Republican Party

Republican Party
Party Chairman	Michael Steele
Senate Leader	Mitch McConnell
House Speaker
House Leader	John Boehner
Founded	1854
Headquarters	310 K Street SE Washington, D.C. 20003
Political ideology	Centrism Conservatism Fiscal conservatism Neoconservatism
Political position	Fiscal: Free Market Social: Conservative
International affiliation	International Democrat Union
Color(s)	Red (unofficial)
Website	www.gop.com

The Republican Party or informally the GOP (short for Grand Old Party), is one of the two major political parties in the United States. The party is the U.S.'s major center-right party. The Republican voter coalitions have generally comprised asdfadsfasdfadsfadsf1980s. Catholics switched from 80% Democratic in 1960 to 50-50 in recent years. In recent years youth and better educated professionals have moved to the Democrats, while blue collar workers have become more Republican. The GOP had a lock on the South since 1980, but that weakened in 2008 as the GOP lost presidential votes in every region. The elections of 2006 and 2008 marked back-to-basdfasdf

A political term referring to the party is "G.O.P.", which was originally an acronym of "Grand Old Party". The term was coined in 1875.

Ideology

Historically, the fundamental philosophy and political ideals of the Republican Party are founded on the idea that societal health is rooted in personal responsibility and actions. The Republican Party holds the belief that all material things are earned, not owed. This is seen most often in the party's push for lower taxes. This is fought for in an attempt to treat all citizens equally despite income, race, gender, or religion. They also see taxes as a drag on the economy, and believe private spending is usually more efficient than public spending.

Republicans also show concerns about having big government in charge of such vital issues as food, shelter, or health care, as they believe the privasdfasdf in poverty areas). On social issues the majority of its national and state candidates usually favor the death penalty, call for stronger state-level control on access to abortion, support a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage at the federal level and by the states, favor faith-based charitable initiatives, support school choice and homeschooling, social welfare benefit reform, and oppose reverse racism, such as racial quotas.

In recent years the party has calledasdfsadfs St. Louis, Louisville, Wheeling, and Baltimore.</ref>

The first presidential nomiaaaadf]] of New Hampshire, Lot Morrill of Maine, and Alexander Randall of Wisconsin).</ref> or seats in the U.S. Senate. Since its inception, its chief opposition has been the Democratic Party, but the amount of flow back and forth of prominent politicians between the two parties was quite high from 1854 to 1896.adssfadsf cartoon of Grant using Whiskey Ring and corruption to hold GOP together.]]

Reconstruction came to an end when the contested election of 1876 was awarded by a special electoral commission to Republican Rutherford B. Hayes who promised, through the unofficial Compromise of 1877, to withdraw federal troops from control of the last three southern states. The region then became the [[Solasfdadsf The "GOP" (as it was now nicknamed) split into factions in the late 1870s. The Stalwarts, followers of Senator Conkling, defended the spoils system. The Half-Breeds, who followed Senator James G. Blaine of Maine, pushed for Civil service reform. Independents who opposed the spoils system altogether were called "Mugwumps". In 1884 they rejected James G. Blaine as corrupt and helped elect Democrat Grover Cleveland; most returned to the party by 1888.

As the Northern post-bellum economy boomed with heavy and light industry, railroads, mines, and fast-growing cities, as well as prosperous agriculture, the Republicans took credit and promoted policies to keep the fast growth going. They supported big business generally, hard money (idsfasdf

Cultural issues, especially prohibition and foreign language schools became important because of the sharp religious divisions in the electorate. In the North, about 50% of the voters were pietistic Protestants (Methodists, Scandinavian Lutherans, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Disciples of Christ) who believed the government should be used to reduce social sins, such as drinking. Liturgical churches (Roman Catholics, German Lutherans, Episcopalians) comprised over a quarter of the vote and wanted the government to stay out of the morality business. Prohibition debates and referenda heated up politics in most states over a period of decade, as national prohibition was finally passed in 1918 (and repealed in 1932), serving as a major issue between the wet Democracy and the dry GOP.

