GOP 'Moderates': Lost in a Sea of Contradictions

It has been said that one sign of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

There are, of course, alternative explanations for such behavior. One can simply be "in denial." That would probably best describe Republican "moderates." How else to evaluate their call for a change in strategy in spite of the winning conservative formula that has energized the GOP to repeated victories in recent years?

On the heels of decisive Republican victories in the 2002 and 2004 elections, "moderates" in the party are trying to sell the idea that appealing to the party's base is a losing strategy.

Christine Todd Whitman (New Jersey governor, 1994-2001, and EPA administrator, 2001-2003) dislikes "the harsh rhetoric" of "wedge issues" (read abortion, an issue with which she appears to be obsessed) and calls on Republicans to rally around the economic issues on which they agree.

The only problem with that is she is just as critical of economic conservatives. Whitman condemns the Club for Growth, for example, for supporting Republican primary challengers who espouse lower taxes and smaller government (the "economic" issues). She argues, in effect, that an incumbent GOP officeholder who deserts sound economic policy has a lifelong right to avoid any primary opposition.

This is but one of many contradictions in Whitman's new book, "It's My Party Too."

She berates Congressman Pat Toomey's primary race last year against Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter (widely distrusted by mainstream conservatives) as "expensive, divisive, and ugly."

Just two pages prior to that, Whitman's call to political arms lectures, "It's time for Republican centrists to become radical moderates – people ready to fight for what they believe, even if it makes some waves in the party." Nothing "expensive, divisive, and ugly" about that envisioned intra-party gut-fighting, right?

Governor Whitman warns that one need not have "a political science Ph.D. to know that voters do not support candidates – or political parties – that ignore them." Apparently she senses no irony in writing an entire book dedicated to the proposition that the GOP should – posthaste – ignore the millions of social issues conservatives (she calls them "social fundamentalists") who have made the difference in Republican success.

The estimated 2 million evangelicals who failed to show up at the polls in 2000 but came out and voted for George W. Bush in 2004 would count for nothing under a doctrine of how to win elections by essentially telling whole groups of voters to get lost. The same would presumably apply to conservative Catholics, who turned out in greater numbers for the president this time.

"Red state" voters who turned out in droves for the president? Given that conservative issues were a factor there, they apparently would amount to nothing where this author is concerned. She rails against the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment (against gay marriage), apparently unmoved by the sentiments expressed by the millions of voters in 11 states who voted against same-sex marriage. She will grant states that right, but doesn't address the concern that activist judges may strike down the state laws. That is what drives the effort for a constitutional amendment.

Speaking of which: At one time, when it was pointed out to Governor Whitman that many voters do have strong religious objections to abortion, she replied that her own religion has no problem with it. That prompted one New Jersey political operative to interpret the remark as code language for saying "If you're Catholic and pro-life, you're not welcome in my party."

Governor Whitman bemoans what she sees as "an [anti-]abortion litmus test on Republican candidates," but has no qualms about imposing a pro-abortion litmus test of her own in saying no judge should be appointed to the courts who is not dedicated to retaining Roe v. Wade.

On one single page, there are the following statements: "I don't know anyone who is pro-abortion." "I consider myself to be pro-life." "Most Americans see this just the way I do; they're neither pro-abortion nor anti-choice, but are somewhere in the middle." And if you don't think that favoring partial-birth abortion and wanting to allow minors to have abortions without informing their parents are "somewhere in the middle," you just don't understand Whitmanspeak.

Whitman argues for "thinking racially" when seeking the black vote. She seems to believe that entails some kind of unwritten quota system for involving blacks in the political process. That would imply conceding the oft-repeated charge by the Democrats that failure to attract more black people to the ranks of Republican elected officials somehow stems from a deliberate "benign neglect" (or worse) on the part of the GOP.

Again, we run into another of the many mixed signals in this book. She writes of a dinner she hosted at the governor's residence with about a dozen black entrepreneurs and business leaders.

"Throughout the evening," Whitman writes, not a single person mentioned any of the so-called racial issues. "What they wanted to discuss were economic issues – tax policy, trade opportunities, and access to capital." They didn't "think racially."

Exactly! Why, then, despite her own experience at the dinner, does she miss the point elsewhere in the book that black people have the same hopes and aspirations that everyone else has?

During the Republican National Convention in New York last summer, Washington, D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams, who is black, showed up at a reception of Black America's Political Action Committee (BAMPAC). In a brief interview, Williams – a Democrat – told me that, as more African-Americans move more into the entrepreneurial sector, the black vote will move more toward the GOP. It may not happen tomorrow, he said, but it will happen.

There are already signs of that trend. Writing in the Washington Times, BAMPAC President Alvin Williams notes that though the roughly 2.5 percent increase in black support for Republicans between 2000 and 2004 was small, Mr. Bush did even better in several key states, including Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania, two of which he carried.

Not only was the president's concept of "the ownership society" a key factor, says Williams (thus verifying the attitude Whitman found at her dinner with black business people), but issues of "family and faith" also resonated. He went on to say these included opposition to same-sex marriage, opposition to partial-birth abortions, opposition to federal funding for abortions, and support for stricter parental notification. (Governor Whitman, does that make these black voters "social fundamentalists"")

Watch Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, a Republican. He may someday be our first black president – if Condoleezza Rice doesn't beat him to it.

