Talk:Rockefeller Republican

message: These recent edits, restore a political figure and a few organizations as belonging to this category. The edit summary of one of these edits cites Oxford Oxford English Dictionary which includes "a moderate or liberal Republican" as a definition. 
I think this article's subject is a particular historical group or trend still alluded to in the lede:members of the Republican Party (GOP) in the 1930s–1970s who held moderate to liberal views on domestic issues, similar to those of Nelson Rockefeller... which I suppose might eventually be wiped to complete the transition, presumably after Thomas E. Dewey and Abraham Lincoln are added.
This drift toward making the article catch-all for Republicans denounced as "liberal" by certain political activists still seems like a BLP issue to me.  / edg ☺ ☭ 04:24, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Drift toward "a moderate or liberal Republican" 

message: Also, Liberal Republican (as capitalized in the current article intro) should not be capitalized. The US currently has no organized "Liberal Republican" party or movement separate from the existing GOP. The term Republican liberal would be preferable because it does not have this implication, and also helps distinguish from the Liberal Republican Party (United States), which was an actual US political party. / edg ☺ ☭ 04:24, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Capital ''L'' 

message: This very subject heading seems to violate Wikipedia's standards.  If an entry read, "Individual X is considered moderate," it would likely be tagged quickly for "weasel words" and removed if no one clarified who considered that individual moderate and produced a citation.
As it stands, this is a vague list of three Senators who voted against a signature Trump agenda item once, and two (Capito and Young) who have shown little "moderation," though I suspect that they're listed because they belong the Republican Main Street Partnership.
I suggest that for anyone listed here, there be some explanation provided in the entry for inclusion.  If this can't be done, I suggest that the individual (and if necessary, this section) be removed.
Mgllama (talk) 17:38, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Individuals considered moderate or liberal Republican"--by whom? 

message: Anthony Kennedy and John Paul Stevens can not be on the same list as having the same ideology because they never did. Stevens joined the Court as the most conservative member and pretty much did not change any of his views; his views simply became the most "liberal" as the Court lurched sharply conservative. Stevens was on the left of the Court by 2000; Kennedy was firmly in the middle of the Court and substantially to the right of Stevens. If Stevens and Kennedy are BOTH considered "Rockefeller Republicans," then you have to add Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer to the list as well, as they are ideologically between Kennedy and Stevens. The solution is to remove Kennedy, because he is not a Rockefeller Republican; he's a Reagan Republican. 98.10.165.90 (talk) 23:33, 20 July 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Kennedy/Stevens 

message: Liberal Conservatism - "Liberal conservatism incorporates the classical liberal view of minimal government intervention in the economy, according to which individuals should be free to participate in the market and generate wealth without government interference"
Rockerfeller Republicans are more economically interventionist - "They espoused government and private investments in environmentalism, healthcare, and higher education as necessities for a better society and economic growth in the tradition of Rockefeller. They were strong supporters of state colleges and universities, low tuition and large research budgets. They favored infrastructure improvements such as highway projects."  ..... "they favored balanced budgets and were not averse to raising taxes in order to achieve them. Connecticut Senator Prescott Bush once called for Congress to "raise the required revenues by approving whatever levels of taxation may be necessary". A critical element was their support for labor unions and especially the building trades appreciated the heavy spending on infrastructure. In turn, the unions gave these politicians enough support to overcome the anti-union rural element in the Republican Party. As the unions weakened after the 1970s, so too did the need for Republicans to cooperate with them. This transformation played into the hands of the more conservative Republicans, who did not want to collaborate with labor unions in the first place and now no longer needed to do so to carry statewide elections."
They were more liberal in the American Sense. Liberal in Liberal Conservatism is a different concept from the American one.115.70.195.167 (talk) 23:34, 17 December 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for sharing your opinion.  WP:RS that support your opinion would be infinitely more useful. Toddst1 (talk) 00:03, 18 December 2019 (UTC)
thread_title: Rockerfeller Republicans aren't Liberal Conservatives

