The Soul Of An Elephant

By Michael Cudahy, AlterNet. Posted November 17, 2004.

The search for the soul of the party, it seems, is not confined to the Democratic faithful, where those belonging to the traditional “base” are gearing up for a fight to wrest influence away from the centrists in the party.

There is a similar battle playing out in the Republican arena as well, where for the past 20 years, moderates have watched their ability to affect the GOP’s national agenda slowly erode. An oppressed band of political optimists, they have subjected themselves to years of abuse in the hope that thoughtfulness and good manners would restore their power in the party.

Referred to as RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) by many hard right conservatives, they are respected by the voters in their states, but despised by party leaders in Washington.

Out-organized by neo-conservative groups like the Christian Coalition, the Family Research Council, and the Club for Growth, moderates are no longer viewed as respected members of a philosophically broad-based party. They have, instead, become targets for a group of cannibalistic vigilantes bent on establishing ideological purity.

Drunk with power from their recent electoral victory, these ideologues make no pretense about their intentions. Stephen Moore, president of the Club for Growth, says his organization's goal is to punish moderate Republicans and make them an endangered species. “The problem with the moderates in Congress is that they basically water down the Republican message and what you get is something that infuriates the Republican base,” Moore says.

“They will learn to conform to our agenda or they will be driven from our party,” he says simply.

The “Problem Children”

In previous years, when party majorities in the House and Senate were thinner, GOP moderates were able to manifest more control over an increasingly extreme Republican agenda. This year’s U.S. Senate elections show how that equation has changed. Candidates with demonstrated hardcore conservative credentials won open seats in Oklahoma and Florida, as well as North and South Carolina. They also defeated Democratic minority leader Tom Daschle in South Dakota. These victories increased the Republican’s majority in the Senate from 51 to 55 seats.

In Pennsylvania, respected Republican senator Arlen Specter narrowly survived a Club for Growth-financed $2 million primary challenge from conservative congressman Pat Toomey. Moore saw the Pennsylvania effort as “serving notice to Chafee, Snowe, Collins and Voinovich and others who have been problem children that they will be next," referring to moderate Republican senators Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, and George Voinovich of Ohio.

Ironically, after the last election, this small group of Republican moderates may be all that stands between the country and the total domination of its political agenda by neo-conservatives like Moore — radicals who have spent a decade and a half planning for this moment of ascendancy in American political history.

The moderates hope that as President Bush begins his second term, he will see the light and want to establish a legacy that is more inclusive, more reasonable and more moderate. Regrettably, the president’s actions and the public declarations of party leaders belie such hopes.

Already Porter Goss, the president’s choice to be director of the CIA, is replacing respected intelligence officers with political appointees more in line with this administration’s political agenda. While the retirement of Colin Powell as secretary of state, and the nomination of National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice as his replacement, promises a similar purge in this critical cabinet department. And, rumors abound that the president is already considering nominating Justice Clarence Thomas to be Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court should William Rehnquist retire from that position — a nomination that could change the ideological direction of the court for a generation.

Former New Jersey governor and Bush administration official Christie Todd Whitman said this summer: “If the president wins this election walking away then maybe the country is in a different place than where the moderate Republicans are. If he loses, it is an absolute validation of the fact that you cannot be a national party if you are excluding people.”

The issue facing Republicans may not be a question of inclusion or exclusion, but rather one of polarization. Over the last 20 years neo-conservatives have pushed a radical social and economic agenda. As this program has become increasingly extreme, the country has been driven more and more into an us-versus-them posture. We have seen the emergence of ideological “bases” within the two major parties, and the destruction of the country’s ideological center.

Michael Cudahy is a political writer and analyst from Massachusetts. He is a former national campaign staff member for President George H.W. Bush, executive director for Elliot Richardson's Committee for Responsible Government and national communications director for the Republican Coalition for Choice.

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