Biggest RINO and DINO presidents 1990 to now?

[m4567]

RINO: Teddy Roosevelt

DINO: I can't decide between Carter and Clinton. Carter meant well, but Clinton sold out more than was necessary (the economy was good and the Republican congress was not popular).

[S019]

From 1990 to now


RINO: George HW Bush
DINO: Bill Clinton


But neither fit the categories well, rather they're just the most moderate of the group.

Teddy Roosevelt served from 1901-1909, fyi, well before 1990

[darklordoftech]

Teddy Roosevelt served from 1901-1909, fyi, well before 1990

I suspect m4567 meant, “1900 to now”.

[DINGO Joe]

Well, if you mean 1900 and RINO and DINO by today's standards, then obviously Woodrow Wilson, though he wasn't a DINO for his times.

[ctrepublican512]

DINO: Clinton

RINO: Trump

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

The whole concept of a RINO or DINO comes about because of "the other teams turf". Either a previously solid area starts shifting to the other party and the heretofore safe representative who had previously been fine with towing the party line suddenly finds himself needing to chase after the voters or gets elected from the outset in the other guy's terrain and thus end up diverging from the party average

Because of the geographically realignments that occurred in the 20th century, there were large numbers of these. Frankly, the concept is over used and over simplified because it fails to account for why and how they became Republican/Democrat and what factors drive their voting patterns and its diverging from the party average.

Vote View and DW Nominate are good measures of this and while they do tend to emphasize economic over other concerns, in the long run that tends to work out since the longest running divide has been business interests versus the poor (be they farmers or urban labor) and virtually everything else that has changed around that has been an evolution for the sake of promoting one side or the other of that divide. The Southern Strategy, was to mitigate the growing strength of the New Deal Coalition in the North. The realignment of big government versus small, was to match the realignment of interests for those core constituencies. The urban-rural divide, is the result of the move to the cities and the reduction of rural areas to just conservative leaning voters (or people spooked into voting such a way by demographic tensions such as those caused by migrant labor or African-Americans).

Divergence from the party mean has always been the result of hangers on after one of these transitions and the resulting delay caused by incumbency, money and relationships with existing power structures. In a sense that means that the default is to trend towards polarization as long as conditions remain static such as to avoid one of these changes. Fast growing states though are ripe for this, such as what you are seeing in Georgia but the conditions in Georgia don't lend itself to this phenomenon thus meaning that there were will be a quicker transition from one side to the other. This is for the most part what happened in Virginia as well.

[Orser67]

It's kind of hard to be an "INO" president, since the president is generally very important in defining what the party stands for. The one president who really stands out to me is Carter, who had relatively little influence in Congress, was a bit to the right of the national Democratic Party, and who came reasonably close to losing re-nomination.

Going back further in history, Zachary Taylor and William Henry Harrison were WINOs, and Rutherford B. Hayes was a bit of a RINO.

[darklordoftech]

Going back further in history, Zachary Taylor and William Henry Harrison were WINOs, and Rutherford B. Hayes was a bit of a RINO.

How were Taylor and Harrison WINOs? I know that John Tyler was a WINO and I guess Hayes was a RINO on reconstruction.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

It's kind of hard to be an "INO" president, since the president is generally very important in defining what the party stands for. The one president who really stands out to me is Carter, who had relatively little influence in Congress, was a bit to the right of the national Democratic Party, and who came reasonably close to losing re-nomination.

Going back further in history, Zachary Taylor and William Henry Harrison were WINOs, and Rutherford B. Hayes was a bit of a RINO.

John Tyler was even more so, and ironically the most Whig of all of them (Fillmore), ended up being seen as a traitor to a large segment of the party and helped to bring about its collapse. He also destroyed the American Know-Nothing Party, by splitting it on regional lines and driving its Northern wing into the Republican Party.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Lincoln, Grant, Teddy, Eisenhower, Nixon and Ford compassionate conservative

Wilson, Truman, LBJ, Carter and Clinton as Pragmatists

[Orser67]

Going back further in history, Zachary Taylor and William Henry Harrison were WINOs, and Rutherford B. Hayes was a bit of a RINO.

How were Taylor and Harrison WINOs? I know that John Tyler was a WINO and I guess Hayes was a RINO on reconstruction.

Taylor and Harrison were both random generals with little connection or belief in the Whig economic program, which more or less corresponded to Henry Clay's American System. In both cases, they won election through campaigns that depended largely on their personality and military background rather than on Whig policies.

Harrison as a president is pretty much impossible to evaluate for obvious reasons, and imo he probably wasn't quite as much of a WINO as Taylor. Taylor only reluctantly declared himself as a Whig in the 1848 election, did pretty much nothing to advance long-standing Whig priorities, and basically attempted to remake the party in, to use Atlas parlance, his "moderate hero" image.

John Tyler was even more so, and ironically the most Whig of all of them (Fillmore), ended up being seen as a traitor to a large segment of the party and helped to bring about its collapse. He also destroyed the American Know-Nothing Party, by splitting it on regional lines and driving its Northern wing into the Republican Party.

Yeah, although the latter's status is somewhat complicated by the dynamics of the 1864 election, I tend to view Tyler and Andrew Johnson as the two independent presidents in U.S. history (you could also throw in Washington, but he was sort of a quasi-Federalist, especially in his second term). So I suppose you could say that they were such INOs that they got kicked out of their respective parties.

