The McFarland Forum: A Battle Within

We Didn’t Have to Lose Arlen Specter

New York Times
By OLYMPIA SNOWE
Published: April 28, 2009

IT is disheartening and disconcerting, at the very least, that here we are today — almost exactly eight years after Senator Jim Jeffords left the Republican Party — witnessing the departure of my good friend and fellow moderate Republican, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, for the Democratic Party.

And the announcement of his switch was all the more painful because I believe it didn’t have to be this way.

When Senator Jeffords became an independent in 2001, I said it was a sad day for the Republicans, but it would be even sadder if we failed to confront and learn from the devaluation of diversity within the party that contributed to his defection. I also noted that we were far from the heady days of 1998, when Republicans were envisioning the possibility of a filibuster-proof 60-vote margin. (Recall that in the 2000 election, most pundits were shocked when Republicans lost five seats, resulting in a 50-50 Senate.)

I could have hardly imagined then that, in 2009, we would fondly reminisce about the time when we were disappointed to fall short of 60 votes in the Senate. Regrettably, we failed to learn the lessons of Jim Jeffords’s defection in 2001. To the contrary, we overreached in interpreting the results of the presidential election of 2004 as a mandate for the party. This resulted in the disastrous elections of 2006 and 2008, which combined for a total loss of 51 Republicans in the House and 13 in the Senate — with a corresponding shift of the Congressional majority and the White House to the Democrats.

It was as though beginning with Senator Jeffords’s decision, Republicans turned a blind eye to the iceberg under the surface, failing to undertake the re-evaluation of our inclusiveness as a party that could have forestalled many of the losses we have suffered.

It is true that being a Republican moderate sometimes feels like being a cast member of “Survivor” — you are presented with multiple challenges, and you often get the distinct feeling that you’re no longer welcome in the tribe. But it is truly a dangerous signal that a Republican senator of nearly three decades no longer felt able to remain in the party.

Senator Specter indicated that his decision was based on the political situation in Pennsylvania, where he faced a tough primary battle. In my view, the political environment that has made it inhospitable for a moderate Republican in Pennsylvania is a microcosm of a deeper, more pervasive problem that places our party in jeopardy nationwide.

I have said that, without question, we cannot prevail as a party without conservatives. But it is equally certain we cannot prevail in the future without moderates.

In that same vein, I am reminded of a briefing by a prominent Republican pollster after the 2004 election. He was asked what voter groups Republicans might be able to win over. He responded: women in general, married women with children, Hispanics, the middle class in general, and independents.
How well have we done as a party with these groups? Unfortunately, the answer is obvious from the results of the last two elections. We should be reaching out to these segments of our population — not de facto ceding them to the opposing party.

There is no plausible scenario under which Republicans can grow into a majority while shrinking our ideological confines and continuing to retract into a regional party. Ideological purity is not the ticket back to the promised land of governing majorities — indeed, it was when we began to emphasize social issues to the detriment of some of our basic tenets as a party that we encountered an electoral backlash.

It is for this reason that we should heed the words of President Ronald Reagan, who urged, “We should emphasize the things that unite us and make these the only ‘litmus test’ of what constitutes a Republican: our belief in restraining government spending, pro-growth policies, tax reduction, sound national defense, and maximum individual liberty.” He continued, “As to the other issues that draw on the deep springs of morality and emotion, let us decide that we can disagree among ourselves as Republicans and tolerate the disagreement.”

I couldn’t agree more. We can’t continue to fold our philosophical tent into an umbrella under which only a select few are worthy to stand. Rather, we should view an expansion of diversity within the party as a triumph that will broaden our appeal. That is the political road map we must follow to victory.

Olympia Snowe is a Republican senator from Maine.

