buckley)
2. All but one statewide official a Republican (the exception being Comptroller Arthur Levitt)
3. Both Houses of the Legislature in Republican Control
4. Control of the GOP Apparatus, including both the State Committee and the County Chairs
And he beat quality opponents:
A Averill Harriman, incumbent Governor and Diplomat
B Robert Morganthau, who became a Federal Prosecutor and Manhattan District Attorney
C Frank O'Connor, President of tne NY City Council (now, it's the "Public Advocate")
D Arthur Goldberg, former SCOTUS Associate Justice and UN Ambassador
He was far more of a Republican than Jacob Javits. Javits was a Senator whose record would have been acceptable for a liberal Democrat. Rockefeller was never cross-endorsed by NY's Liberal Party as Javits was, he was a center-right politician who leaned leftward from where he was positioned. He was a big spender on infrastructure, and he made peace with public employee unions, but he tilted right on crime as drugs became an issue. And Rockefeller (unlike Javits) was NOT the conspicuous dove on Vietnam; he was rather hawkish, but he actually spoke very little on the subject of the war. There is not a single Governor today that I can think of that dominated his state the way Nelson Rockefeller dominated New York.
I have no doubt that Rockefeller resigned the Governorship in late 1973 to run for President in 1976. He did so to avoid losing re-election (it would have been his fifth term) and he wanted to ensure that his personal Lt. Governor, Malcolm Wilson, would be his successor. It wasn't to be. Wilson was creamed in 1974 by Democrat Hugh Carey (my favorite Democratic politician of all time) and his tenure as VP had an unhappy ending. His giving the finger to a crowd of hecklers during the 1976 campaign was rather unlike Rockefeller, and I've come to see that as the gesture of a man who was frustrated that his dream of the Presidency was not going to come true. By that time, the GOP had become a far more culturally conservative party than it had been, and Rockefeller had already weighed in on the wrong side of the abortion issue and capital punishment. In truth, the Goldwater crowd could never stomach him, and nothing he ever did brought them to view him as a compromise; he seemed far more conservative to Democrats than he did to Republicans.
His legacy is amazing. The State University system. The NY State Thruway. The Albany Mall. Improvements in NY State Parks. Urban renewal and slum clearance projects (there were controversies around these, but the old buildings were falling apart). Tuition assistance for middle class folks for college. Rockefeller did BIG things that made New York the EMPIRE State. He had his critics. But he was Governor in the post-Eisenhower era of New York, and he was a Great Governor.
Today, men like Nelson Rockefeller would likely not run for public office, due to financial disclosures. The Rockefeller family was not wild about the disclosures of Rockefeller finances Nelson Rockefeller had to make during his confirmation hearings as VP. That's too bad, and in more ways than one. The best men and women don't run for public office now because of what will become of their lives due to the experience.
Poll