Governor Whitman accuses the Bush administration of the appearance of an "effort to withdraw from the world," which largely reflects her dispute with the president over his rejection of the job-killing so-called "global warming" Kyoto Treaty. She clearly leaves the impression in her book that she favors the treaty, but she said in a radio interview that she did not and that her only problem with President Bush was inattention to "global warming." That leaves you to figure out where she would draw the line.

If implemented, the Kyoto agreement would throw well over a million Americans out of work. GOP failure to remember that these people and their families also vote would remind blue collar Reagan Democrats why they are still Democrats.

Governor Whitman believes that today's Republican leadership is driven by those who have "a narrow ideological agenda." But she sees nothing "narrow" or "ideological" in being so fixated with a single issue – abortion – that a Republican governor would stack the state Supreme Court with activists who hand down "divisive" decisions, at least one of which advances the career of a liberal Democrat. (See previous article, The Record of 'Moderate' Republicans).

Christine Whitman laments that "women are under-represented in political office today." We'll bypass the implied assumption that women can be represented in public office only by other women (or conversely, that men can be represented in public office only by other men). But 10 pages later, she notes that in her own administration, the women who served as her chief of staff "were considerably older than the men who had served in that position, reflecting that they had spent their earlier years raising families."

Why, then, is it so hard for her to understand that pregnancy and child rearing may have something to do with the fact that there are not more women in public office or with her complaint that there are more Democrat women in Congress than Republican women? Could it be that stay-at-home moms tend to be Republican? In 2004, President Bush carried the vote of married women (many of them full-time mothers), whereas single women pulled the lever for Kerry. Why does Governor Whitman overlook the obvious here?

While Whitman condemns nearly every well-known GOP conservative going back to Taft and Goldwater, she gives Ronald Reagan a pass.

Why? Ronald Reagan was arguably the most conservative president since Calvin Coolidge. In fact, Coolidge's portrait was prominently displayed in the White House during Reagan's presidency.

Could Whitman's view of this decidedly conservative president be rooted in the fact that Ronald Reagan carried New Jersey in 1980 and 1984 by comfortable margins? You could say he carried that blue state a third time in 1988 when New Jerseyans gave their electoral votes to his vice president, George Herbert Walker Bush, in what was widely seen as a referendum on the Reagan era.

Perhaps as Whitman was writing her book, she saw the weeklong outpouring of love and affection the American people displayed for Ronald Reagan after he died in June. She may have then decided she would not go against that overwhelming sentiment.

Whitman praises former Democratic Senator Zell Miller of Georgia. She sees herself as his GOP counterpart, as Miller urges the Democratic Party to moderate its strident leftist positions.

If you are confused by that analogy, it is probably because Miller, during his four years in the Senate, moved considerably to Whitman's right on many positions, including abortion, same-sex marriage and George Bush's tough position on foreign policy. It is extremely doubtful that Whitman – who attended the 2004 Republican National Convention – could ever have delivered the same take-no-prisoners keynote address that the Georgian did.

Not everything in Whitman's book is a contradiction. Some of her statements are just plain wrong.

For example, she blames Republican conservatives for George H.W. Bush's defeat for re-election in 1992.

What? Really? What planet was she on that year? The first President Bush lost his bid for a second term because he raised taxes in the teeth of a recession (thus violating the most high-profile campaign promise in modern times: "Read my lips: No new taxes.")

The elder Bush in '92 also ran what some have dubbed the worst presidential campaign in history. Bill Clinton and the Democrats were pounding him day after day, while he sat in the White House and refused to put up a fight. It got so bad that one of his Cabinet members, Bill Bennett, suggested the then-president have a conversation with himself as to why he wanted a second term. My copy of the dictionary makes a clear distinction between "moderate" and "listless."

Is it "moderate," for example, to campaign for governor in favor of vouchers and school choice only to "fold like a cheap camera" (according to a school-choice advocate in her state) once in office because of pressure from the dominant teachers union? In the words of her own representative in the state Legislature, Whitman had "an extreme case of amnesia" on the issue.

Is it "moderate" for a governor to fire the chairman of the New Jersey Solid Waste Advisory Council because he advocates a free market for solid waste disposal, as opposed to the vastly more expensive patronage of publicly owned disposal facilities?

In a recent interview with radio talk show host Sean Hannity, Whitman refused several times to name a single "social fundamentalist," though she uses that term throughout her book. Overall, she sounded more reasonable than she does in her book. Having done radio interviews with her myself, I can say that she is a skilled politician, good at dodging the tough questions.

But the book is her story as she tells it. If her own words in black and white don't mean what they appear to mean, then we must ask whether failure to say what you mean and mean what you say is "moderate."

If her own words in black and white don't mean what they appear to mean, then we must ask whether failure to say what you mean and mean what you say is "moderate."