Fourth Party System: 1896-1932: The Progressive Era

The election of William McKinley in 1896 was a realigning election that changed the balance of power, and introduced new rules, new issues and new leaders. It did not, however, see the emergence of a new major party. The Republican sweep of the 1894 Congressional elections presaged the McKinley landslide of 1896, which was repeated in 1900, thus locking the GOP in full control of the national government and most northern state governments. The GOP made major gains as well in the border states. The Fourth Party System was dominated by Republican presidents, with the exception of the two terms of Democrat Woodrow Wilson, 1912-1920. sdfluralisdf

Progressive insurgents vs. Conservatives

The GOP was divided between insurgents and stand-patters (liberals and conservatives, to use 21st century terms). Theodore Roosevelt was an enormously popular president (1901-1909), and he transferred the office to William Howard Taft. dffds and his young followers defeated the Herbert Hoover faction. Landon generally supported most New Deal programs, but carried only two states in the Roosevelt landslide.

Senator Robert Taft of Ohio represented the Midwestern wing of the party that continued to oppose New Deal reforms and continued to champion isolationism. Thomas Dewey, governor of New York, represented the Northeastern wing of the party. Dewey did not reject the New Deal programs, but demanded more efficiency, more support for economic growth, and less corruption. He was more willing than Taft to support Britain in 1939-40. After the war the isolationists wing strenuously opposed the United Nations, and was half-hearted in opposition to world Communism. Senator William F. Knowland of California, sobriquet Senator from Formosa (Taiwan).

Dwight Eisenhower, an internationalist allied with the Dewey wing, challenged Taft in 1952 on foreign policy issues. The two men were not far apart on domestic issues. Eisenhower's victory broke a 20 year Democratic lock on the White House. Eisenhower did not try to roll back the New Deal, but he did expand the Social Security system and built the Interstate Highway system.

The conservatives isdafdsfdsparty affiliations. In established villages and new housing developments such as Levittown, under the canny leadership of J. Russel Sprague, the party used patronage and community organizing techniques to build its base among ethnic voters, young people, and new homeowners. The party expanded beyond its white Protestant base, with Italian Americans becoming particularly prominent in party leadership. Sprague was both party leader and county executive. That post was created in 1936 under a new charter engineered by Sprague to update a municipalsdfdfsfsad An even longer reign of power characterized GOP machine control of Delaware County, Pennsylvania, a rural and suburban area south of Philadelphia. William McClure controlled the GOP from 1875 until his death in 1907; his son John J. McClure, was in control from 1907 until his death in 1965. McLarnon (1998) has four main findings. First, political machines were not confined to big cities; the demographic and political peculiarities of suburban counties lent themselves to continued domination by political machines long after the heyday of the city machine had passed. Secondly, neither the New Deal, immigration restriction, nor the rise of organized labor destroyed all the old Republican machines. Delaware was one of several similar counties in southeastern Pennsylvania where the GOP continued to hold sway throughout the 20th century. Thirdly, not all blacks switched their electoral loyalties to the Democratic party in 1936. The black population of Chester, Delaware County's industrial city, generally voted Republican for offices below the presidential level. Finally, the citizens of Delaware County supported and continues to support the Republican machine because the machine delivered and continues to deliver those things that the citizens want most. At the beginning of the century, the machine provided food, work, and police protection to Chester's European and black immigrants. During Prohibition, it supplied the county with liquor. Through the Depression, patronage and close alliances with local industrialists kept a significant portion of machine loyalists employed. In the 1950s and 1960s the machine kept taxes low, initiated a war on organized vice, successfully defeated all threats to home rule, and discouraged blacks from settling in historically white communities. The trash was collected, the snow plowed, the streets repaired. The buses ran on time, the playgrounds and parks were clean, and the schools acceptably average. These were the most important concerns of a majority of county's citizens. While the citizens and their concerns changed over time, two things seem to have remained constant: the McClures', and their successors' ability to read and react to the needs of the electorate; and the fact that rarely, if ever, has a desire for honest, democratic government been high on Delaware County voters' list of priorities.

Rise of the right

Barry Goldwater crusaded againstdfsasdffds

In 1980, Ronald Reagan won the Republican nomination and easily beat Carter and a breakaway Republican with his strong communication skills and message of economic freedom and strength against the Soviet Union. Reagan produced a major realignment with his 1980 and 1984 landslides. In 1980 the Reagan coalition was possible because of Democratic losses in most social-economic groups. In 1984 Reagan won nearly 60% of the popular vote and carried every state except his Democrat opponent Walter Mondale's home state of Minnesota and the District of Columbia, creating a record 525 electoral vote total (of 538 possible). Even in Minnesota, Mondale won by a mere 3,761 votes , meaning Reagan came within less than 3,800 votes of winning in all fifty states.

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