Research
So - I've been playing with a thesis level idea.....that the fight for a clean election in Athens, TN in August of 1946 was the setting for change from republican/representative government for the US to a more socialist form of government. I use socialist in the form of less representative and more in the nature of the state deciding what's important and the popular voice being; if not supressed, at the very least, it's ignored. Athens has turned out to be something of a Pyhrric victory for good government - and the reason for that, I think, was the New York Times editorial which decried the use of violence in order to take back government into the hands of the people and not the machines. That's the idea...but what I'm unable to find is examples of Republican machines. Democratics machines - well, they go back to 1793 and Tammany Hall - but I can't find Republican examples. Maybe my google-fu is weak - but does anyone know of such machines? I'm really hoping there are examples - good ones, to match the Pendergast machine in Kansas, or New York City's Tammany Hall or Daly's machine in Chicago. Given my own conservative bent - why would I want examples of a Reublican machine....simple - I want to believe that people are essentially the same. I know of indiviually corrupt Republican politicians and officials....but did the Republicans ever formalize it to the extent the Democrats have and still do?