Bob Dole, the last major presidential candidate from the World War II generation nominated by his party (the Republicans) for the presidency, has been quite critical of the Republican party as a whole in a recent interview, referring to it as “an extreme group on the right.”
Dole takes particular exception to Ted Cruz, the GOP presidential candidate who mocked Bob Dole's own presidential campaign of 1996. “Cruz is so extreme, he’s not a traditional conservative” Dole said of Cruz.
Perhaps also surprising, Dole paid President Obama quite the compliment, suggesting that he is "a very good man."
Interesting stuff. Here are two links if you wish to read more:
Bob Dole really, really doesn’t like Ted Cruz by Chris Cillizza December 8, 2015:
Bob Dole: Obama Is A “Good Man,” Cruz Is “So Extreme” And Trump is “Over The Top” by Colin Taylor • December 8, 2015:
You know the Republicans have moved way, way, WWWAAAAAYYYY to the right when even someone like Bob Dole - hardly a lefty by any wild stretch of the imagination - is finding them so scary that he essentially feels compelled to publicly call them out on it.
ReplyDeleteI think Dole is still pretty conservative, although indeed, he comes from an era when the Republican party was a bit more moderate, and not as focused on obstructing a Democratic President as the GOP-led Congress has proven to be. Also, like him or not, he seems like a real guy with real principles that he believed in, whereas many of these Republicans are bought and sold by corporate special interests.
ReplyDeleteRight, that's precisely my point. Dole is quite conservative, but today's Republicans have gone off the deep end to such a degree as to almost make him seem like a comparative moderate. I don't know if you've had the chance to read that article I was telling you about by Matt Taibbi about the Republican primaries, but without mentioning Dole he depicts the ugly reality of just how alarming the situation has gotten. The last sentence (which I won't reveal here since I'm hoping you read it, and don't want to type any spoilers) captures it in a nutshell.
ReplyDelete