How was ENRON related to the Republican party?
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There aren't any ties any more because Enron no longer exists (it sold its last assets in September).  When it did exist, it had several significant connections to the Republican Party:\n\n1)  In the late 1980s, they worked on some joint ventures with George W. Bush's company, Spectrum 7, which led to some close personal relationships between Bush and some key leaders at Enron.\n2)  Kenneth Lay, Enron's CEO, was an undersecretary in the Department of Interior in the Nixon administration.\n3)  Lay was a major contributor to the Presidential campaign of George W. Bush, and was considered for the position of Treasury Secretary.\n4)  Enron donated approximately $6M to Republican candidates between 1990 and its demise.
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Here's a detailed review of Imposter discussing what it means to be conservative and where Bush and the Republican party fit in. It mostly focuses on economics because that's what Bartlett focuses on. The book makes an important distinction between being pro-business (Bush) and pro-free-market (actual conservatives):\n\nhttp://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2006/0603.drum.html
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Because of Republicans
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It wasn't that they sat out, but that they were fed up with the lack of success and results.  Additionally, the Republican party they once believed in has morphed to some moderate mish mash.  It was more about wanting to see SOMETHING done, instead of what that something is.
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The Republican party is known as the GOP. According to the Oxford English Dictionary the first known reference to the Republican party as the "grand old party" came in 1876. The first use of the abbreviation G.O.P. is dated 1884
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Republicans ironically have an aristocratic reputation. They have a major stake in keeping themselves wealthy by keeping the poor destitute. They resent upward mobility. They also have the reputation of acting like robber barons and raiding the pension funds of working class families. Enron, Worldcom, and other massive accounting frauds were perpetrated by people who belong to the Republican party.\n\nDemocrats are socialists. They go to great lengths to level the playing field. Often the lengths go a bit too far, to the point of reverse-discrimination. They don't believe in doing the greatest good for the most people. They believe in doing the greatest good for the smallest social special interest. The more outrageous the special interest the more dearly they hold onto it.\n\nThis is why I'm an Independent. You know the group that attracts ALL the really strange weirdos.
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The term Grand Old Party is a traditional nickname for the Republican Party, and the acronym G.O.P. is a commonly used designation, despite the Democratic Party having been around longer by 25 years or so. According to the Oxford English Dictionary the first known reference to the Republican Party as the "grand old party" came in 1876. The first use of the abbreviation G.O.P. is dated 1884.\n\nThe mascot symbol, historically, is the elephant. A political cartoon by Thomas Nast, published in Harper's Weekly on 7 November 1874, is considered the first important use of the symbol.[17] In the early 20th century, the usual symbol of the Republican Party in Midwestern states such as Indiana and Ohio was the eagle, as opposed to the Democratic donkey. This symbol still appears on Indiana ballots.
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Bush and his running mate are for keeping the money in there small circle of the wealthy.(Big business and corporations.)The middle to low income makeing republicans foolishly believe the money will flow downhill!Bushonomics (the rich get richer and the poor,well, they just stay poor.
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In current times(this century), the Republican party believes that unrestrained capitalism can be relied upon to find the best and most efficient solution to the needs of the nation. This is evidenced in the relaxing of environmental controls, oversight of food & drugs, lax business regulations, a shifting of taxes from corporations to people.\nThe Democratic party believes that unrestrained capitalism has been guilty of great abuses in the past and it is the role of government to regulate and control the powerful on behalf of the American citizens, including financial safety nets for the weak and helpless so that this  rich nation does not have the scourge of poverty.
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It is Grand Old Party, as said previously, but many people seem to be making up how that came about.\nIn the 1870s the Republican Party re invented itself and tried to tie itself in with the original Republican party of 1793 (the party of Jefferson) by calling itself "grand old"
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Enron management thought it was an art. They were right to some extent but be careful. There is no clear answer to this good question except that it is both.
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The environment doesnt have a direct effect on our wallets.  Most Americans are more concerned with economic relief and beaing able to provide for there families than a spotted owl.  It also important to note that the Republican party is concerned with the environment.  We are pushing for more energy efficent fuel and cars that dont run on fossel fuels at all.  However we dont sacrafice families to that cause.