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A Long Term Problem for Republicans

By Sean Trende; Real Clear Politics; April 28th, 2009

President Obama probably didn’t need any more good news to end his first 100 days. Yet he got it anyway, with a hefty assist from the Republican right. Senator Arlen Specter announced that he would join the ranks of the Democrats. This has several important ramifications in the short term. First, it means that Democrats will likely have 60 members once Al Franken is certified as the winner in Minnesota. The importance of this is somewhat overblown, since this doesn’t necessarily mean that Democrats will have 60 votes on all issues, but more on this later. Second, it contributes to the Democrats’ already-hefty momentum, and to the short-term marginalization of the beltway Republicans.

In the long term, the switch is a symptom of a deepening problem for the Republican party. First, it likely moves the center of the Senate further leftward. Some on the Republican party’s right will ignore this, and declare "good riddance" to Specter. After all, he cast the “wrong” vote on the stimulus bill, is pro-choice, and has cast a number of votes that fly in the face of modern conservative orthodoxy.

But as a member of the Republican party, subject to the threat of a primary challenge, conservatives had at least some leverage over Specter. Hence the flip on EFCA, hence the "no" vote on Obama's budget, hence the effort to shepherd numerous Bush appointees through the judiciary committee. Specter has cast a laundry list of votes that are anathema to Democrats. Perhaps some of those votes were cast as a matter of conscience, and Specter will not backtrack. But some likely were not.

With Specter’s party switch, any leverage from the right on these votes is gone. The pressure on Specter will now be from the opposite direction, as his new conference-mates work to secure his vote for Democratic legislation. And on one of the most important votes of each Congress – the vote to organize the Senate – he will certainly be voting for Harry Reid instead of Mitch McConnell. This pressure will almost certainly lead to a change on at least some of his votes.
Take the case of former Vermont Senator Jim Jeffords. As a Republican, Jeffords had a voting record on the left fringe of the Republican party, but to the right of every Democrat save Zell Miller. As an Independent he was on the far left of the Democratic Party. A man without a political home, he eventually retired. Vermonters then elected a Socialist to the seat.

Senator Jeffords was far from a perfect Republican by any measure, but many (apparently not all) Republicans would have preferred the voting record of “Republican Jeffords” to “Independent Jeffords” or “Bernie Sanders.” All recent party switchers – Michael Forbes, Rodney Alexander, Ben Nighthorse Campbell, Richard Shelby, Billy Tauzin, Greg Laughlin, Jimmy Hayes, Nathan Deal, Mike Parker – showed some pretty substantial movement in their Poole-Rosenthal NOMINATE scores toward the fringe of their new party after they switched parties. Republicans may rejoice in the short term at losing an occasional thorn in their side. But the long term reality is that the prospects for the passage of Obama's agenda have just been enhanced.

Finally, the attacks from the party’s right flank against members who position themselves in the center of the party will continue to erode the Republican party’s chances of regaining a majority. Pretty much every analyst agrees that Specter’s switch was brought about because polling showed that he could not win his primary battle against Club For Growth-supported Pat Toomey (this in turn was a symptom of the massive defection of Pennsylvania moderates from the Republicans to the Democrats).

In effect, Specter's chances of being re-elected as a Republican were close to nil; Specter’s choice was the rational one for a politician interested in re-election. There is no guarantee that Specter will survive a Democratic primary (in which case the center of the Senate will shift even farther leftward when the eventual Democratic nominee trounces Toomey), but at least he has a chance among the Democrats.

Specter’s pending defeat in the Republican primary in a state that leans leftward cannot be viewed in isolation. It is part of a recent pattern of well-funded kamikaze runs against moderate Republicans, even in states or districts where no conservative could win a two-way race against a Democrat. It comes on the heels of a nearly-successful primary challenge to Senator Lincoln Chafee in Rhode Island (Obama +28), a successful primary challenge to Rep. Joe Schwartz in MI-07 (Obama +5), and the derailment of moderate Republican Heather Wilson’s primary bid for the New Mexico Senate seat held by retiring Senator Pete Domenici (Obama +15).

