by Rick Pearson
My story in today's Chicago Tribune on Iowa's centrist Republicans as they try to regain their influence in their party...
Republican moderates look to chart new course in Iowa
By Rick Pearson
Tribune political reporter
December 26, 2007
WEST DES MOINES, Iowa
On a recent ice-swept morning, a group of self-described moderate Republicans met in a hotel convention room, looking to find a way to break the chill of a presidential season that has found many of them left out in the cold.
"Our goal is to get traditional centrist moderate Republicans to get to the caucus and make their voices heard," said former Iowa Lt. Gov. Joy Corning.
"The moderates who are out there, they've been rather quiet for a few years. Many of them have dropped out of the party or become independents, and so this is an effort to regroup and encourage people to be active," she said.
Rising concerns
About 60 people attended the meeting called by Corning, who served eight years under Gov. Terry Branstad until Democrats took over the governor's office in 1999. The discussion focused on looking for common ground -- largely on fiscal, education and environmental issues -- with a conservative wing that is a strong influence on the state's GOP social agenda.
But the comments that day echoed a concern voiced nationally by prominent Republican moderates -- that the party's rightward tilt, and the heavy spending by what had been a GOP-controlled Washington until the 2006 midterm congressional elections, has left them little more than an afterthought in the party.
Those concerns have been heightened by a Republican presidential primary campaign that finds most of the leading candidates advocating a conservative social agenda as they try to win the nomination by appealing to a GOP base on the right that dominates turnout in many early caucus and primary states.
"It means building the farm team and taking back the word 'Republican' to say we don't have to be the way we are perceived now at the national level, as a mean-spirited narrow-minded litmus-test party," said Christine Todd Whitman, a former New Jersey governor and former Bush Cabinet member who now leads the Republican Leadership Council.
Straying off course
"We can be moderate, conservative, liberal as long as we agree on the basic fundamental principles that make us Republicans. You can disagree with someone and not hate them. That's where we need to get, so that we can have the kind of campaigns at the federal level that actually talk about the important issues and try to solve them instead of trying to outflank the other person -- 'I'm more conservative than you are,'" she said.
Most Republican presidential contenders are using Iowa to drive such issues as opposition to abortion and tough stands on illegal immigration.
"Immigration is an issue that should have been solved, but it's been held out there because each of the parties wanted it as a campaign issue," Whitman said. "Everything is being looked at through a political prism now rather than a policy one. The centrists tend to be people who want the policy decisions, and that's where most Americans are."
As the nation's first presidential contest nears with the Jan. 3 caucuses, the Republican Party in Iowa finds itself searching for ways to unify and looking to restore the power it held for 30 years until Democrats won the governor's mansion nearly a decade ago.
In that way, Iowa resembles Illinois, where Republicans were a tighter organization until losing the governor's office in 2002 after a quarter-century of GOP chief executives.
"The governor was the rudder of our Republican Party. Without that, we've fractured up a little bit," said Chuck Laudner, executive director of the Iowa GOP.
Political free-for-all
"We've all fractured up, and everybody's gone and done their own thing," Laudner said of party members backing separate candidates and issues. "We've got to change the mind-set and bring everybody back in."
During its meeting, the group passed out a sheet of nine "Republican Principles" obtained from the Republican National Committee that emphasized promotion of such traditional points as fiscal responsibility, limited government, low taxes, equal rights and opportunity, entrepreneurship and national security.
"The social issues may not be the thing that determines who they go with" for president, Corning said of GOP moderates. "There may be other issues that are equally or more important to them. In fact, in the national polls, they show that those social issues are pretty much at the bottom of things that people are concerned about."
In the Iowa caucuses, Corning is backing Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor who supports abortion rights. But Giuliani has largely written off winning Iowa, where conservatives -- particularly evangelical Christians -- have a large voice.
Former Congressman Greg Ganske, who is backing Sen. John McCain of Arizona, acknowledged that the presidential contest leaves some Iowa Republicans cold.
"Probably all the people who are here are fiscal conservatives," Ganske said of the meeting. "We haven't been real happy with what has been going on with the federal budget and our deficits, our balance of trade, things like that. We have an unpopular war going on started by a Republican president, so I think it's fair to say there's less enthusiasm right now."
But Laudner, the Iowa GOP executive director, sees an upside of the accelerated date for the caucuses, despite the fissures they've caused.
