Why were genuine conservatives Coolidge and Reagan succeeded by big-government Republicans Hoover and George Bush Sr. and then by far-left Democrats Roosevelt and Clinton (who only tacked right after the 1994 midterms)? Why aren’t successful conservatives replaced by conservatives?
“Why were genuine conservatives Coolidge and Reagan succeeded by big-government Republicans Hoover and George Bush Sr. and then by far-left Democrats Roosevelt and Clinton (who only tacked right after the 1994 midterms)? Why aren’t successful conservatives replaced by conservatives?”
Reagan beat George H.W. Bush for the nomination in 1980. In order to unify the party (i.e. get the establishment/moderate support), he made Bush his running mate. Reagan’s big failure was not replacing Bush in 1984 with a conservative VP candidate. He placed party unity over ideology. As soon as Bush became president he pushed conservatives out, even though he ran as a conservative.
In hindsight if Reagan had run with a conservative in 1984 and won, then focused on filling the key party positions with conservatives, there is a chance the conservative revolution would have been consolidated and perpetuated.
Both Hoover and George H.W. Bush ran on a platform of continuing the policies of their predecessors.
The GOP platform of 1928 was mostly about praising the Coolidge administration and pledging to continue doing the same: cutting taxes and reducing government debt. Hoover campaigned as being a part of that administration for 8 years and believing in "the American system of rugged individualism". He ran to the right of the generally centrist Al Smith, saying Smith and the Democrats believed in "the doctrines of paternalism and state socialism" that were popular in Europe at the time. (of course, the modern day Democrats, liberal media, and useful idiot neo-confederates will ignore history and make up BS that the Democrats were "the conservative party back then", and "the two parties switched sides" in the 1960s)
60 years later, in 1988, we essentially had the same thing. George H.W. Bush got the nomination because he had the name ID and had been part of the Reagan administration for 8 years. He essentially campaigned as Reagan's third term and ran well to the right of Dukasis, going after him as a bleeding heart peacenik Massachusetts liberal, attacking Duke's "revolving door prison system" in Mass, campaigning as a hardliner on crime and the death penalty, and giving a John Wayne type "read my lips, no new taxes" speech at the Republican National Convention. Idiot Dukakis actually ran against Reaganism when Reagan was still enormously popular with the public. Reagan also campaigned extensively for Bush.
Basically, Coolidge and Reagan weren't replaced with conservatives because moderates in their administration happened to be in the right place at the right time, to take advantage of their popularity and win the office on their coattails by talking like they were clones of their predecessor. There was no actual conservative "heir apparent" in the position to succeed them.