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In the years of the Watergage scandal, Rove's career as a big-time political handler began with a motley crew of friends and associates. He was chairman of the College \n1973.. Texas...via the Republican party\n\nRepublicans when George Herbert Walker Bush was chairman of the state Republican Party in 1973. He won the presidency of the College Republicans in a race against Terry Dolan. The late Lee Atwater, who later became famous as the political attack dog for the Reagan-Bush team, managed Rove's campaign. \nLee Atwater lobbied for UNITA. All of which began when Atwater was introduced to George Bush in 1973, by his good friend Karl Rove.\n\nIn 1980, Bush hired Rove to help him run for president.\nBest known for: George W. Bush's chief strategist. Consultant to U.S. Senators Phil
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I love the "unbiased" answers here.  It's a veritable no-spin-zone.\n\nCurrently or historically?  The answers differ considerably.  Historically, Republicans have supported State's rights, low regulations on economic ventures, a strong military, and conservative social initiatives.  \n\nDemocrats have traditionally supported consolidation of political power on the federal level, economic regulation, international diplomacy, and liberal social initiatives.\n\nCurrently, the differences can be determined by looking at their official public agendas.\n\nGOP:\nWinning the war on terror\nUshering in an ownership era\nBuilding an innovative, globally competitive economy\nStrengthening communities\nProtecting families\n\nDemocratic party:\nImproving national security\nImproving international diplomacy\nModernizing the military\nStrengthening the economy \nImproving public education\nProtecting social security\nProviding affordable health care\nEnsuring honesty in government\nReforming the election process\nProtecting the environment\nEnsuring justice and civil liberties\n\nOf course, a brief look at the front page of each party website indicates that thier PRIMARY concerns are in making one another look bad.
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Ever heard of the Republican Party?
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According to the documentary "The Smarted Guys In The Room", Enron took advantage of California's electricity deregulation laws to help make an electricity shortage worse (it intentionally ordered the power plants it owned to falsely report breakdowns and stop producing power) in order to jack up the price of electricity and thereby jack up its profits.  The floor traders at Enron were laughing about how much they were able to charge this way.
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The Republicans' official party platform has consistently been pro-business and pro-investment.  \n\nTheir official position has also always been that taxation has a stultifying effect on business and competition, so they tend to be for cutting taxes whenever possible.  They've also historically been in favor of giving tax breaks to various businesses, on the theory that this will help the overall economy in the long run by making businesses more profitable, and therefore better able to compete and grow.  Investments are taxed at a lower rate than regular income for the folks in the top income tax brackets; this encourages investment, which CAN have the effect of helping rich folks to increase their wealth.  (Poor people barely have enough money to scrape by, so they can't take advantage of long-term capital gains tax breaks.)\n\nWhen it comes to what's known as "human capital," however, it's been the Democrats who have historically been interested in investing in social programs by directly helping people (instead of assuming--as the Republicans tend to do--that a healthy business climate will have a "trickle down" effect that helps out individual people--including the economically-disadvantaged ones--in the long run).  The Democrats have used taxation as a means to attempt to redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor and to directly assist economically-disadvantaged people (they do this by charging wealthy people the highest percentage-of-income on their taxes and charging poor people either very little, nothing at all, or even giving them a sort of income tax rebate [you could call it a "negative tax," since they receive money, instead of having to pay it out]).\n\nBoth sides tend to look upon one another's means of stimulating the economy with contempt.  The Republicans will rail against the fostering of a state of "dependency," as well as a lack of motivation toward self-sufficiency in "the welfare state."  But they don't apply the same principle to giving handouts to businesses--even when businesses seem to return the favor by sending jobs overseas, giving huge bonuses to their executives instead of reinvesting in and growing the business, etc.  \n\n*I* say that "Welfare is welfare, and what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander."  Both sides, I feel, have valid points.  And both sides tend to go about achieving their long-term goals using some very short-sighted methods.  If they'd both stop with the rhetoric and the spin-doctoring and work together on some realistic, long-term  solutions to our problems, we'd probably see some real progress.