message: I noticed that Supreme Court justices were included. I do not question the editor's intent at all, but I am curious if this is the place to list Supreme Court justices given that their rulings are not directly tied to a particular party or ideology? Yes, we know that they have ideologies and that their rulings tend to reflect a certain perspective of judicial philosophy, but I am not sure that those judicial philosophies could be accurately described as "Rockefeller Republican." For example, Anthony Kennedy is regarded by most experts and professional court-watchers as a "moderate" or "moderate conservative" justice, but I do not know if that is in the same political faction context in which this page finds itself. I'm not going to change it, but I wanted to raise the question.SeminarianJohn (talk) 18:57, 12 July 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: the bottom line is how the majority of reliable sources describe them. I know of none that describe Justices Kennedy, O'Connor, Souter, or Stevens this way. More to the point, not one of sources provided in the article ever mentioned them as Rockefeller Republicans, so they have been removed. That left the section empty, so I removed it. Mathglot (talk) 09:32, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
replies: text:  I agree, and concur with your decision to remove it. It may have taken a couple years but I think that removing that section is an improvement. I have never heard of Justices Kennedy and O'Connor referred to as "Rockefeller Republicans" or even necessarily as 'moderate Republicans.' They were considered fairly conservative Republicans who handed down moderate rulings from the bench.SeminarianJohn (talk) 21:13, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  The inclusion of Supreme Court justices 

message: They may speak out and take action against Trump but they are conservative in every other fashion stop adding them on here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DiSantis19 (talk • contribs) 19:09, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, Mitt Romney yes was critical of Pres. Trump but that is not why he is a Rockefeller Republican. He was governor of the 2nd most Liberal State and in the 2012 Obama-Romney debate they found agreement between the 2.--General Dwight David Eisenhower (talk) 15:47, 29 May 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mitt Romney and Rob Portman are not Rockefeller Republicans 

message: There is a massive amount of original research in the #Current officeholders section that needs to be addressed.  I started going through the names in the section, checking the U.S. Senators first. There are five sources for the three Senators in the list. I checked each source for mention of 'Rockefeller Republicans', and tagged any that didn't support it. As it turned out, none of the sources support the inclusion of those three Senators.  I spot-checked a few of the Governors, U.S. reps, and Mayors, and didn't find 'Rockefeller' mentioned in any of the handful I checked.  Rather than check and tag each of them individually, I added an  banner to the section, linking to this discussion.  
I suspect that none of the fifteen current officeholders listed in this section belong here, as none of them are Rockefeller Republicans. The WP:ONUS of inclusion here is on the editors who added them. Per our WP:Verifiability policy: These officeholders are all living people, and thus any assertion about them is also subject to WP:BLP policy, stressing WP:V, WP:NOR, and WP:NPOV.  Accordingly, I am issuing this formal challenge: each name in the section must have a proper inline citation attached to it that supports their inclusion, or it will be removed. Bear in mind that this topic is subject to ArbCom Discretionary sanctions, and any source added must be of impeccable reliability, and must explicitly support inclusion of the officeholder. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 22:34, 31 May 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: The subtitle of the article explicitly calls it out as an opinion essay, and not necessarily the view of The Hill. Very unlikely that passes the bar for WP:RS, especially given the ArbCom sanctions in effect requiring explicit assertions in sources. If you think this meets the bar for a reliable source, you can raise it as an issue at the Reliable sources noticeboard. Mathglot (talk) 18:00, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: I have added a section below in which I do cite RS, as well as lesser-known publications that support the RS, that refer to Susan Collins as being among the Rockefeller Republican tradition. They each specifically refer to Rockefeller Republicans and then directly refer to Susan Collins among others, several of whom are themselves already included in the former office-holder section using the same or very similar RS. SeminarianJohn (talk) 21:42, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

text: , by keeping it blank if you mean leaving the section header there with nothing under, you could do that, just add a template  under it (and maybe use the  parameter to explain why). As far as your questions about original research, since that's a more general question not specifically related to Rockefeller Republicans, please see your Talk page. Mathglot (talk) 21:41, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Original research in officeholders section 