"It's like any primary in the country: Your guy loses and you take your ball and go home," Laudner said of the caucuses. "But there's plenty of time for healing after."
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rap30@aol.com
Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune
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Comments
And if they can't do that, they can always steal more elections...
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Kris Kobach, chairman of the Kansas GOP, sent out a self-congratulatory litany of accomplishments. Among them was one particularly eye-catching item:
“To date, the Kansas GOP has identified and caged more voters in the last 11 months than the previous two years!”
Slate.com has the best comprehensive write-up on how the Republican Party employs caging techniques to suppress the votes of the poor, the deployed (Why do the republicrites hate the troops?), and college students.
http://www.slate.com/id/2167284/
So much for the party of values....
More on this morally bankrupt policy from the most ignorant knuckle-dragging xenophobic arrogant dictatorship-endorsing bullying self-deluding cousin-marrying narrow-minded religion-perverting cowardly chickenhawks.
Posted by: rncbs | December 26, 2007 12:40 PM
The article features the only type of Republicans that Trib reporters will ever talk to--Republicans who say things Democrats in the media are comfortable with.
The article is simple more evidence of how much DNC Swamp reporters are out of touch with average Republicans.
Posted by: Bruce | December 26, 2007 12:42 PM
Great article for people on both sides of the aisle.
Posted by: dogjudge | December 26, 2007 12:49 PM
Appealing to the party base is the norm in presidential primaries, just look at what Democrat candidates are promising their base; a program for almost everything, soon withdrawal from Iraq, drivers' licenses for illegal aliens, and other cooperative goals with La Raza, so almost everybody knows that pandering to the base is the norm for the two parties' candidates in presidential races.
Giuliani can beat Hillary, with much support from conservatives, for his proposals to handle illegal immigration and national defense with conviction, and with much support from Independents for the same reasons, and with support from Democrats, because he supports school choice which will allow low income families to send their kids to their preferred school in their respective areas, whereas, Hillary and the Democrats are weak on all these, and so, will be defeated by Giuliani, who will have strong appeal througout the electorate, as they hear more about his plans.
Posted by: James I. Nienhuis | December 26, 2007 12:49 PM
How to "Rest Your Case", Example # 1...
This blog is for and about "Republican moderates". I fully expect all of the Ron Paul zealots to be out in force, blasting this arena with their ubiquitous 300+ posts UNLESS, of course, their cult leader is nothing more than a fringe right-wing Libertarian.
I "Rest My Case".
Posted by: Smirky McFlightsuit | December 26, 2007 1:07 PM
Republican centrists strive to regain Iowa influence?
To late now, the Republic Party let its self become overun by the Neonuts and the Evangelicals and now they're going to pay the price of being the MINORITY PARTY for a long time to come.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63sMyCAJXEY
Posted by: John E | December 26, 2007 1:20 PM
Can Republican Moderate Candidates survive in today's GOP?
http://www.youpolls.com/details.asp?pid=1371
.
Posted by: PollM | December 26, 2007 1:27 PM
What Republic party moderates? When you vote lockstep w/Preznit 26%, you lose the ability to claim you are anything more than a rubber stamp for the wingnuts. The Republic party moderates are extinct.
Posted by: weinerdog43 | December 26, 2007 2:13 PM
To be a centrist you have to act like a centrist. If you support an extremist, you're not a centrist. People can call themselves anything they like, but who and what they support is there for all to see.
Posted by: Tom | December 26, 2007 2:29 PM
The problem for the Republicans is that they are now Bush Republicans.
Here are the principles of the Republican Party since Bush became POTUS, and they've continued to rubberstamp his failing policies:
Unending debt, unending war, unending gov't intrusion into our privacy, unending tax breaks for Big Business, unequal rights, unequal opportunity, and Osama Bin Laden NOT brought to justice.
What can Bush Republicans possibly run on?
To all the sudden claim that they somehow represent "fiscal responsibility" now is a complete joke to the rest of us!!!
Posted by: Jan | December 26, 2007 2:47 PM
Giuliani can beat Hillary, with much support from conservatives, for his proposals to handle illegal immigration and national defense with conviction, and with much support from Independents for the same reasons, and with support from Democrats, because he supports school choice which will allow low income families to send their kids to their preferred school in their respective areas, whereas, Hillary and the Democrats are weak on all these, and so, will be defeated by Giuliani, who will have strong appeal througout the electorate, as they hear more about his plans.
