When was the last moderate Republican ticket, 1976 or 1996?

[alp227]

On this LBN thread about Jon Huntsman I posted, I commented that the last time a moderate Republican made it past the primaries was in 1976 (Gerald Ford/Bob Dole), when Huntsman was a teenager. Ford even won the nomination over the conservative Ronald Reagan, but Reagan would become a two-term president after 1980. Someone else countered by asserting that Ford was not the last moderate Republican nominee, but rather also George H.W. Bush (1992) and Bob Dole (1996) were moderates. So were the 1992 and 1996 elections three-ways between a moderate Democrat (Bill Clinton), moderate Republican (Bush 1992, Dole 1996), and paleoconservative third party (Ross Perot both)?

(Sources for Perot being a paleo: Review of Politics, autumn 2003; John Podhoretz; Joseph Scotchie)

As a senator, Dole collaborated with liberal Democrat George McGovern to expand food stamp program back in the early '70s, although Dole voted against some of Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty programs. In 2008, both senators won the World Food Award. Dole, however, campaigned in 1996 as a conservative, taking pro-life and low-tax positions.

[WI_DEM]

1. Dole/Kemp was by comparison moderate. Dole worked with dems on several things

such as the Food Stamp program (with George McGovern) and Kemp was pretty solid on civil rights issues.

[Ter]

11. Of all the pukes to run in the last 50 years...

That was probably the best ticket. Why did they lose so big?

[ixion]

2. I can't remember a moderate rethug on the ticket in the last 50 years

there have been many moderates in the primary, but always an extremist on the ticket. I include Ford in this as well, although he would rank as the most moderate, which isn't saying much.

[Ter]

12. Ford and Dole/Kemp are extremists?

To many here maybe, but not to the majority of the Puke party.

[Pab Sungenis]

3. George H.W. Bush was a moderate in 1980

but by 1988 he had started running as a rock-ribbed conservative to keep the Reagan coalition under his wing. Remember "read my lips?"

By 1992 he had been pushed even further right by Buchanan.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

6. A kinder, gentler fascist. nt

[Ter]

10. He was a globalist then

And one of the heads of the New World Order later.

[Hepburn]

4. 1952, Ike. N/t

[Proud Public Servant]

5. 1972

Dole was a conservative, though not by today's standards. And reaching across teh aisle used to be normal and not a sign of ideological impurity.

Bush I ran as a moderate in 1980, but was a full-blown Reaganite by 1988.

Ford was actually a pretty conservative member of the House, and not all that loveable -- read up on the attempt to impeach William O. Douglas if you're unfamiliar with that sorry episode in American history.

No, I really think you have to go back to Nixon.

[dtexdem]

7. Maybe 1956?

Or 1860?

[caraher]

8. I'd stick with '76

Mainly by looking at the VP choices. Dole picked Kemp, George HW picked Quayle... neither has any credentials as a moderate at all. Ford was at least willing to recognize the existence of a real world...

[alp227]

9. Ford supported the Equal Rights Amendment

in Proclamation 4383 and even granted some amnesty to draft dodgers who fled to Canada. Yes, a Republican president supporting the ERA despite conservative Republican activist Phyllis Schlafly (a supporter of Barry Goldwater in 1964) opposing ERA.

George H.W. Bush and Dick Cheney both served in Ford's cabinet. However, Ford also nominated Democratic senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan as US Ambassador to the UN.

He also signed the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975 that established special education for US public schools. Contrast that with the attitude of modern Republicans who would rather cut, cut, cut everything that helps the disadvantaged. He also nominated liberal justice John Paul Stevens.

However, as House Minority Leader in the '60s, Ford opposed LBJ's War on Poverty programs.

[ThomasP]

13. huh?

What is this "moderate republican" you speak of? I have never seen a truly moderate republican. Sure a few of them try to sound populist but only in a cynical ploy to get elected in places republicans normally cannot win.