Cloth coat Republican
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“”I should say this— that Pat doesn't have a mink coat. But she does have a respectable Republican cloth coat. And I always tell her that she'd look good in anything.[1]
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"Cloth coat Republican" is a phrase denoting Republicans of humbler means and lifestyle. The term originated with a 1952 speech by Richard Nixon in response to accusations of corruption, where he referred to his and his wife's modest lifestyle.
The "cloth coat" is intended to contrast with the "fur coat" worn by the privileged wives of political men. The "ideal" was Pat Nixon, the wife of Tricky Dick, a self-made man who was utterly paranoid in so many ways we will only address one here: he was from the "folk," not the select few who went to Ivy League colleges and lived lives of pre-ordained privilege. As such, he hated the people who had managed to climb the ladder of power with assistance from their relatives and backgrounds, and tried to emphasize his struggle to succeed in spite of all odds.
Dwight D. Eisenhower was also arguably a "cloth coat Republican" - as were, probably, many members of the party before the ascension of Ronald Reagan and the Bush dynasty. Those were the days where the moderates weren't RINOs.[2]
A similar label was Rockefeller Republican, named after Nelson Rockefeller[wp]; they failed to combat the New Right, and now we all have to pay for it.
[edit] See also
[edit] Footnotes
- ↑ Senator Nixon's Checkers Speech
- ↑ It would be nice if the party once again represented Main Street and the Rotary Club types who built it, rather than Wall Street and extraction industry executives, though that is unlikely in the near future.