What can aspiring political moderates learn from the example of Nelson Rockefeller?

I just read the new book, “Nelson Rockefeller’s Dilemma: The Fight to Save Moderate Republicanism,” by historian Marsha Barrett. The subject of this thought-provoking political biography is perhaps most famous for being governor of New York when a lot of ugly government buildings were constructed in the state capital, for briefly serving as vice-president of the United States, and for being a prominent northeastern liberal or moderate Republican, back during the less politically-polarizing time that such politicians roamed the land. Also for his poorly-received response to the Attica prison riot. It’s hard to imagine a prison riot getting this sort of respect nowadays, which I guess is mostly a product of improved technology and higher spending on prisons, which have led to essentially total security. Even those famous convicts in Baltimore who pretty much ran the prison probably couldn’t pull off that sort of riot, right?

Here’s how Barrett frames the story:

For the nostalgic, Rockefeller is the representation of a saner time when politics was not overcome by rancor and disagreement did not preclude consensus. . . . According to this perspective, the notion of a moderate Republican wing is proof of better times and inspiration for a path forward. . . . The problem with this nostalgia is that it is ahistorical and prevents a full engagement with a singular, yet emblematic, figure in US politics. Rockefeller envisioned leading a Party of Lincoln that would meet the demands of the modern civil rights movement . . . The Republican Party rejected that future almost as soon as he proposed it, but his goal was also at odds with the activist movement that he sought to assist. . . . Rockefeller should not be reduced to his opposition to Barry Goldwater’s supporters in 1964 nor the violent end of the Attica prison rebellion in 1971.

Barrett continues:

Historians have produced a wide range of studies on the diversity of modern conservativism in the past thirty years that examine its local, regional, and national development among a range of adherents. As a result, Republicans who were not associated with the party’s rightward turn have been understudied in comparison to members of the conservative wing of the GOP that was on the rise between the 1960s and 1980s. . . . Rockefeller serves as an important lens through which to study this evolution because his adoption of conservative policies and rhetoric over time shows how moderates from both parties who took a similar path assured the general rightward shift of US policies, weakened the welfare state, and codified a two-tier racialized criminal justice system. . . . Historians often refer to the 1960s as the beginning of the conservative turn, but unlike works that examine the leaders of that transformation, this book traces the conservative turn from the perspective of a Republican who struggled to keep up.

More on Rocky’s political stances:

Rockefeller was a Republican who advocated for pro-growth government intervention in the economy, a powerful federal presence at home and abroad, a comprehensive social safety net, and concerted efforts to promote access and equality in the United States. He was also a consummate Cold Warrior who supported large federal expenditures for armaments and foreign aid in addition to domestic spending to defeat the Soviet Union–commonly held positions among the era’s liberals. . . . Sometimes referred to as moderate, liberal, progressive, or Eastern Establishment Republicans, these Republicans gained outsized national prominence when they became likely presidential nominees for a defensive Republican Party in search of credible challengers to Franklin Roosevelt’s popularity and governing style. . . . Rockefeller Republicanism advocated for racial equality, support for the civil rights movement, especially in the segregated South, and government action to ensure an open society that allowed the full participation of racial minorities. . . .

New Yorkers tend to remember Rockefeller for grand government initiatives such as the expansion of the state’s university system, investments in infrastructure ranging from highway construction to the staggeringly expensive and equally disruptive Empire State Plaza, and the implementation of Medicaid and environmental protections, but that is only part of his record. . . . As a result of his uneasy fit within the state and national GOP, Rockefeller Republicanism was always concerned with seeking opportunities to maintain a position of moderation by adopting conservative policies opposed by liberals. . . . His efforts only increased over time.

This tension between state and national politics, and between the party and the electorate as a whole, is a continuing theme of the book.

The book is a good read, tracing Rockefeller’s political views in part to a trip to South America that he took in his capacity as a Standard Oil heir:

[In a speech at the annual conference of Standard Oil of New Jersey,] the twenty-nine-year-old warned . . . that if corporations did not “contribute to the general welfare of society,” the people would strip them of their property “through legislative action or otherwise.” “The only justification for ownership is that it serves the broad interest of the people,” he opined. “We must recognize the social responsibilities of corporations and the corporation must use its ownership of assets to reflect the best interests of the people. If we don’t they will take away our ownership.” Journalist and Rockefeller biographer Joe Alex Morris called his performance “perhaps the most unpopular speech ever made to such a meeting.”

Or maybe the most unpopular speech ever made to a meeting of rich executives until the respected historian and bumbling political activist Niall Ferguson came to town.

Then the decades-long voyage through the Republican Party:

Rockefeller first began working in a Republican administration in January 1955 but soon learned that his political views put him at odds with the conservative wing of his party. . . . Rockefeller and Eisenhower agreed that foreign aid could help ward off the spread of communism, but their approach to foreign policy upset the more conservative old guard Republicans, who prioritized balanced budgets, legalism, and protective tariffs instead of free trade. . . . he made little progress with the administration’s senior advisers such as Secretary of State John Foster Dulles . . .

Rockefeller’s entrance into electoral politics [when running for governor in 1958] was undoubtedly a personal victory, but the nonpartisan style of his campaign made it difficult to draw any conclusions about the command of moderate Republicanism. . . . . Numerous radio and television advertisements, billboards, and pamphlets made no mention of the Republican Party in favor of slogans such as “Rockefeller Gets Things Done” . . . As a candidate for the nomination, Rockefeller avoided discussing his views that w ere outside the Republican mainstream. . . .

Rockefeller gained some advantages from being in the political center:

During his campaign, Rockefeller had often accused Harriman of spending more than the state could afford without ever mentioning that the Republican-controlled legislature denied the sitting governor’s requests to increase revenue. Before presenting his budget, the governor made an unprecedented call on legislators for an early vote to increase the gas tax. With the quip, “If my grandfather could only see me now!” Rockefeller signed the bill, which was expected to generate an additional $60 million of annual revenue on January 20. Harriman had unsuccessfully attempted to get a similar but smaller increase the year before, but Senate Republicans voted 31 to 3 to reject it. Now when faced with a similar appeal from a Republican governor, a majority of Republicans supported an increase. . . .

Rockefeller presented himself and his proposed budget, perhaps not as a person who was fiscally conservative but someone who was a fiscal realist. . . called for a tax increase of $277 million, the majority of which would be collected from increasing the personal income tax and instituting an automatic withholding system to prevent nonpayment. The two largest increases in the budget were for education–nearly one-third of the budget was allocated for state aid to local school districts–and new highway construction. . . . The New York Times reported a few weeks before that Rockefeller’s popularity after the November election had persuaded many Republicans that they would have to support “enlargements of social welfare and civil rights programs that they rejected when recommended by a Democratic Governor. . . .

Democrats in the legislature joined by union leaders complained that Rockefeller’s fiscal program would disproportionately harm the poor. Meanwhile, Republicans were less vocal but no more satisfied. The displeasure with the budget was indeed nonpartisan. New Yorkers expressed heavy opposition to Rockefeller’s proposed budget and tax increase. . . . the New York Times praised the governor for his calls for fiscal responsibility. The Wall Street Journal printed an editorial that gave Rockefeller credit for insisting that people pay for the services they demanded but questioned the wisdom of increasing taxes and looking for new sources of revenue rather than seeking ways to reduce spending.

During the 1960s, though, Rocky failed to win his party’s presidential nomination. From my reading of Barrett’s book, the key sticking point was not taxes and spending but rather civil rights, where Rockefeller’s liberal positions directly interfered with the party’s plans for attracting white southern voters. Rockefeller and moderate Republicanism were dramatically and decisively rejected in the 1964 Republican convention. Much has been written about the activities of the conservative wing of the party at that time; Barrett focuses on the Republican moderates, who failed even while attempting a strategic retreat from their positions on civil rights.

