Phil Gramm Quotes
We're going to keep building the party until we're hunting Democrats with dogs.
Gramm, Phil. Quoted in Texas Monthly, vol. 17, no. 10, Oct. 1989, p. 132.
Earlich won one term and then was trounced soundly in his attempt for a 2nd term. The dirty tricks like planting a false story that the Democratic opponent was having an adulterous affair did not work as well in a bid for the second term as the voters were not happy with Earlich’s performance at all.
Turner is one of the more virulent, neo-Nazis, race haters, and white supremacist. This quotation is often used by Americans to illustrate to foreigners what freedom of speech actually means.
Islamic extremists had killed thousands on Russian citizens and military men in Chechen, one of the states in Russia. At the time--before 9-11--Americans in the homeland had never been attacked by Islamic religious extremists as the Russians had. Some Americans were very critical of the Russians for using force and troops to deal with the terrorists and urged Putin to negotiate. This was Putin's reply. It was taken by many Americans as an unnecessarily hard line then. After 9-11, however, American views towards negotiations with terrorists generally resembled Putin in this quotation. Many Americans then developed much more sympathy with the Russian position on terrorism inside Russia.
Most political analysts agree that all of these were factors that produced the hyperpolarization of the time. There were others such as the Republican Southern Strategy which triggered a shift of Democratic conservatives to the Republican party. This made the Republicans more conservative and the Democrats more liberal. Then those strong ideological parties drove many of their moderates out, and the Tea Party ran even more conservative candidates knocking out less conservatives in the primaries. Another factor, the relatively even split of voters nationally causing most candidates to appeal to their bases which became more extreme. However, especially in the House of Representatives, the redistricting created so few competitive districts that there was no need for candidates with safe seats to even be concerned with moderate and undecided voters.
It was reasonable and moderate statements like this that caused the right wing of the Republican Party to abandon McCain when he ran for president, He did appeal to many moderates and independents because of the statements he made opposing the extremes such as this one.
William Philip Gramm is an American economist and politician who represented Texas in both houses of Congress. Though he began his political career as a Democrat, Gramm switched to the Republican Party in 1983.
