Ultimate President PollFollow

I doubt Kennedy would ride in convertables the second time around.

Maybe they were thinking Mallard Fillmore

Honestly, who else do the conservatives have to vote for? Reagan is their only real hero.

*cough*Lincoln*cough*

Or... Teddy Roosevelt?

Or... Jefferson?

I find the notion of FDR as a Republican pretty ridiculous...how did you come to that conclusion?
(Voted FDR, by the way.)

The Democratic Party is often called "the party of Jefferson," while the modern Republican Party is often called "the party of Lincoln." The modern party system with a liberal, economically populist Democratic Party and a conservative, supply side-oriented Republican Party did not arise until the early twentieth century, when the Republican Party divided into a conservative wing and a progressive or Bull Moose wing, which coalesced with the Democrats in the New Deal.

The Democratic-Republican party split into various factions during the 1824 election, based more on personality than on ideology. When the election was thrown to the House of Representatives, House Speaker Henry Clay backed Secretary of State John Quincy Adams to deny the presidency to Senator Andrew Jackson, a longtime personal rival and a hero of the War of 1812. Jackson's political views were unknown at the time. At first, the various factions continued to view themselves as Republicans. Jackson's supporters were called "Jackson Men," while Adams supporters were called "Adams Men."

The Jacksonians held their first national convention as the "Republican Party" in 1832.[41] By the mid-1830s, they referred to themselves as the "Democratic Party," although they also continued to use the name "Democratic Republicans" and the name was not officially changed until 1844.[42]

Many politicians of the Democratic Party have emphasized their party's lineage to Jefferson and the Democratic-Republican Party. Martin Van Buren wrote in his Inquiry Into the Origin and Course of Political Parties in the United States that the party's name had changed from Republican to Democratic and that Jefferson was the founder of the party.[43] Thomas Jefferson Randolph, the eldest grandson of Jefferson, gave a speech at the 1872 Democratic National Convention and said that he had spent eighty years of his life in the Democratic-Republican Party.[44]

The Adams/Clay alliance became the basis of the National Republican Party, a rival to the Jacksonian party. This party favored a higher tariff to protect U.S. manufacturers, as well as public works, especially roads. Former members of the defunct Federalist Party (including Daniel Webster) joined the party. After Clay's defeat by Jackson in the 1832 presidential election, the National Republicans were absorbed into the Whig Party, a diverse group of Jackson opponents. Taking a leaf from the Jacksonians, the Whigs tended to nominate non-ideological war heroes as their presidential candidates.

The modern Republican Party was founded in 1854 as an anti-slavery party. Most northern Whigs soon defected to the new party. The name was chosen to harken back to Jeffersonian ideals of liberty and equality, ideals that Abraham Lincoln and many members of the new party sought to revive together with Clay's program of using an active government to modernize the economy.[45]

In 1991 the United States Senate passed by voice vote "A bill to establish a commission to commemorate the bicentennial of the establishment of the Democratic Party of the United States." It was introduced by Democratic Senator Terry Sanford and cosponsored by 56 Senators.[46]