Tuesday, July 30, 2013

William Scranton, a moderate...

...Republican candidate for president in 1964, died at age 96. From his obit in the Times (my emphasis):

Moderate and liberal Republicans — concerned about the drift of their party to the right and fearing that the polarizing conservative views of the front-runner, Senator Goldwater of Arizona, might bring defeat in November — first coalesced around Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller of New York as an alternative. But when the Rockefeller bandwagon lost steam, the dissident focus shifted to Governor Scranton.

Denouncing Goldwater as an agent of fear, Mr. Scranton won the support of 10 state delegations at the Republican National Convention in San Francisco. But Goldwater captured the nomination on the first ballot. He lost the election to President Lyndon B. Johnson in one of the largest landslides in history. 

Now, imagine these same two paragraphs written in January, 2017, with just a few small changes in bold:
  
Moderate and liberal Republicans — concerned about the drift of their party to the extreme right and fearing that the polarizing conservative views of the front-runner, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas (or Rand Paul of Kentucky), might bring defeat in November — first coalesced around Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey as an alternative. But when the Christie bandwagon lost steam, the dissident focus shifted to former Governor Jeb Bush.

Denouncing Cruz as an agent of fear, Mr. Bush won the support of 10 state delegations at the Republican National Convention in Charlotte. But Cruz captured the nomination on the first ballot. He lost the election to Hillary Clinton in one of the largest landslides in history.

No comments: