Does it bother anyone else that Hillary was President of the Young Repubs at Wellesley?

[JohnnyBoots]

This is not bashing, this is stating a fact of the candidate's background that I have an issue with. What are your feelings?

[onehandle]

1. We have a Senator that's an ex-Klan member.

He got better. So did she.

[Catherine Vincent]

2. Not really.

I remind that tidbit to people (mostly repukes) every now and then. Once she met Big Bill though, she changed her evil ways. :)

[DemocratSinceBirth]

3. That Was Forty Years Ago

Robert Kennedy voted for Eisenhower in 1952...

People change...

[ificandream]

4. Nope...we all grow up.

I'm sure if you polled people here, a surprising number were conservative in their younger days before they knew better. I know I was. (It took the Vietnam War and the shooting at Kent State to change that.) I'm reading the Carl Bernstein bio and I think a lot of her early beliefs had to do with her family life. When she struck out on her own, she realized she felt differently. It's not really a surprise. It happens to a lot of people. They just aren't as public about it.

[unpossibles]

46. exactly

I was raised by conservatives (even the Democrats in my family are fairly conservative), and it took me a while I discover who I was politically.

I remember at 14 being called a "damn liberal" by my grandfather when I asked him to not be racist around me. I didn't even know what he meant, so I looked it up and realized the word was based on "favoring or permitting freedom of action" and still did not get the connection to politics, but later told him that I was based on that.

The second moment in my political awakening was the feeling that the Iran-Contra scandal went deeper than it seemed and that a lot of folks like Reagan and Bush got away with murder, but I still did not have any political leanings deeper than the Mad Magazines I read.

When I registered to vote the first time, I did so at the first booth I came to on campus - which happened to be a Republican one. I didn't care as long as I could vote. I knew that I was not really a Republican even though I had just registered that way, because I was a staunch Leftist by this point in my life, and can say it's because by then I had learned a lot about what each side stood for, and had rejected the Right for its selfish ways.

So, in essence someone could point to my record and claim I was a Republican, and in some ways it would be true, even though I have almost always voted Democratic. So my response to the Hilary thing: meh.

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

5. That was back when she was young and dumb. nt

[Warpy]

6. Hell, I was a foaming at the mouth commie revolutionary then

until I grew up a little. We all did a lot of stupid things before we grew up completely.

Clinton is wrong on the war and her health care plan is just as bad as it was in 1994 and for the same reason. However, her voting record in the Senate has been exceptionally good.

I will vote for her in the general election. I will not call her GOP lite because her voting record indicates she is not.

[Virginia Dare]

7. Ronald Reagan was a registered Democrat..

and a union leader, as a previous poster said, people change.

[JohnnyBoots]

9. No way! I'll have look that up. n/t

[ben_meyers]

14. If you need to "look that up", perhaps you had better

not comment on politics until you learn something!

[JohnnyBoots]

28. Wow, that was totally unwarranted.

[WinkyDink]

34. Well, it IS a fairly well-known fact about Reagan. Not worth a "No way!"

[DemocratSinceBirth]

25. I Looked It Up For You

A registered Democrat and admirer of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Reagan supported the New Deal, as well as the presidential candidacies of Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956 and Richard Nixon in 1960. His political loyalties soon shifted to the Republican Party, however, for he thought that the Democrats had created a larger government.<31> Following the election of John F. Kennedy, Reagan formally switched parties in 1962, saying "I didn't leave the Democratic Party. The party left me."<32> During his work for General Electric, Reagan wrote his own speeches, laboring diligently and daily upon his prose. Although he had speechwriters later in the White House, he continued editing, and even occasionally writing, many of them.<33>

Two years after switching parties, Reagan joined the campaign of conservative presidential contender Barry Goldwater. Speaking on Goldwater's behalf, Reagan revealed his ideological motivation in a famed speech given on October 27, 1964: "The Founding Fathers knew a government can't control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government set out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. So we have come to a time for choosing."<34> The address soon became known as the "Time for Choosing" speech, and is considered the speech that launched Reagan's political career.<35>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan

[Critters2]

24. Yep, a real labor activist, with the Screen Actors Guild.

I've never understood what happened to him.

[T Wolf]

31. When he became "successful" and started making a living as an actor,

his natural greed took over and he resented paying taxes.

Typical selfish republic asshole.

[WinkyDink]

40. Not really. It was while going around speaking for G.E.:

http://books.google.com/books?id=U2cs7IHERBwC&dq=ronald+reagan+republican+influence+davis&pg=PA77&ots=iVqPu-DO1h&sig=qLCTKK2sQvgTMOfWZgDJV_F3s1g&prev=http://www.google.com/search%3Fhl%3Den%26q%3Dronald%2Breagan%2Brepublican%2Binfluence%2Bdavis&sa=X&oi=print&ct=result&cd=1&cad=legacy#PPA57,M1

[msongs]

8. at one time you were an infant. should we hold that against you? nt

[JohnnyBoots]

11. We all were infants at one time. There is no choice involved.

[Breeze54]

10. Besides the fact that

Wellesley College girls (some, er... a lot) are very stuck up?

No. She did that in her Freshman year (I think).

I did a lot of stupid things at that age too.

