Republican Press at a Democratic Convention


Book Description

This book reprints the Baltimore American's contemporaneous reports of debates during the 1867 Maryland Constitutional Convention, along with the American's original editorials about the Convention. Commentary and annotations by the author emphasize the American's progressive view on the racial issues that permeated the Convention. The book is intended to serve as a resource for Maryland lawyers and historians researching the framers' original intent, which was often openly racist, and also as a supplement and counterpoint to the Convention reports issued by the much more conservative and Democratic-leaning Baltimore Sun.




Rule and Ruin


Book Description

The chaotic events leading up to Mitt Romney's defeat in the 2012 election indicated how far the Republican Party had rocketed rightward away from the center of public opinion. Republicans in Congress threatened to shut down the government and force a U.S. debt default. Tea Party activists mounted primary challenges against Republican officeholders who appeared to exhibit too much pragmatism or independence. Moderation and compromise were dirty words in the Republican presidential debates. The GOP, it seemed, had suddenly become a party of ideological purity. Except this development is not new at all. In Rule and Ruin, Geoffrey Kabaservice reveals that the moderate Republicans' downfall began not with the rise of the Tea Party but about the time of President Dwight Eisenhower's farewell address. Even in the 1960s, when left-wing radicalism and right-wing backlash commanded headlines, Republican moderates and progressives formed a powerful movement, supporting pro-civil rights politicians like Nelson Rockefeller and William Scranton, battling big-government liberals and conservative extremists alike. But the Republican civil war ended with the overthrow of the moderate ideas, heroes, and causes that had comprised the core of the GOP since its formation. In hindsight, it is today's conservatives who are "Republicans in Name Only." Writing with passionate sympathy for a bygone tradition of moderation, Kabaservice recaptures a time when fiscal restraint was matched with social engagement; when a cohort of leading Republicans opposed the Vietnam war; when George Romney--father of Mitt Romney--conducted a nationwide tour of American poverty, from Appalachia to Watts, calling on society to "listen to the voices from the ghetto." Rule and Ruin is an epic, deeply researched history that reorients our understanding of our political past and present. Today, following the Republicans' loss of the popular vote in five of the last six presidential contests, moderates remain marginalized in the GOP and progressives are all but nonexistent. In this insightful and elegantly argued book, Kabaservice contends that their decline has left Republicans less capable of governing responsibly, with dire consequences for all Americans. He has added a new afterword that considers the fallout from the 2012 elections.




The Corrosion of Conservatism: Why I Left the Right


Book Description

A “must read” (Joe Scarborough) by a New York Times– best- selling author, The Corrosion of Conservatism presents a necessary defense of American democracy. Praised on publication as “one of the most impressive and unfl inching diagnoses of the pathologies in Republican politics that led to Trump’s rise” (Jonathan Chait, New York), The Corrosion of Conservatism documents a president who has traduced every norm and the rise of a nascent centrist movement to counter his assault on democracy. In this “admirably succinct and trenchant” (Charles Reichman, San Francisco Chronicle) exhumation of conservatism, Max Boot tells the story of an ideological dislocation so shattering that it caused his courageous transformation from Republican foreign policy advisor to celebrated anti- Trump columnist. From recording his political coming- of- age as a young émigré from the Soviet Union to describing the vitriol he endured from his erstwhile conservative colleagues, Boot mixes “lively memoir with sharp analysis” (William Kristol) from its Reagan-era apogee to its corrosion under Donald Trump.