message: I've tagged section Former officeholders as containing original research.  I notice that GDDE has added some sources; two out of three are these are valid; good job. The other one (Jeffords) fails verification. Haven't checked the rest yet, but they need citations as well. Good job so far, keep on going. Mathglot (talk) 23:12, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Original research in former officeholders section 

message: Shouldn't Charlie Crist be included among Rockefeller Republicans?  At least while he was a Republican?  Or should he be excluded because he did move to Independents and, then, to Democratic party?Goliath74 (talk) 18:13, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: It's very simple, really: he should be included if the majority of WP:INDEPENDENT, WP:SECONDARY, WP:Reliable sources describe him as a "Rockefeller Republican", and excluded otherwise. Result: excluded. Mathglot (talk) 03:45, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Charlie Crist 

message: Bush Sr was pretty middle-of-the-road as president, especially compared to his son. Steelydanfan03 (talk) 19:49, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Shouldn’t George H.W Bush be considered a Moderate Republican? 

message: Thanks for the recent good faith addition of 51 names in rev. 1055083642 of 19:36, 13 November 2021, each one with its own, separate citation added. Unfortunately, except in one case, none of the sources supported the officeholder as a Rockefeller Republican, and thus per WP:Verifiability has been removed. (The exception was the addition of Arlen Specter, which was properly sourced to WaPo/Rucker-2012, and has been retained.) Details of the removal:
The following names were added in rev. 1055083642, but were not supported by the source given:
* Collins: not supported by your Politico source;
* Murkowski: not supported by your NYT source;
* Portman: not supported by The Hill;
* Capito: not supported by wvmetronews;
* Governors: Scott: not supported by sevenday;
* Baker: masslive;
* Hogan: baltimoresun.com
* Sununu: wmur
* Cox: nyt;
* Reps: Katko: The Hill
* Gabarino: cnn;
* Reed: The Hill;
* Fitzpatrick: The Hill;
* Meijer: npr;
* Upton: republicanmainstree;
* Kinzinger: twitter (which is not allowed anyway);
* Beutler: columbian.com
* Kim: legislature.ca.gov
* Amodei: problemsolver;
* Mace: washingtonexaminer;
* Giménez: cnn;
* Salazar: republicanmainstreet
* Eisenhower: newrepublic;
* Nixon: archive.org
* Ford: usatoday
* Powell: usatoday
* Warner: usatoday
* Kirk: politico
* Brown: politifact;
* Heller: NYT;
* McCain: cbsnews
* KEPT: Specter: WaPo;
* Lugar: armscontrol
* Chafee: govtrack
* Gregg: Guardian
* Corker: NewYorker
* Kassebaum: kmbc;
* Hatfield: NYT
* Packwood: oregonencyclopedia
* Gorton: AP
* Campbell: NYT;
* Hutchison: star-telegram
* Abraham: steinreport
* Simpson: govtrack
* Durenberger: insideminnesotapolitics (also, it's a blog)
* Stevens: republicanmainstreet
* Danforth: TIME
* Scott: govtrack
* Mathias: Wikipedia (never use Wikipedia as a source for anything)
* Goldwater: WaPo (lol; Goldwater?!!)
Any name not supported by a reliable reference which identifies them as a Rockefeller Republican is subject to removal by Wikipedia policies, primarily WP:V and WP:SYNTH. Thanks,  Mathglot (talk) 10:21, 17 December 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Blanked a dozen or so names cited to sources that do not back the assertions that they are Rockefeller Republicans. I left a warning in the edit summary of the last one because this keeps happening; it could be that if it doesn't stop we'll need to request semi-protection or some other measure; there is already an edit notice on the article when you preview, and there is a big notice about administrator sanctions above, so I'm not sure what else can be done. Please do not add names to the list without a citation to a reliable source that directly supports the assertion. If the source you want to cite for a particular politician doesn't say "Rockefeller Republican", then go find another source that does. Mathglot (talk) 18:48, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recent unsourced addition 

