Because he founded the Museum of Primitive Art? I think dubious art patronage would be trumped by excessive drug laws named after you. ^^^^^
CB: That's part of it "creation of the New York State Council on the Arts. "
Hey nowadays everybody points out that Nixon was a flaming liberal on today's terms.
You know "liberal" still meant pro-capitalism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Rockefeller
A Republican, he is often referred to as a moderate, begetting the designation Rockefeller Republican for Republicans with similarly moderate to liberal views. As Governor of New York from 1959 to 1973 his achievements included the expansion of the State University of New York, efforts to protect the environment, the building of the Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza in Albany, increased facilities and personnel for medical care, and creation of the New York State Council on the Arts. After unsuccessfully seeking the Republican presidential nomination in 1960, 1964, and 1968, he served as Vice President from 1974 to 1977 under President Gerald R. Ford, but did not join the 1976 GOP national ticket with President Ford, marking his retirement from politics.
(Here's some pro-union stuff)
Rockefeller worked with the legislature and unions to create generous pension programs for many public workers, such as teachers, professors, firefighters, police officers, and prison guards. He proposed the first statewide minimum wage law in the US which was increased five times during his administration. Additional accomplishments of Rockefeller’s fifteen years as Governor of New York include initiating the state lottery and off-track betting; adopting modern treatment techniques in state mental hospitals to reduce the number of mentally ill patients by over 50%; creating the State Office of the Aging and constructing nearly 12,000 units of housing for the aging; the first mandatory seatbelt law in the US; and creating the State Consumer Protection Board.[36]
^^^^^ CB: Sounds pretty liberal to me.
^^^^
Moderate Republican” Main article: Rockefeller Republican Reflecting his interdisciplinary approach to problem solving Rockefeller took a pragmatic approach to governing. In their book Rockefeller of New York: Executive Power in the State House, Robert Connery and Gerald Benjamin state, “Rockefeller was not committed to any ideology. Rather, he considered himself a practical problem solver, much more interested in defining problems and finding solutions around which he could unite support sufficient to ensure their enactment in legislation than in following either a strictly liberal or strictly conservative course. Rockefeller’s programs did not consistently follow either liberal or conservative ideology.” Early fiscal policies were conservative while later ones were not so. In the later years of his administration “conservative decisions on social programs were paralleled by liberal ones on environmental issues.”[37] Rockefeller was opposed by conservatives in the GOP such as Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan who viewed him as liberal. As governor, Rockefeller spent more than his predecessors.[38] Rockefeller expanded the state's infrastructure, increased spending on education including a massive expansion of the State University of New York, and increased the state’s involvement in environmental issues. Rockefeller had good relations with unions, especially the construction trades, which benefited from his extensive building programs. In foreign affairs, Rockefeller supported US involvement in the United Nations as well as US foreign aid. He also supported the U.S.'s fight against communism and its membership in NATO. As a result of Rockefeller's policies, some conservatives sought to gain leverage by creating the Conservative Party of New York. The small party acted as a minor counter-weight to the Liberal Party of New York State.[39] The most common criticism of Rockefeller’s governorship of New York is that he tried to do too much too fast, vastly increasing the level of state debt which later contributed to New York’s fiscal crisis in 1975.[40] Rockefeller created some 230 public-benefit authorities like the Urban Development Corporation. They were often used to issue bonds in order to avoid the requirement of a vote of the people for the issuance of a bond; such authority-issued bonds bore higher interest than if they had been issued directly by the state. The state budget went from $2.04 billion in 1959-60 to $8.8 billion in his last year, 1973-74. “Rockefeller sought and obtained eight tax increases during his fifteen years in office.”[41] “During his administration, the tax burden rose to a higher level than in any other state, and the incidence of taxation shifted, with a greater share being borne by the individual taxpayer.” [42]