[Beerboy]

12. It's not bashing, you're just stating a fact;

Hillary was, as was described at the time, a young lady of easy political virtue. Before the Big Dawg came sniffing 'round.
She was very young, but already politically attenuated.
I think it would be difficult to pin down whether she believes in anything beyond her career.

[katmondoo]

19. She was against Nixon. Was at the hearings

That was when she changed to a Democrat

[JohnnyBoots]

49. I wonder what she would be like if she met Huckabee instead of Bill?

[paulk]

50. she changed her political affiliation four years

before she met Bill...

That's a "fact", Beerboy.

[TwilightGardener]

13. No--people change. My husband used to be a Republican--now

he's an Indy who leans Dem, which is a lonely place to be for an Air Force officer.

[Milo_Bloom]

15. No.

Her votes in the Senate and poor rhetoric on the campaign trail are all that one needs to be bothered.

[WolverineDG]

16. I used to vote Republican

until I woke up in 1992 & realized the values my parents taught me were no longer the values of the Republican party.

dg

[Luminous Animal]

17. Absolutely no!

And I am not a Hillary supporter. People do change. And how many times have we seen ex-republicans welcomed to this board with open arms.

[sinkingfeeling]

18. No. I also was a Republican before I was old enough to vote (it was 21 back then).

My entire family had been consistent GOP voters, so it wasn't until Nixon and VietNam that I became a Democrat.

[Critters2]

20. This bothers me least of all the things that bother me about Hillary...

and they are legion.

Still, everyone can--and on occasion should--change their mind. God knows I have.

[havocmom]

21. Jeeze, allow for growth & change. Even Barry Goldwater repented from some of his positions

People CAN change as they get older and experience more.

By the way, I am definitely NOT for HRC in the primaries. But reason would suggest allowing consideration for the facts of life and one of those facts is that (some) people do evolve and change their minds about things. What I believed in college has grown just a bit. I allow the same room for others.

[PATRICK]

22. Back in the day

on campus when you spotted a Young Republican a certain nausea set in a certain prejudice that was constantly confirmed. Maybe that was not true of all their branches? Enlighten me please. They never darkened the door of events sponsoring Oxfam, working the lecture hall for Mother Teresa or any popular cause I can think of. Thankfully, their isolated ivory tower self-affirmation was in full decline.

[MrCoffee]

23. that's a negatory, good buddy.

[Captain Hilts]

26. No. Not at all. nt

[LaurenG]

27. No, that isn't what bothers me about her. nt

[Lerkfish]

32. her current policies bother me more

[magellan]

29. It's a clue to where she lies politically now

40 years ago, Young Republicans held many of the same views as present day right-centrists, which is where she is on the political spectrum. Remember that everything has been skewed so far to the right in that time that people today who support unions, universal health care and the Constitution qualify as the Far Left.

[eleny]

30. I'm a Kucinich supporter - and no, that doesn't bother me about HRC

[Crunchy Frog]

33. No.

She's done alot of things that have bothered me, but that one is ancient history.

[lukasahero]

35. Actually no - I was studying to be a minister in college - people change

they grow, they learn. Anyone who had it all figured out in college and 20 years later haven't changed their opinion are the ones who really scare me. :)

[ronnykmarshall]

36. Oh this shit again.

My mom voted for Nixon in 1960.

People change.

[slingsam]

37. I am reminded of Winston Churchill

At a party he was at one time.....he'd had perhaps one too many as he was apt to do...especially when it came to his beloved scotch...and an old lady walked up to him and exclaimed, You Sir, are inebriated!!!!" To which, he replied, "Lady, at least when I get up in the morning, I will be sober...you, on the other hand.....will still be ugly!"

Hillary, I understand...got wise.......and gets up fine in the morning. Freepers, on the other hand,......continue to be ugly....and stupid to boot!

[cooolandrew]

38. They say friends reflect who you are Hillary = Murdock, Kucinich = Cindy, Yoko Ono

[ificandream]

54. Really, about Kucinich?

He's a friend of Yoko Ono's? I'm a Yoko fan. That's cool.

[rudy23]

39. I'm more concerned with her currently Republican policies than her past ones

You don't even need to dip into the past to find Hillary's Republican streak.

[daninthemoon]

43. Yup. Lots of kids do dumb stuff, but hopefully outgrow them. Unless

she keeps having some sort of flashbacks. Hmmm, maybe that would explain a few things.

[tammywammy]

41. No, not at all

In college is where when most people start really forming their political identity. It's a young age and as various influences come and go in life people change their minds. I've been more conservative and more liberal in my few years (I'm only 27) than I am today.

While I'm not planning to vote Hillary in the primaries, this is definitely not something that hold against her.

[mdmc]

42. soon she will be President of all GOP and DLC

and the leftist will be looking in from the outside.

[EstimatedProphet]

44. No. I could care less what her past is.

Why do you care?

[OHdem10]

45. Absolutely , not. There are many Democrats who used to

be Republicans. They probably understand the broader picture
because they understand where each side is coming from.

[emilyg]

47. No.

[Crabby Appleton]

48. Yes, I hate Wellesley

[Chovexani]

51. No, I don't care at all

Hell, I was a born again Christian when I was younger.

It didn't last very long (I asked too many questions), but kids do weird things out of desperation for parental approval.

[JVS]

52. yes

[shadowknows69]

53. ummm.yep