As for Fillmore, he certainly wasn't a great president, but I'm not sure if anyone could have done better in his place, particularly in the 1856 election.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

It's kind of hard to be an "INO" president, since the president is generally very important in defining what the party stands for. The one president who really stands out to me is Carter, who had relatively little influence in Congress, was a bit to the right of the national Democratic Party, and who came reasonably close to losing re-nomination.

Going back further in history, Zachary Taylor and William Henry Harrison were WINOs, and Rutherford B. Hayes was a bit of a RINO.

How so with regards to Hayes?

[darklordoftech]

It's kind of hard to be an "INO" president, since the president is generally very important in defining what the party stands for. The one president who really stands out to me is Carter, who had relatively little influence in Congress, was a bit to the right of the national Democratic Party, and who came reasonably close to losing re-nomination.

Going back further in history, Zachary Taylor and William Henry Harrison were WINOs, and Rutherford B. Hayes was a bit of a RINO.

How so with regards to Hayes?

I’m guessing Reconstruction.

[Orser67]

It's kind of hard to be an "INO" president, since the president is generally very important in defining what the party stands for. The one president who really stands out to me is Carter, who had relatively little influence in Congress, was a bit to the right of the national Democratic Party, and who came reasonably close to losing re-nomination.

Going back further in history, Zachary Taylor and William Henry Harrison were WINOs, and Rutherford B. Hayes was a bit of a RINO.

How so with regards to Hayes?

Reconstruction and appointments are the big two. Hayes had a sort of proto-lily white strategy that include the appointment of a former Confederate as Postmaster General. He also appointed former Mugwump Carl Schurz as Secretary of Interior, emphasized civil service reform, and generally clashed with party bosses over presidential power.

I don't think he's on the level of Zachary Taylor, much less Andrew Johnson, but I think it would probably be fair to say that he was the Gilded Age president with the most differences from the party that elected him.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

The only president I can think of whose party affiliation was purely nominal is John Tyler. I suppose you could count Andrew Johnson as well if you consider the National Union party an extension of the Republicans. Taylor had no political opinions, but that makes him a perfect fit as a Whig president, actually.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Biggest RINO: Eisenhower (basically a liberal Democrat today)
Biggest DINO: Any President before 1968, when the parties switched.

[Wikipedia delenda est]

If the term had existed back then, Eisenhower would most definitely have been called a RINO, as Taft and the conservative wing of the Republican Party absolutely despised his moderate-to-liberal policies. Furthermore, Eisenhower wasn't really a member of either party before he ran in 1952, and there were many Democrats - notably left-wing senator Claude Pepper - who supported a "draft Eisenhower" movement encouraging the General to run for the Democratic nomination.

[Orser67]

If the term had existed back then, Eisenhower would most definitely have been called a RINO, as Taft and the conservative wing of the Republican Party absolutely despised his moderate-to-liberal policies. Furthermore, Eisenhower wasn't really a member of either party before he ran in 1952, and there were many Democrats - notably left-wing senator Claude Pepper - who supported a "draft Eisenhower" movement encouraging the General to run for the Democratic nomination.

All true, but I'd note that:

a)Eisenhower actually was pretty conservative on a personal level (his personal views weren't widely known at the time) and didn't care for the New Deal, so he was never a good fit for the Democratic Party
b)the moderate, internationalist wing of the Republican Party was pretty strong at the time, and Eisenhower did represent their views quite well

[darklordoftech]

James Madison was definitely a DINO on the National Bank and tariffs.

[darklordoftech]

If the term had existed back then, Eisenhower would most definitely have been called a RINO, as Taft and the conservative wing of the Republican Party absolutely despised his moderate-to-liberal policies.

The National Review started in 1955. I wonder what it said about Eisenhower at the time. I know the John Birch Society claimed that Eisenhower was a communist agent.

[Orser67]

James Madison was definitely a DINO on the National Bank and tariffs.

Well, the better term is probably either DRINO or RINO ("Democrat" isn't a good term for his party; they were more commonly known as the Republicans at the time or as the Democratic-Republicans today). But yeah, a lot of people in Madison's party, e.g. John Randolph, held that view at the time.

[darklordoftech]

I wonder if there were ever any FINOs (Federalists In Name Only).

[Geoffrey Howe]

If the term had existed back then, Eisenhower would most definitely have been called a RINO, as Taft and the conservative wing of the Republican Party absolutely despised his moderate-to-liberal policies.

The National Review started in 1955. I wonder what it said about Eisenhower at the time. I know the John Birch Society claimed that Eisenhower was a communist agent.

I might as well answer eight months later since you haven't received a response. The Wikipedia page says they endorsed Eisenhower in 1956, but their source doesn't actually say so. I struggle to see them voting for Stevenson, but a vote is very different from an endorsement. They refrained from endorsing Nixon in 1960 because that might be a 'surrender' to Eisenhower Republicanism, so I should find it surprising for them to endorse/enthusiastically support Eisenhower in 1956.

Mr Welch, founder of the John Birch Society, did indeed go round claiming Eisenhower was a communist; this was a major reason for William Buckley's split with the JBS. He did not want his publication to have much to do with such hysteria.

See this:
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/editorial-my-take-jonah-goldberg/