2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Has the typical Bernie voter even heard of the workers socialst party? [View all]merrily
(45,251 posts)Here's the chrono (Her birthday is October 26, shortly before election day. )
Canvassed for Nixon at 13
Goldwater Girl at 17 (I knew better by 17-18, didn't you?)
President of College Republicans at Wellesley, ages18-21--probably would have been hard to find a more liberal school in the country, then, too.
Now here is where I begin to question/doubt her version.
Went to the Republican convention at age 21 (1968) and supposedly supported Rockefeller, probably the most liberal Republican running (or imaginable). He had tried for the nom in 1960, 1964, too. but she had supported the considerably more conservative candidates those years. So I tend to question whether she supported Rockefeller in 1968, or one of the more conservative candidates, like Nixon, for whom she had canvassed at 13, or Reagan. But, o.k, let's give her Rockefeller, just for grins and giggles.
Next, she was shocked, shocked, I tell you, to hear racist comments at the Republican convention and immediately turned Democrat, supporting Eugene McCarthy (Which means she was already a Democrat and a relatively liberal one, to boot, before she met Bubba in law school--I don't buy that at all.) This means she had never heard racist comments from Republicans while working for Nixon or Jim Crow defender, er I mean, states rights defender, Goldwater. That seems so implausible to me. It also seems implausible to me that she immediately decided that Democrats must not be racist. After all, in 1968, there were plenty of racists in both parties and Johnson had certainly needed Republicans to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964 while those who had filibustered it were Democrats. For me, her story, while full of drama and sympathetic principles simply does not seem plausible.
The following year, she made a graduation speech. I had read that he speech dissed Republican Massachusetts Senator Brooke, the invited graduation speaker. I've read the speech. At most, it compared her generation, just starting out, with his. No dissing of him personally in any way, no dissing him over his being a Republican and no dissing of Republicans. She was,after all, the outgoing President of College Republicans at the time.
The next school year, she met Bubba in law school. IMO, that is when she became a Democrat, not when she was at the 1968 Republican National Convention. In 1985, they, together with people like Warner, Gore, Lieberman, etc. founded the DLC. She accompanied Al From to Europe, to spread the DLC gospel to European politicians. Blair was probably their biggest success.
In recent years, at various points she has said (1) her politics are rooted in the conservatism (read, Republican conservatism) in which she was raised; (2) she is a moderate; and (3) she is a progressive. However, recently, she bristled and corrected Matthews when he called her a liberal. I see that as her trying to be (almost) all things to all people. Others may find that all three of those descriptions apply truthfully to her.