Who was the last truly Republican President?

[HEFFA]

It sure as hell isn't either of the shrubs, and the Gipper didn't exactly reduce the size of the government or it's intrusions into our lives.

I mean honestly. This bunch of neocons is so removed from the base on the right. It seems more like the size of the tent on our side keeps growing. Who's left over there?

But, seriously....who was the last true Republican?

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. Don't shoot me, but, I agree with Michael Moore that it was Clinton

Honestly, I wish the bulk of Repubs were Clintonesque and that the bulk of Dems were Dennises. That would make for such a different USA.

--------------------------------------------------------
An open letter to John Kerry, John Edwards, and the DNC:
http://www.geocities.com/greenpartyvoter/OpenLetter.htm

[Spinzonner]

2. Teddy Roosevelt

[coloradodem2005]

3. Eisenhower.

He was the last republican President who was not ideologically driven.

[lapfog_1]

16. And he was the one that warned us about the

military industrial complex! Ike was a good man. Not the best
President, but a good man.

[Old and In the Way]

4. The last non-criminal, non-puppet Republican?

I'd have to go back to Ike, I think.

[Neshanic]

5. Eisenhower

[LSdemocrat]

6. Gerald Ford

He genuinely tried to reduce the size of government and balance the budget.

[stavka]

11. I have to say I agree....

He was picked because he was safe, I don't think the evil GOP creeps thought he'd actually BECOME President.....

Roosevelt came up the same way.

[ashling]

7. That's the problem with the Republicans

they are not true to anything.

They are a bunch of pompous, egotistical, supercillious asses who are interested in nothing but themselves, and making everyone else inferior to them.

I am tired of Republicans and their almighty "market" trying to make us all into their consumers. Americans a ready to be truecitizens again in the best sense of the word.

[HEFFA]

9. I'd probably have to agree on Ike. He was the last to abide by the ideas

of true Republicanism. Since then, the party has been coopted by fascists and fundamentalists.

Honestly....what the hell can W run on in '04??

[ashling]

17. True, he was

but the question was not worded that way (though it may have bee meant that way) Besides, Ike was not unideollogical because he was Republican, but because he was Ike.

The question asked for the last true repub without stating what was meant.

My point is simply that Republicans are true only to themselve, and when it suits them to follow a different star, that's what they do.

They like to point to Lincoln, but the Republican Revolution was Lincoln turning in his grave.

[Onlooker]

8. Teddy Roosevelt, not Eisenhower

Eisenhower might have been a great general, but he's generally regarded as an ineffective president.

You could say Reagan was the last great Republican President, but only if you like Republican policies. Reagan's administration was obviously very effective and very admired.

[HEFFA]

12. Okay, but the question isn't about the last successful repuke....

Who was the last REAL Republican. Understanding the values of the party, who was the last to best represent them?

[CaTeacher]

19. I agree.

[Cleita]

10. Ike did stay out of the way.

It was a very white world then. It worked for white working class people and he gave them the means of having a little home and a car and being able to raise a family. The thing is back then the states did control a lot of things like education and health care. In my state of California we had so many social programs in place, which Ronald Reagan destroyed. I just hate him. I'm sorry.

[against all enemies]

13. Clinton

Fiscal responsibility, cutting welfare, and Gore's smaller government. A true Rockefeller Republican.

[Charlie Brown]

14. Teddy "trust buster" Roosevelt

He was in many ways the father of conservationism and went after big business. There isn't anyone with these populist views in the right anymore and there never will be again.

[Happy Eddie]

15. I don't know, McKinley?

Gerald Ford was a true "conservative", I think (in the limited-government sense), but he wasn't in office long enough to act on it.

Eisenhower was probably an underrated president, and I think he's one of the great Americans, but the Democrats were in the majority, and he was not comfortable with some of the paleo isolationists or McCarthyites in his own party. He didn't really challenge the Democrats on domestic issues, and mostly tried to keep the Cold War under control.

Teddy Roosevelt was kind of a government activist, with anti-trust and fair-labor laws that look pretty primitive today but were big steps for the time. The National Park system started while he was president, with his personal involvement. (I read a bio of him by Nathan Miller. Not the best-known of the many written about TR, but I thought it was really well-written and fun to read.)

I really don't know that much about Harding/Coolidge/Hoover, though they probably count as "conservatives".

[Charlie Brown]

18. from what I recall learning about Harding

He was not a very controversial President. The Republicans had picked him because he "looked Presidential" in spite of having little qualifications. He got involved in several land-fraud scandals and, had he not died in office, could possibly have been impeached. Harding and his advisors spent most of each evening smoking and playing poker in the White House (can you imagine the outcry if this went on today?). Also, he was the only President to join the KKK (WHILE he was Preisdnt, no less!)