message: I dropped misstatements and unsupported claims from the WP:LEADSENTENCE, both with respect to style (using "Liberal Republicans" capitalized, as if it were a political party, which it isn't (not in the United States, at least), rather than just liberal Republicans, a simple description that might be used about some politicians in news reporting. The source Stebenne (2006) was used to assert the claim that Rockefeller Republicans were "called" Liberal Republicans as if that was some kind of nickname or alternative party name—which it isn't—unlike the way G.O.P. actually is another name for the Republican party, . Checking that source, there is no support for the assertion previously in the lead sentence on the page given (p. 38) or on any other page in the book which mentions liberal Republicans (pages 37, 38, 79, 153, and 188).  
It's true enough that Rockefeller Republicans held moderate-to-liberal views on some issues, and this is already well-sourced, and it's fine to make that statement. But the terms are not synonymous, and the converse is *not* true; i.e., it's not a fact that all moderate-to-liberal Republicans are Rockefeller Republicans. The term is a designation belonging to the past, and there are no Rockefeller Republicans now. Occasionally, the term is dredged up in connection with some modern politician, and there is one such still in the article (Chris Sununu) because a National Review opinion piece implied that he and others like him represented a "return to Rockefeller Republicanism" (or rather, posed a rhetorical question about whether they did or didn't), but that's a tenuous connection, and should probably be dropped per WP:UNDUE; a scan of the top 25 articles about Chris Sununu would very likely not find a majority of them (or any of them, I'd wager) referring to Sununu as a "Rockefeller Republican", so probably he should be removed as well. Mathglot (talk) 00:33, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Misstatements and unsupported material dropped from the lead sentence 

message: There is a major discrepancy. Rockefeller Republicans are moderate to liberal in one section and center to center-right in another section. It should either be moderate to conservative and center to center-right or moderate to liberal and center to center-left.   — Preceding unsigned comment added by FactCheckExpert (talk • contribs) 16:41, 20 June 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: There is no discrepancy. First, they are described as a "moderate or liberal Republican" which is not the same as a "moderate or liberal US politician", as Republicans are (and were) generally to the right of Democrats, so what is liberal or moderate for a Republican, would not necessarily be seen as liberal or moderate for a politician, generally speaking. But perhaps more to the point, they are described more subtly as having complex views which align sometimes more with other conservative Republicans, and sometimes more with Democrats (of that era).  Describing them in the Infobox, which is by its nature a broad-brush description without room for long explanations or subtlety as "center" or "center-right", is accurate in the context of US politics as a whole, and even more important, aligns with what the reliable sources describe them as. Mathglot (talk) 19:02, 20 June 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Untitled 

message: I deleted the Whiggish claims inserted by Luke Phillips in a blog. "Google Scholar" shows that he has not a professional or expert. WP:NEWSBLOG  states: "Some newspapers, magazines, and other news organizations host online columns they call blogs. These may be acceptable sources if the writers are professionals, but use them with caution because blogs may not be subject to the news organization's normal fact-checking process." the writer is a graduate student who has not published on the issue and does not footnote the statement. indeed he wrote merely one sentence on the issue (he wrote: " As a result, starting in the 1960s, the last of the Whiggish Republicans—then known as the Rockefeller Republicans, and including in their number George Romney and Jacob Javits—fought a losing battle against the newly ascendant “conservative” populist wing of the Party, while conservative Democrats in the Whig tradition, like Scoop Jackson, were edged out of their own party by a succession of FDR New Deal Democrats, McGovernite liberals, and then multicultural leftists.")-- no sources are provided. As for the author the blog states: "Luke Philips is a research associate at the Center for Opportunity Urbanism and a student at the University of Southern California. "  Google Scholar shows that apart from his one blog  he has not published anything about Whigs or Republicans.   So we have an inexperienced student with no evident expertise and no reliable credentials. Rjensen (talk) 05:32, 30 July 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  reliable sources needed 