Barrett continues:

After Rockefeller’s failure to successfully challenge his party in 1964, he decided it was time for a new approach. The Rockefeller who proposed lifetime imprisonment for anyone in possession of an illegal narcotic was still years away, but the Rockefeller of 1966 was willing to manipulate concern about narcotics addiction and crime as political capital to ensure his third-term victory. As a result, the 1966 gubernatorial campaign represents a pivotal moment in Rockefeller’s career that makes it possible to understand how the twentieth century’s most iconic moderate Republican, the Rockefeller Republican, could also be the progenitor of the 1970s’ most shockingly punitive drug laws, a legislative version of a blunt-force weapon that Rockefeller knew from the outset would disproportionately affect African Americans.

Sure. But, speaking more generally, by the late 1960s and early 1970s, it made sense for Rockefeller to espouse more conservative positions. From one perspective, this can be seen as an abandonment of principles and a desperate move to stay relevant in national politics. But much of the country was moving away from Rockefeller on key issues. The Cold War consensus died in Vietnam, the civil rights issue transformed into the crime issue, and the government started to run out of money to pay the bills, first in New York and then in the country as a whole. As Barrett notes, some other prominent northeastern Republican moderates did not move to the right, and Rockefeller’s conservative stances did not seem to have helped him politically—but I can see his motivations, both in state and national politics and policy.

Overall I found Barrett to offer a balanced take, avoiding the common problem in a biography of treating the subject as a hero or a villain. She places Rockefeller in a tradition from 1877 onward of the Republican party being unable to come to terms with civil rights and racial equality, which I guess is the flip side of the Democrats’ difficulties keeping together the New Deal coalition after the end of the second world war. I wrote about these issues (but without resolving them) in my 2014 article, The twentieth-century reversal: How did the Republican states switch to the Democrats and vice versa?.

From the perspective of 2024, Nelson Rockefeller—both the person and his political movement—are largely forgotten. One reason for reading a political biography of this man is to get some insight into modern politics: not just the disappearance of moderates within the Republican party, but more generally the gridlock-level of political polarization among politicians and voters.

“Nelson Rockefeller’s Dilemma” speaks to these issues. The details of what Rockefeller tried, what worked and what didn’t, in his continuing efforts to balance state and national politics, resonate with latter-day political moderates.

At the same time, let’s not forget that Rockefeller was not the only prominent moderate politician of his era. Far from it. In addition to various moderate local officeholders of both parties, there are the prominent examples of Dwight Eisenhower and John Kennedy. Given those examples, it seems understandable that Rockefeller thought he could do it too. But he was caught in the changes that led to the polarization we see today.

What lessons, then, can be drawn for aspiring politically moderate politicians? Can the future Nelson Rockefellers learn from the successes and failures of their forebear?

I have a few thoughts.

First, political moderation is in large part the product of the political environment. Richard Nixon was not moderate in his rhetoric or, it seems, his personal views, but, confronted with a politically-divided supreme court and two houses of congress dominated by Democrats, he had little choice but to govern as a moderate. Jimmy Carter came into office as a moderate, and he enacted notable moderate economic and foreign policies, but his legacy was swallowed up into partisan competition.

From the other direction, Donald Trump in 2016 seemed like an ideal vehicle for moderate policies—he had previous connections with both parties, he did not seem to have strong political convictions, and indeed one of his political strengths was that his immoderate rhetoric seemed to give him breathing room to take positions (for example, on protecting Social Security) that other prominent Republicans could not. Once elected president, though, Trump was beholden to Republicans in congress and pushed hardline positions on issues ranging from taxes to abortion.

A related, but slightly different, issue, is that political moderation today seems much more about partisanship than issues. Mitt Romney’s reputation for moderation in large part comes from his refusal to support Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election. To put it another way: In either party, a politician with national aspiration has to start from a position of party loyalty, in a way that was not so necessary before the 1900s.

Finally, the pattern of rich guys running for political office–that doesn’t seem to be going away any time soon. There are more super-rich Americans than ever before, and it stands to reason that some of them will tire of spending their money on politicians instead decide to go for it themselves.