WI: The Major Republicans, if the Rockefeller Wing remained?

It has been many decades since the Moderate/Liberals of the post-war GOP left that party and the Conservatives won control. Prominent Republicans of that period include the likes of George Romney, a Rockefeller Republican and Governor of Michigan, and Prescott Bush, a friend of Nelson Rockefeller often in agreement with him on positions. Their lineage ran for elected office as well, but as the party became Conservative, so did the descendents. George W. Bush was certainly no Liberal in the White House, and Mitt Romney is doing his damndest not to be seen as one. Newt Gingrich supported Rockefeller in '64 (though I don't know if he was a Rockefeller Republican). And they're not the only ones who came from families in the Rockefeller wing, or started off there themselves before becoming Conservatives to maintain political office.

Had the Rockefeller wing remained intact and with reasonable power for whatever reason, what would these people have been like in office and like as politicians? And who would the major figures be that now are not so major in the Republican party?
 
It's so hard to say since of course these are people who have not risen to political prominence (therefore we don't know who they are.)

POD might butterfly him but Colin Powell fairly recently referred to himself as a Rockefeller Republican. Personally, I always felt he would have run if that were the party he could run for.

Warren Buffett's another guy who seems to fit the Rockefeller bill.

Maybe Schwarzenegger, but again, butterflies.
 
To name a few:

Jacob Javits
William Weld
Robert Finch
Pete McCluskey
Charles Percy
John Heinz
Dick Thornburgh
Thomas Kean
Christine Todd Whitman
Howard Baker
Charles Matthias
Mike Castle
Richard Lugar
Mark Hatfield
Daniel Evans
Olympia Snowe
Susan Collins
Richard Snelling
Lowell Weicker (to the left of Rockefeller)
Millicent Fenwick
 
A few names off the top of my head:
William Milliken
Nancy Landon Kassebaum (now Baker, as in married to Howard Baker, another moderate Republican)
Richard Schweiker
Robert Griffin
 
You also see a fair amount of center Dems IOTL stay GOPpers. HRClinton was at the '68 RNC as a Rocky supporter. Rocky winning around this time would keep her sort of group in party.
 
Maybe you could give it revival if say, Olympia Snowe ran for President at some point. Or Chafee, there's a few that could try and spark up a revival that could run much better campaigns than Huntsman and Giuliani tried to run.
 
You also see a fair amount of center Dems IOTL stay GOPpers. HRClinton was at the '68 RNC as a Rocky supporter. Rocky winning around this time would keep her sort of group in party.

Wasn't she a Republican until she met Bill? Sort of like how Laura Bush was a Democrat until meeting George? I know she supported Goldwater in 1964.
 
IIRC from the Bernstein bio she was headed that way before meeting him.

Yes, it was the '68 convention that is supposedly pivotal, her being put off by the blatant conservatism/racist tinge.

Also, I'm not sure how much Laura's own politics have been shifted by George, she just can't say anything and probably supports her husband, if not his party in general.
 
You're misunderstanding the question here I think; he's asking what OTL's top Republicans would end up as in such a timeline.
 
Well there were two parts, I believe:

One - who would top Republicans be?
Two - where would OTL GOP leaders be?

We have answered one somewhat, not really two at all.

There would in part be a consensus shifting in America (we have to assume that the nation as a whole may be more liberal or conservative than OTL, but is just easier to work with the current alignment), and assuming the OTL trend of ideologically aligning parties, the assumption would be that the Democratic Party would be the majority ideologically conservative one.
So, major players in today's conservative wing would theoretically be majority democratic, correct? This fits the southern wing well like Newt G. and conservative blue-collar born people like Santorum.
 
Well there were two parts, I believe:

One - who would top Republicans be?
Two - where would OTL GOP leaders be?

We have answered one somewhat, not really two at all.

Indeed. I'm interested in who would be more major in the GOP, as well as what these GOP people of our world would be like. Think whether or not George Bush could be a Rockefeller Republican like Prescott, and you get the gist of it, because that's an idea which fascinates me and lead me to make this thread. I don't know if George may have started there and sold out to be elected, or if he just always was Conservative, but his family was Rockefeller Republican until moving rightward, and George Romney was one while his son is now running to the right of Ronald Reagan.
 
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