If the Club for Growth’s track record on primary challenges had been one of defeating moderate members of the Republican caucus and successfully replacing them with conservative members, this might make sense from the right’s perspective. But the results have been the opposite. The Club weakened Lincoln Chafee with its primary challenge (he led Sheldon Whitehouse by double digits before the primary got under way); the end result was the replacement of a Senator who voted with the GOP about half of the time with the sixth most liberal Senator in the country. The successful charge against moderate Joe Schwartz has yielded a Democrat. The Club even managed to support a member who was too conservative to hold to the 27th most conservative district in the country (if that isn’t enough, in MD-01 they replaced moderate Wayne Gilchrist – lifetime ACU score 57 – with a candidate who could not carry a district John McCain was winning by 19 points)!
This strategy might make sense in a solidly right-of-center country.

But the bottom line is that the action in American politics is generally between the 45-yard lines. Only 34% of the electorate considers itself conservative, which means that to form a majority, conservatives must convince about a third of the 44% of voters who consider themselves moderate to join an electoral coalition with them.

But ploys such as the primary challenge brought against Specter have the opposite effect. You can bet that Senators Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Susan Collins (R-ME), are giving serious thought to where their political futures best lie right now. The vast swaths of independent voters in New England and elsewhere are wondering the same thing. Young centrist voters who are just now forming partisan identities are making similar calculations.

Right now, a substantial portion of the Republican party is demanding that all of their players occupy territory somewhere around their own 10-yard line.

This may make sense in a state like Georgia. In states where a solidly conservative candidate simply cannot win because that state is positioned more around the opposing 40 (or in the case of Rhode Island, at the opposing side’s twenty yard line), it is insane. A party with such a viewpoint cannot form a lasting majority coalition, absent an implosion from the other side. So long as a substantial number of Republicans insist on positioning every member of their party between their own goal line and their own 40, they can't expect too much other than Democratic supermajorities in both houses, and the freight-train like advancement of an agenda they purport to loathe.

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Republicans' Family Feud Goes National
Split Between Conservatives And Moderates Plays Out In GOP Senate Primary Campaigns Across The Country

by John Mercurio

NationalJournal.com
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Updated at 11:15 a.m. on May 13

Want to catch a glimpse of Republicans as they scramble to manage the divisions within their ranks? If so, look no further than their lightning-fast response to Florida Gov. Charlie Crist's announcement Tuesday that he'll run for Senate. Their choreography was coordinated, impressive and revealing. It said as much about Florida as it did about the national landscape.

Indeed, as they endure a protracted internal debate to redefine themselves, Republicans around the country are bracing for a series of potentially brutal Senate primary battles that say more about their national standing than about any individual campaign.

Within six minutes of Crist's early-morning announcement via Twitter, the National Republican Senatorial Committee had endorsed him over former state House Speaker Marco Rubio, an outspoken conservative who has questioned Crist's ideological purity. Less than an hour later, Rep. Vern Buchanan fell in line, declaring he wouldn't run for Senate and would support the governor. By noon, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell had also backed Crist, calling him a "tireless advocate for the citizens of Florida." Message: Unity.

In case Rubio wasn't getting the hint, retiring Sen. Mel Martinez spelled it out when he endorsed Crist: "[Rubio] will not be successful at this time, so he might want to focus on a race he wants to win."

It's unusual for Senate leaders to wade into a costly, open-seat race and line up so quickly behind a non-incumbent. But Crist is no usual candidate. Florida is no usual state. And these, of course, are not usual times for the GOP.

Crist is, of course, a telegenic Republican who remains popular with Democrats and minorities -- a commodity the party is sorely lacking these days on the national stage. The race in Florida, a swing state that Barack Obama carried in 2008, poses a potentially explosive mix of racial politics; the likely Democratic standard-bearer, Rep. Kendrick Meek, is an African-American. And the GOP battle lines are already forming: On Monday, Rubio released a Web ad attacking Crist and reminding Republicans that the governor backed Obama's economic stimulus package. Advisers say Rubio plans to run an anti-establishment, low-dollar primary campaign that challenges Crist's conservative credentials and ties him to his Washington allies.

