Country Club Richard
| 🏌️ | |
| Era | The Sixties |
|---|---|
| Age | 45-60 |
| Home | Greenwich, CT |
| Demographic | suburban, white, corporate executive |
| Lean | business_conservative |
| Race | white |
A corporate executive in Greenwich, Connecticut, in his fifties, the Eastern establishment Republican of the Eisenhower years. He is the moderate wing of the party that Goldwater's movement displaces during the decade.
Who they stand for
The Eastern Republican establishment of the early 1960s controlled the party's money, its foreign policy positions and its newspapers. Its centres of power included Nelson Rockefeller's New York, the Connecticut and Pennsylvania suburbs, the New York Herald Tribune, and the Council on Foreign Relations, whose members staffed every administration. It secured the nomination for Eisenhower over Taft in 1952 and expected to control it again. Its voters were college-educated, Protestant, internationalist and fiscally cautious. They had accepted Social Security and the New Deal settlement, and wanted these programmes managed rather than repealed.
The Goldwater campaign of 1964 was organised in opposition to this establishment. At the Cow Palace convention, delegates booed Rockefeller from the podium and rejected the moderates' platform planks condemning extremism. Goldwater lost 44 states in the general election. This showed the moderates had correctly judged most voters, but the conservative movement kept control of the party regardless. By 1968 this bloc's candidate was Nixon, a compromise, and Rockefeller's late run for the nomination failed. This bloc had a habit of ticket-splitting. Many of these voters preferred Johnson to Goldwater in 1964, then voted Republican again two years later.
Playing to them
He responds to a president who governs in a businesslike, managerial way. He wants balanced budgets, a Federal Reserve free from political interference, free trade, a firm commitment to NATO and the United Nations, and civil rights advanced through law rather than through street protest. He is winnable across party lines, because his bloc historically preferred Johnson to Goldwater in 1964, and a Democratic president who keeps the deficit down and the Western alliance firm can win his support. He does not forgive fiscal recklessness, protectionism, isolationism, or close association with the John Birch Society and the populist right. A president who courts Goldwater Barry Jr's wing of the party offends him more than a moderate Democrat would. The counterculture makes him uncomfortable but not frightened.
Winning him tends to cost the support of Goldwater Barry Jr, Prairie Ruth and Ranch Hand Clyde, who see him as the reason the Republican Party keeps losing elections. Union Hall Frank identifies his budget discipline with the position of company management. Wall Street Henry shares nearly all of his positions.
Where they live
The five states where Country Club Richard makes up the largest share of the electorate in the sixties:
- Washington DC
- Connecticut
- Texas
- Oklahoma
- Delaware