The Dixiecrat Revolt and the End of the Solid South, 1932-1968


Book Description

In 1948, a group of conservative white southerners formed the States' Rights Democratic Party, soon nicknamed the "Dixiecrats," and chose Strom Thurmond as their presidential candidate. Thrown on the defensive by federal civil rights initiatives and unprecedented grassroots political activity by African Americans, the Dixiecrats aimed to reclaim conservatives' former preeminent position within the national Democratic Party and upset President Harry Truman's bid for reelection. The Dixiecrats lost the battle in 1948, but, as Kari Frederickson reveals, the political repercussions of their revolt were significant. Frederickson situates the Dixiecrat movement within the tumultuous social and economic milieu of the 1930s and 1940s South, tracing the struggles between conservative and liberal Democrats over the future direction of the region. Enriching her sweeping political narrative with detailed coverage of local activity in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina--the flashpoints of the Dixiecrat campaign--she shows that, even without upsetting Truman in 1948, the Dixiecrats forever altered politics in the South. By severing the traditional southern allegiance to the national Democratic Party in presidential elections, the Dixiecrats helped forge the way for the rise of the Republican Party in the region.




Remaking the Democratic Party


Book Description

Examining Southern support for Johnson throughout his political career and his transformative leadership of the Democratic Party




Republican Party Politics and the American South, 1865–1968


Book Description

Traces how the Republican Party in the South after Reconstruction transformed from a biracial organization to a mostly all-white one.




The Modern Republican Party in Florida


Book Description

Despite Florida's current reputation as a swing state, there was a time when its Republicans were the underdogs against a Democratic powerhouse. This book tells the story of how the Republican Party of Florida became the influential force it is today. Republicans briefly came to power in Florida after the Civil War but were called "carpetbaggers" and "scalawags" by residents who resented pro-Union leadership. They were so unpopular that they didn't earn official party status in the state until 1928. Peter Dunbar and Mike Haridopolos show how, due largely to a population boom in the state and a schism in the Democratic Party, Republicans slowly started to see their ranks swell. This book chronicles the paths that led to a Republican majority in both the state Senate and House in the second half of the twentieth century and highlights successful campaigns of Florida Republicans for national positions. It explores the platforms and impact of Republican governors from Claude Kirk to Ron DeSantis. It also looks at how a robust two-party system opened up political opportunities for women and minorities and how Republicans affected pressing issues such as public education, environmental preservation, and criminal justice. As the Sunshine State enters its third decade under GOP control and partisan tensions continue to mount across the country, this book provides a timely history of the modern political era in Florida and a careful analysis of challenges the Republican Party faces in a state situated at the epicenter of the nation's politics.




Washington (AP)


Book Description




The Partisan Gap


Book Description

WINNER OF THE 2022 VICTORIA SCHUCK AWARD, GIVEN BY THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE ASSOCIATION Why Democratic women far outnumber Republican women in elective offices From Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren to Stacey Abrams and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, women around the country are running in—and winning—elections at an unprecedented rate. It appears that women are on a steady march toward equal representation across state legislatures and the US Congress, but there is a sharp divide in this representation along party lines. Most of the women in office are Democrats, and the number of elected Republican women has been plunging for decades. In The Partisan Gap, Elder examines why this disparity in women’s representation exists, and why it’s only going to get worse. Drawing on interviews with female office-holders, candidates, and committee members, she takes a look at what it is like to be a woman in each party. From party culture and ideology, to candidate recruitment and the makeup of regional biases, Elder shows the factors contributing to this harmful partisan gap, and what can be done to address it in the future. The Partisan Gap explores the factors that help, and hinder, women’s political representation.




From Politics to the Pews


Book Description

One of the most substantial divides in American politics is the “God gap.” Religious voters tend to identify with and support the Republican Party, while secular voters generally support the Democratic Party. Conventional wisdom suggests that religious differences between Republicans and Democrats have produced this gap, with voters sorting themselves into the party that best represents their religious views. Michele F. Margolis offers a bold challenge to the conventional wisdom, arguing that the relationship between religion and politics is far from a one-way street that starts in the church and ends at the ballot box. Margolis contends that political identity has a profound effect on social identity, including religion. Whether a person chooses to identify as religious and the extent of their involvement in a religious community are, in part, a response to political surroundings. In today’s climate of political polarization, partisan actors also help reinforce the relationship between religion and politics, as Democratic and Republican elites stake out divergent positions on moral issues and use religious faith to varying degrees when reaching out to voters.