Posted by: James I. Nienhuis | December 26, 2007 12:49 PM
Jimmy,
Rudy Gi9ullani couldn't even keep his second wife from knowing about his third mistress (current wife #3) and his own kids refuse to vote for him.
Rudy, the snake oil salesman, is folding like a lawn chair and I say Good Riddance to him because he was never anything more than a noun, a verb and 9/11.
Dirty Rudy deeds, done dirt cheap...and charged to NYC taxpayers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWP6x3734c0
Posted by: John E | December 26, 2007 3:31 PM
Bruce,please tell us what the puck "average Repups" are and what positions they favor.
This should make good reading!
Posted by: Raving Loon | December 26, 2007 4:45 PM
Republican moderates have a lot more influence on the GOP that Democrat moderates have on the Dem Party.
Posted by: Bruce | December 26, 2007 5:01 PM
Hey Johnny, Rudy's running for president, not for replacement host on the Newlywed Game, besides, if Hillary was so dull as to not know that Bill was dinking about every girl he could, does that make her presidential timber?
Posted by: James I. Nienhuis | December 26, 2007 5:16 PM
The article is simple more evidence of how much DNC Swamp reporters are out of touch with average Republicans.
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Yeah. Both of them. But I bet they know how to spell SIMPLY.
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Oh and about that myth of liberal media...
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Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp will sell eight U.S. television stations to private equity firm Oak Hill Partners for about $1.1 billion.
Couldn’t help but wonder who was buying up tv stations in an election year, so a quick review of Oak Hill Partners was called for.
Oak Hill Capital Partners traces its roots to Robert M. Bass, one of the four brothers who founded Bass Brothers Enterprises in Fort Worth, Texas.
From Texas, eh? A little more checking as a Texas based company raised my eyebrows right away:
Robert Muse Bass is a Texas billionaire worth approximately $5.46 billion as of 2006.
Bass was born into an extremely wealthy family with an uncle, Sid Richardson, worth $810 million. He and his three brothers Lee, Ed, and Sid Bass all attended Yale University, where they solidified their moneyed and political connections. Ed Bass was a classmate and personal friend of George W. Bush, and the brothers, especially Lee Bass, helped Bush financially both before and throughout his political career.
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Liberal media? ROTFLMAO! Don't forget the Trib is owned by Sam Zell now. Hardly a wild eyed lefty that. The whole liberal media myth is just more black helicopter paranoia propaganda spewed by the 25% dead enders to keep the money rolling in. Funny how they like to talk about how the ratings for faux noise word holes are the highest and still play the "oh poor me I'm so discriminated against" game all the time. Boo hoo hoo.
Posted by: rncbs | December 26, 2007 6:01 PM
Posted by: Bruce | December 26, 2007 12:42 PM
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Shut up, Wingnut.
Posted by: Rob S. | December 26, 2007 6:22 PM
"Republican moderates have a lot more influence on the GOP that Democrat moderates have on the Dem Party."
OK, I'll bite. Like what? Environmentalism?, abortion rights?, fair trade?, alternative energy?, civil rights?, sensible marijuana law reform?. Seriously, WTF are you talking about? Oh, and 'tax cuts' don't count. Balanced budget would be acceptable, but your party has flushed that one down the toilet.
So RNC Bruce, how about putting your money where your mouth is for once. Let's hear all about all of the fantastic moderate influence right now. I won't be holding my breath, that's for sure.
Posted by: weinerdog43 | December 26, 2007 8:30 PM
Weinerdog 43,
Don't you know? Republican moderates are responsible for preventing a three front war on terror (no bomb, bomb, Iran). They've informed Mitt he can't have his two Guantanamos. They told Ron Paul he couldn't replace the IRS with a use tax on sex. Cheney was informed that his fourth branch of government won't fly. McCain was discouraged from any more staged photo-ops in Iraqi markets. Need I go on?
Posted by: dt | December 27, 2007 1:31 AM
dt, you're right. I'd also forgotten about the moderates secret task force on securing some of Chuck Norris' tears for cancer research.
Posted by: weinerdog43 | December 27, 2007 8:46 AM