Arlen Specter Quotes
I'm a loyal Democrat.
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:
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.
Arlen Specter was an American lawyer, author, and politician who served as a United States Senator from Pennsylvania from 1981 to 2011. Specter was a Democrat from 1951 to 1965, then a Republican from 1965 until 2009, when he switched back to the Democratic Party. First elected in 1980, he represented Pennsylvania in the U.S. Senate for 30 years.