If it's a choice between a genuine Republican, and a Republican in Democratic clothing...
"If it's a choice between a genuine Republican, and a Republican in Democratic clothing, the people will choose the genuine article, every time" -- Harry Truman
That quote sits with many liberals. But here is a bit more of Truman's speech where he uttered this famous line. I thought we should all sit on it for a bit. The Democratic Party didn't end up nominating a Liberal. They went with a Moderate with a Segregationist Running Mate and Eisenhower won. But seriously, the more things change...
Excerpts of Harry Truman's Speech to the National Convention Banquet of the Americans for Democratic Action
..Mark Twain said, in an inscription I have always had on my desk, "Always do right. It will please some people, and astonish the rest." Well, that's what we did in 1948. We astonished the pollsters and the sabotage press, and the opposition candidates--Republican, crackpot, and Dixiecrat. The results were good for the country, even though they set back the science of political forecasting for a full generation. I hope it set them back forever...
When I talk about the Republican Party here tonight, I mean the dinosaur wing of the Republican Party-which unfortunately seems to be in control of that party. They are living in 1896 and 1920. They are made up of the Republicans of 1896 and 1920, under William McKinley and Warren G. Harding.
...Under the liberal policies of the Democratic administration, our country has grown strong and prosperous. And this has been true for such a long time now that people tend to forget what things were like under the Republicans. They criticize the mistakes the Democrats make, but they take for granted all the benefits we have brought them. Every 4 years it begins to look as if the people had forgotten what a Republican administration would mean to the country. And the Republicans go around convincing themselves that they cannot possibly lose the presidential election...
You can always count on the Republicans, in an election year, to remind the people of what the Republican Party really stands for. You can always count on them to make it perfectly clear before the campaign is over that the Republican Party is the party of big business, and that they would like to turn the country back to the big corporations and the big bankers in New York to run it as they see fit. They are just not going to do it.
Just leave them alone, and the Republicans will manage to scare the daylights out of the farmer and the wage earner and the average American citizen. They always do that.
I had the best time I ever had in my life going up and down this country, telling the people the truth, and when they found out what the truth was, you know what they did. And I am here to say to you that when a man in politics, if he is a leader. has the right ideas, the people are willing to listen to what he has to say.
...Now, the Republicans in 1948, in that 80th Congress of theirs, they went after organized labor with their Taft-Hartley law. They went after all wage earners by their attacks on the social security program. They went after the farmer by tampering with price supports and by failing to provide grain storage.
This year they are at it again. The Republicans think they have been so successful with their campaign of smears and character assassination that they have the Democrats on the run. And they just can't restrain themselves enough to hide their true colors until after the election. They are too impatient....
<steel issue>
....The main body of the Republican leaders are doing just what they do every election year. They are making it good and plain to the American people that so far as domestic policies are concerned, the Republican Party is the party of reaction and the party of special privilege--just as I proved in 1948, and the people believed me; and they will yet...
<foreign policy>
Now, we can always rely on the Republicans to help us in an election year, but we can't count on them to do the whole job for us. We have got to go out and do some of it ourselves, if we expect to win.
The first rule in my book is that we have to stick by the liberal principles of the Democratic Party. We are not going to get anywhere by trimming or appeasing. And we don't need to try it.
The record the Democratic Party has made in the last 20 years is the greatest political asset any party ever had in the history of the world. We would be foolish to throw it away. There is nothing our enemies would like better and nothing that would do more to help them win an election.
I've seen it happen time after time. When the Democratic candidate allows himself to be put on the defensive and starts apologizing for the New Deal and the fair Deal, and says he really doesn't believe in them, he is sure to lose. The people don't want a phony Democrat. If it's a choice between a genuine Republican, and a Republican in Democratic clothing, the people will choose the genuine article, every time; that is, they will take a Republican before they will a phony Democrat, and I don't want any phony Democratic candidates in this campaign.
But when a Democratic candidate goes out and explains what the New Deal and fair Deal really are--when he stands up like a man and puts the issues before the people--then Democrats can win, even in places where they have never won before. It has been proven time and again.
We are getting a lot of suggestions to the effect that we ought to water down our platform and abandon parts of our program. These, my friends, are Trojan horse suggestions. I have been in politics for over 30 years, and I know what I am talking about, and I believe I know something about the business. One thing I am sure of: never, never throw away a winning program. This is so elementary that I suspect the people handing out this advice are not really well-wishers of the Democratic Party.
More than that, I don't believe they have the best interests of the American people at heart. There is something more important involved in our program than simply the success of a political party.
The rights and the welfare of millions of Americans are involved in the pledges made in the Democratic platform of 1948 and in the program of this administration. And those rights and interests must not be betrayed.
<offshore drilling and mineral rights>
If we back down on our determination to hold these rights for all the people, we will act to rob them of this great national asset. That is just what the oil lobby wants. They want us to turn the vast treasure over to a handful of States, where the powerful private oil interests hope to exploit it to suit themselves.
Talk about corruption. Talk about stealing from the people. That would be robbery in broad daylight--on a colossal scale. It would make Teapot Dome look like small change.
There's another matter I don't intend to back down on. That is our party's pledge to develop the vast natural power resources of this country for the benefit of all the people, and make sure that the power produced by public funds is transmitted to the consumer without a private rake-off. How could we back down on a pledge like that? When we look around us at the great good that has been done by the TVA and the Grand Coulee and the Southwest Power Administration--when we see what projects like these have done to improve the lives and increase the prosperity of our people-how could we possibly justify weakening our policy? We just can't do it.
I don't care how much money the power lobby puts into this campaign against us. I don't care what lies and smears they put out. There is a principle here which goes to the welfare of the country. And we are going to stick to it. We are going to win on it.
There is another thing we must stand firm on. That is our pledge on the issue of civil rights. No citizen of this great country ought to be discriminated against because of his race, religion, or national origin. That is the essence of the American ideal and the American Constitution. I made that statement verbatim in the speech on March 29th, in which I said I would not run for President, and I hope that speech, and this, will be the fundamental basis of the platform of the Democratic Party in Chicago.
We must go ahead to secure for all our citizens--east, west, north, and south--the right of equal opportunity in our economic and political life, and the right to equal protection under the law. That is real, true, 100 percent Americanism.
The vision of equal rights is the greatest inspiration of human beings throughout the world. There is one member of this ADA who can tell us from her own experience how important it is for the world to know that we share this vision. She has been our spokesman on this subject in the councils of the United Nations and she has done a wonderful job--and that is Mrs. Roosevelt.
Another part of our fight that is extremely important--that is, to protect the civil liberties of Americans. Your national chairman, Francis Biddle, has pointed out the terrible dangers that lie in wait for us if we surrender to the clamor of McCarthyism, and adopt the practice of guilt by accusation. We cannot, we will not, give up nor weaken on this issue either.
We stand for better education, better health, greater opportunities for all. We stand for fair play and decency, for freedom of speech and freedom of the press, and the cherished principle that a man is innocent until he is proved guilty.
Taken together, these principles are the articles of the liberal faith. I am sure that the liberal faith is the political faith of the great majority of Americans. It sometimes happens that circumstances of time and place combine to deny its expression. But the faith is there, and the reactionaries can never hope to have any but temporary advantage in this country.
http://www.trumanlibrary.org/publicpapers/index.php?pid=1296
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Thanks 