message: The  section is the longest one in the article, so I've added a number of subsections to break it up a bit and make it easier to follow. This may require some touch-ups after, moving text around to better fit the thematic breakdown, or possibly changing section titles if a better organization can be found.
Section  is almost as large, and the addition of some subsection headers should be considered there as well. Mathglot (talk) 05:11, 25 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: User:SeminarianJohn, I'd welcome your looking this over, and making any changes to the section org at #History that you feel are warranted, and/or offering your thoughts here. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 08:34, 25 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text:  I apologize for the late reply. Life got busy! Thank you very much for including me. I will be looking and I appreciate what you have done to improve this and other articles.SeminarianJohn (talk) 17:03, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  History section headers 

message: Claims are made in the article that Charlie Baker, Phil Scott, and Chris Sununu are Rockefeller Republicans, but this is not supported by the majority of reliable sources, or even the minority. All three are sourced to a 2018 National Review opinion piece by Karl J. Salzmann. Salzmann was an editorial intern at NR in 2018, and an asst. editor Washington Free Beacon (per LinkedIn). The Beacon has been discussed several times at WP:RSN where it has been described as "dodgy", and lacks "a reputation for journalistic credibility" (here), "made various false claims" and "generally not reliable" (here), and had mixed reviews, eg, "false claims", "generally reliable", "no fact-checking or verification" (here). The current consensus appears to be that the Beacon is acceptable for quotations attributed to sources, but factual claims should be verified.  Even in this one, weak, opinion piece source, there is no specific assertion that Baker or the others are Rockefeller Republicans; what the article says, is this:
: 
and then says that Baker, Scott, and Sununu "" moderate conservatism of the Northeast.
The article never states it outright, the piece is an opinion piece not a news article, it doesn't quote anybody (and therefore are the author's words), and the author has light credentials ("intern") and has worked at somewhat dodgy publications. This source is far too weak on its own to substantiate an  assertion in Wikipedia's voice that these three politicans are, in fact, Rockefeller Republicans. We need more than this.  Can more reliable sources be found?
* A search in books, fails to find support for Charlie Baker, Phil Scott, or Chris Sununu as Rockefeller Republicans.
* Searches in Google Scholar likewise are negative; it's difficult to impossible to find even a single, highly reliable secondary source that includes any one of them in the same breath as "Rockefeller": (searches: Baker, Scott,  Sununu).
Note that there is one result from the Scholar search on Baker that yields a 2015 article from The Atlantic, entitled "The bluest Republican: why staunchly Democratic Massachusetts loves its new GOP governor", which has the word Rockefeller in proximity to "Charlie Baker"; however, the article makes no claim but more of a conjecture as a set-up for the predicate of the sentence, which points out that Baker rejects it: "If Baker's win suggests a return to Rockefeller-style liberal Republicanism in the Northeast, he does not appear eager to claim the mantle." (Atlantic Monthly, vol. 315, issue 2, March 2015).
Currently, sourcing of these three politicans in this article is based entirely on a single, weak, opinion piece; this does not exceed the "tiny minority" provision of WP:DUE WEIGHT policy, which therefore requires excluding them from the article.  I couldn't find other sources after trying hard, and the WP:BURDEN in any case is on those editors who wish to retain this content in the article.
Accordingly, I've tagged these three politicians as needing better sourcing, but if nothing is forthcoming within a reasonable interval, then they should be removed, per WP:DUEWEIGHT. Mathglot (talk) 21:39, 17 December 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Nothing found; removed. Mathglot (talk) 00:39, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Baker, Scott, and Sununu 

message: Much of this page seems to be describing the Rockefeller Republicans as an ideological tradition, as opposed to a wing of the Republican Party. Yet, due to how far to the right the GOP has drifted over the past forty years, it now seems like a few figures who might once have been Rockefeller Republicans are now very moderate Democrats. Joe Lieberman, Kyrsten Sinema, and Evan Bayh come to mind. Yet, for them to be added to this list would seem very out of place. 151.41.161.200 (talk) 12:14, 11 June 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Collapsed per WP:NOTFORUM. Mathglot (talk) 10:37, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Party faction or ideology?