Radical Right Quotes
The evangelist had become disillusioned by his experiences with the right wing of the Republican Party in general and President Nixon in particular as he concluded that they had been using him and his ministry for partisan political purposes. He had originally assumed to the contrary. See {629697} .
Directions to his Evangelical group the Moral Majority.
Even the President was not spared during the McCarthy era. The red scare was so pervasive, that a lunatic fringe ultra right wing organization could call the President a “communist dupe” and be taken seriously be much of the media who were themselves intimidated and might be accused of being communists at any moment. It was a very low point in America’s history.
When Dole was the Republican Congressional Leader, the Republican Party had a spectrum of liberals and conservatives and Dole was considered to be at the conservative side. However, right wing extremists first gained much influence in the party and then gained control. They then tried to purge the party of those Republicans who were not as far right as they were and were successful in many cases. Liberal Republicans found themselves isolated and tended to retire, become independents, or switch parties. This drove the party even further to the right stimulating Dole’s quip.
Weyrich and many other extreme religious conservatives are often loose with legal and political facts. Actually President Clinton was impeached by the Republican Controlled House of Representatives, but was acquitted by the Senate which decided that he was not guilty of what his political enemies had accused him of or those things were not of sufficient import to warrant impeachment. What Weyrich probably meant was that if there had been a moral majority in America, Clinton would have been convicted and removed from office. Ironically, the Republican Speaker of the House which impeached Clinton had been Newt Gingrich, who abandoned his first wife and was having an affair with a staff member. Livingston who was then elected speaker of the House also was committing adultery as were many in the group who found Clinton morally wanting for his sexual activity with am intern and his attempted coverup. They too, tried to cover up their scandalous behavior.
He like many other Americans had become dissatisfied with the religious, right wing fundamentalist ideology of the George W. Bush administration and the Republicans who controlled Congress until the election of 2006.
See Dirk Kempthorne and Richard Butler
Republican Party primary elections had become very contentious. The radical right and the Tea Party, though a minority of the party, had the power to destroy almost any Republican candidate’s chances. So those Republican political candidates were forced to pander to the extreme right and then try and backtrack to the center for the general election. As a result, few people believed the statements of Republican office seekers as no one knew what they really believed including members of their own party, Bush, no longer running for any political position, found himself with much more credibility and influence in the party than those who were running for office. The problem of appealing to party extremes was not unique to the Republicans at that time, but the degree and extent was unprecedented accounting for the distrust.
The Evangelicals and other social conservatives had much more influence over the Republican candidate since without the social conservatives voting in large numbers for the Republican Presidential candidate, at the time, it would be hard to win the general election, but Democrats had won without them. However, at the time, the social conservatives had a virtual veto over the Republican candidate selection.
