Richard Painter Quotes
Once the religious right got their beachhead in the Republican Party in 1980, they expanded it. Even Barry Goldwater was extremely hostile to the religious right, but Reagan catered to them. The religious right then expanded their base and that drove the moderates out.
Painter, Richard. Interview by Chauncey DeVega. "Bush's Ethics Lawyer Richard Painter: Trump Is an 'Inherently Unstable Person'." Salon, 21 Oct. 2019.
He was reacting to the Republicans in Congress passing a special law for a single right to die case in Florida. Ironically Danforth himself had always been considered a conservative and he also was an ordained Episcopalian minister.
The Republicans were the secular party at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. It was the Democrats who were the religious party and evangelicals and fundamentalists overwhelmingly supported William Jennings Bryan, the 3 time Democratic Presidential candidate who himself was a religious fundamentalist. Republicans campaigned against the Democrats on separation of church and state issues. See {589654} for a quote on the Republican shift.
Richard William Painter is an American lawyer, professor, and political candidate. From 2005 to 2007 Painter was the chief White House ethics lawyer in the George W. Bush administration. He is the S. Walter Richey Professor of Corporate Law at the University of Minnesota, and since 2016 has served as vice-chair of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a government watchdog group.