Whitman was rewarded by Bush with a high-ranking post, and this is how she repays it. She, Specter and the rest of the RINO's should be shown the door as far as I'm concerned.

RINO's are an annoyance, but they serve one purpose. They win elections in liberal districts which would otherwise elect even worse 'Rats. So I'm willing to tolerate them, as long as they don't wield too much power.

Watch Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, a Republican. He may someday be our first black president

As an Ohioan, I agree. And Blackwell is a conservative....a real, anti-tax conservative.

I think the first black president will be Condi Rice. If it's not Rice, I think the 'Rats will continue to promote Barack Obama as a "centrist" and have him run as VP with Hitlery and then run for president at a later date.

Moderates, by nature, are contradictory: mostly, they just don't know what they believe in or hold the positions they do.

It wasn't the moderates who elected, then re-elected, George W. Bush. Nor did they elect a GOP Congress. They are irrelevant in the Republican Party. Kick 'em to the curb!

I agree that we have to accept a few RINOs. For instance, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe may be the best we can do in Maine. My problem is with the truly treasonous RINOs, like Lincoln Chaffee, and with their habit of trying to spread their influence where they're not wanted or needed.

Why on earth did we get Specter again, when Pennsylvania will just as easily elect a good conservative? It elected Rick Santorum, after all, although he may have damaged himself by agreeing to back Specter. Why didn't the RNC support Bill Simon when he had a shot at the governorship, which he lost by only a small margin even though he got no funding? What about Brett Schundler?

In other words, RINOs have a place in the cracks and crevices of the party, but we don't need them coming along with their big tent and trying to impose it nation-wide. That is a losing game, and it really infuriates the base.

As much as I hate to say it, and I know this is not a popular view here, but I think that within the next 25 to 50 years the GOP will be the liberal party in this country. Ideologically, we are basically where the Democrats were in the 50's and early 60's (JFK, Scoop Jackson, etc.), and we are moving toward the left. There has not been one major proposal made by a GOP senator or congressman since Reagan that proposed shrinking the size of government (hopefully, Social Security reform and the fair tax will change that).

I think in the coming decades, the 'Rats will join the Greens, and become an insignificant ultra-leftist fringe group and the GOP will be centrist to liberal.

People like us will go in two directions. Some of us will become Libertarians and many more will be part of an emerging strict-constructionist Conservative party.

I forsee a similar future. I think the Democrat party is effectively dead already. I don't see any way they adopt any sort of sensible politics without alienating large parts of their already-fractious coalition. I don't see any way to reconcile the anti-war cowards with Zell Miller Democrats (or even Joe Lieberman Democrats); I don't see any way to reconcile religious blacks with the militant homosexual agenda. The Democrat party is doomed, their time is clearly past with all their major policies proven failures.

Which leaves the GOP sitting pretty for a while. Naturally it will continue to move left, as being in control of the government provides the GOP with an incentive to increase the power of the government. The Libertarians won't be the alternatve that arises; they're too filled with kooks, crazies, implacable idealists, and nihilists. Some form of Constitutional constructionists or taxpayers' party seems to be the most likely to arise as a second national party.

It wasn't the moderates who elected, then re-elected, George W. Bush. Nor did they elect a GOP Congress. They are irrelevant in the Republican Party. Kick 'em to the curb!

Actually, it was. It was "conservatives" who sat home in 2000 and, according to Michael Barone, voted in the same numbers in 2004.

I attended a GOP banquet at our state party "convention" this past weekend at which Christine Todd Whitman was the featured speaker. The RINOs in charge of the state party in KS knew they were on the way out (conservatives took back the party:^) so when they were planning the banquet, they scheduled HER just to get to us! The only reason we decided to suffer through her speech was that our excellent, conservative Congressman asked us to be guests at his table. She droned on in a monotone about uniting around our core (her analogy was spinal bones) of common values. But it always seems to be THEIR core of values and not OURS that they want to unite around!

At least the food was good.

There has been a conservative and a liberal wing of the Republican Party since the 1870's. It has always been a struggle for control by the opposing forces. If you read the history of the Republican Party it's interesting to see that, for the most part, we were in the majority and wielded the power when controlled by the conservative wing. When the party was controlled by the liberal wing we never were able to gain majority status. If we don't learn from this we are doomed to repeat our past failures.

Bush has been stronger on social conservative issues than fiscal conservative issues, I grant you.

What I have particularly noticed, in line with what you say, is that segments of society that used to be conservative are now liberal. I think especially of the privileged classes and old money families of the two coasts. People with ancestors who came over on the Mayflower, people who used to run the country.

The families who sent their kids to prep school when I was a boy were almost all conservative, and so were most of the older families, although I knew a few flaming liberals even back then (I'd better not name them). But now, almost all the old blood and old money came out for kerry in the last election. The people who supported Bush were just ordinary folks without those elitist pretentions.

In a way, that's hopeful. The Republicans used to be the party of the rich and powerful, the country clubbers, and the Democrats still pretend that about them in their propaganda, but it's no longer true. The Democrats are now the party of privilege, with their welfare dependent servants; the Republicans are increasingly the party of ordinary people who raise families and work for a living.

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