Richard Ojeda Quotes
I have been a Democrat ever since I registered to vote, and I'll stay a Democrat, but that's because of what the Democratic Party was supposed to be.
Zengerle, Jason. "Richard Ojeda Is the Trump-Voting, Weed-Smoking, Dirt-Road Democrat Congress Needs." GQ, Condé Nast, 29 May 2018.
As a relatively political unknown, he took the opportunity to tell the press and the public that he was a part of the New York Tammany Hall Machine. At the time most NY politicians saw this as a political assurance to the voters—as opposed to the reformers who might change things. Political machines were mostly affiliated with the Democratic Party in the large cities. The corruption tended to b Republican outside the cities, except in the South where all government was Democratic in reaction to the Civil War Republican role. When the Democrats strove to eliminate racial discrimination in the 1960s. the racists of the South persuaded the Whites to shift to the Republican Party which then dominated most of the South. The people who controlled the corrupt machines however did not change. The corruption of the Southern machines just became Republican labeled.
The presidential nomination of William Jennings Bryan in 1896 split the Democratic party. Governor Hill was a strong party man, but couldn't abide Bryan's "free silver" and other positions, so when a reporter asked him if he was still a Democrat, and would campaign for Bryan, the governor answered:
Richard Neece Ojeda II is an American politician and retired United States Army major who served in the West Virginia Senate representing the 7th district from 2016 until 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, he ran a brief campaign for President of the United States in the 2020 election.