And the Florida race is proving to be the rule, not the exception. In another swing state, Missouri, former Sen. John Danforth, a darling of moderate Republicans, is aggressively promoting his former chief of staff and former U.S. ambassador, Thomas Schweich, as a viable alternative to Rep. Roy Blunt in the race to succeed retiring Republican Sen. Christopher (Kit) Bond. Notably, Danforth's moves came just days after Bond endorsed Blunt.
"I think Tom offers a positive alternative to losing," Danforth told CongressDailyAM on Monday.

"We have a better chance at keeping Senator Bond's seat with Tom Schweich than anyone else I can think of," Danforth said in another interview. "He could make the basic argument for an alternative to the current course of action in Washington. It would be better to have someone who has not been part of Washington."

Meanwhile, following former Gov. Tom Ridge's decision to forgo a Senate bid, Republicans in Pennsylvania are actively courting moderate Rep. Jim Gerlach to challenge conservative Pat Toomey in the primary. And, in Utah, Sen. Robert Bennett looks like he'll draw as many as two conservative challengers. State Attorney General Mark Shurtleff said he'll announce his plans on May 20, and Tim Bridgewater, a party activist who had been running for state GOP chairman, says he'll get into the race. "I would much rather play on the court than coach from the bench or referee," Bridgewater told the Deseret News on Monday.

The family feud isn't limited to Senate races, of course. A blockbuster battle is brewing over the Texas governor's office between Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and Gov. Rick Perry, who was so eager to cement his ties to anti-tax conservatives recently that he raised the specter of secession. In New Jersey this year, moderate Chris Christie, a former U.S. attorney running to challenge Gov. Jon Corzine (D), faces a stronger-than-expected race against conservative Steve Lonegan.

Primary fights are, of course, nothing new. And the GOP doesn't hold a monopoly on them in 2010. But for a party at a crossroads, they could go a long way toward defining how the party looks in 2011 -- and, more importantly, 2012.

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Florida Becomes Ground Zero for GOP Fight

The RealClearPolitics Blog
By Tom Bevan
May 13th, 2009

For a fleeting moment it looked as if Pennsylvania would be Ground Zero for the high profile proxy fight between the moderate and conservative factions of the Republican Party.

But just like that the focus has has shifted a thousand miles to the south, where Charlie Crist's entry into the Senate race has ignited the same debate as he squares off against a far more conservative opponent in Marco Rubio.

Members of GOP establishment were quick to publicly back Crist, who they rightly believe has the best chance of keeping the seat in Republican hands. But the speed with which the NRSC and the Minority Leader stepped in on behalf of the big-footing current Governor left a bad taste in some folks' mouths and helped solidify the story line of a David vs. Goliath ideological struggle.

Myriam Marquez captures the sentiment in this morning's Miami Herald:

But wait. The fix is already in, and Rubio's worst enemy is his own party.
There's no debate apparently within the National Republican Senatorial Committee. On Tuesday, the committee endorsed the popular Crist just minutes after he announced he'd take a leap toward Washington.

Why the rush to endorse in a primary? Doesn't that break Ronald Reagan's golden rule?

Marquez laments the speed of the "Crist coronation" and wonders why it was necessary for Crist to come off as "a bully with the senatorial dudes ganging up on the little guy who walks the conservative talk?" (The obvious answer, of course, is that the last thing the withered GOP minority wants is a blood-letting primary that might help give away a seat they have solid chance of holding.)

Other highlights from the fireworks accompanying yesterday's announcement:

- Rubio released an ad attacking Crist by linking him to Obama, saying "let the debate begin."

- Crist strategist George LeMieux immediately shot back, knocking Rubio for breaking his pledge not to go negative, saying, "It appears that the first debate Marco Rubio needs to have is between Marco Rubio and himself."

- Republicans in North Central Florida offered a "muted" reaction to yesterday's announcement, according to this report.

-Rubio made his case on Fox News, saying that Florida GOP voters must have an opportunity to "choose what we want 'Republican' to mean."

- On said Fox News, Glenn Beck had this to say about Crist's annoucement, "Just what we need, a 'soft, friendly' moderate GOP member. . . BARF."

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