Christine Whitman and Robert Bostock: GOP can't afford to remain hostage to social fundamentalists

Capital Times ^ | 11-15-08

[SJackson]

Four years ago, in the week after the 2004 presidential election, we were working furiously to put the finishing touches on the book we co-authored, "It's My Party Too: The Battle for the Heart of the GOP and the Future of America."

Our central thesis was simple: The Republican Party had been taken hostage by "social fundamentalists," the people who base their votes on such social issues as abortion, gay rights and stem cell research. Unless the GOP freed itself from their grip, we argued, it would so alienate itself from the broad center of the American electorate that it would become increasingly marginalized and find itself out of power.

At the time, this idea was roundly attacked by many who were convinced that holding on to the "base" at all costs was the way to go. A former speech writer for President Bush, Matthew Scully, who went on to work for the McCain campaign this year, called the book "airy blather" and said its argument fell somewhere between "insufferable snobbery" and "complete cluelessness." Gary Bauer suggested that the book sounded as if it came from a "Michael Moore radical." National Review said its warnings were, "at best, counterintuitive," and Ann Coulter said the book was "based on conventional wisdom that is now known to be false."

What a difference four years makes -- and the data show it.

While a host of issues were at play in this election, the primary reason John McCain lost was the substantial erosion of support from self-identified moderates compared with four years ago. In 2004, Democratic nominee John Kerry held just a 9 percentage point margin among moderate voters over President Bush. This year, the spread between Barack Obama and McCain was 21 points among this group. The net difference between the two elections is a deficit of nearly 6.4 million moderate votes for the Republicans in 2008.

In seven of the nine states that switched this year from Republican to Democratic, Obama's vote total exceeded the total won by President Bush four years ago. So even if McCain had equaled the president's numbers from 2004 (and he did not), he still would have lost in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina and Virginia (81 total electoral votes) -- and lost the election. McCain didn't lose those states because he failed to hold the base. He lost them because Obama broadened his base.

Nor did the Republican ticket lose because "values voters" stayed home. On the contrary, according to exit polls, such voters made up a larger proportion of the electorate this year than in 2004 -- 26 percent, up from 23 percent. Extrapolating from those data, McCain actually won more votes from self-identified white evangelical/born-again voters than Bush did four years ago -- 1.8 million more. But that was not enough to offset the loss of so many moderates.

Following the conventional wisdom of the past two presidential elections, McCain tried mightily to assuage the Republican Party's social-fundamentalist wing. His selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, whose social views are entirely aligned with that wing, as his running mate was clearly meant to demonstrate his commitment to that bloc. Yet while his choice did comfort those voters, it made many others uncomfortable.

Palin has many attractive qualities as a candidate. Being prepared to become president at a moment's notice was not obviously among them this year. Her selection cost the ticket support among those moderate voters who saw it as a cynical sop to social fundamentalists, reinforcing the impression that they control the party, with the party's consent.

In the wake of the Democrats' landslide victory, and despite all evidence to the contrary, many in the GOP are arguing that John McCain was defeated because the social fundamentalists wouldn't support him. They seem to be suffering from a political strain of Stockholm syndrome. They are identifying with the interests of their political captors and ignoring the views of the larger electorate. This has cost the Republican Party the votes of millions of people who don't find a willingness to acquiesce to hostage-takers a positive trait in potential leaders.

Unless the Republican Party ends its self-imposed captivity to social fundamentalists, it will spend a long time in the political wilderness. On Nov. 4, the American people very clearly rejected the politics of demonization and division. It's long past time for the GOP to do the same.

Christine Todd Whitman, who served as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency from 2001 to 2003, is co-chair of the Republican Leadership Council. Robert M. Bostock, a freelance speechwriter, was her co-author for the book "It's My Party Too." This column first appeared in the Washington Post.

[SJackson]

I kinda remember the Christine person, she was no Sarah Palin, Robert Bostock, who's he to be lecturing Republicans?

[wolf24]

On Nov. 4, the American people very clearly rejected the politics of demonization and division.

And here I thought that American people elected Obama and not the moderate Republican...

[Ghost of Philip Marlowe]

Hey, Christine.

Your leadership in the EPA is partly responsible for the mess the Big 3 automakers are in at the moment.

You ought to shut up and go back to your wealthy, private existence. Idiot.

[I got the rope]

BARF

[goldstategop]

If the social conservatives are what's destroying the Republican Party, will Christine Whitman and Robert Bostock kindly explain why traditional marriage initiatives all over the country, including California outperformed the Republican Party's standard bearer? Its not conservatism the American people rejected this month.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[Blogger]

We were here first, Christine. Get out of my party.

[rellimpank]

—the single accomplishment of Christie Whitman was the removal of Jim Florio from elected office. She does deserve credit for that-—

[csmusaret]

It is time to have three major parties: Liberal, Conservative, Mushy Middle.

[org.whodat]

Took the post out of my puter!! LOL,

[HereInTheHeartland]

“Christine Whitman and Robert Bostock: GOP can’t afford to remain hostage to social fundamentalists”

Bring it on oh thou misguided ones.
We won’t be fooled again. You have destroyed what Reagan has built.
Let Democrats be Democrats.
Please leave our party, and go join your soul mates at the party that begins with D.

[Vaquero]

Dearest Christine

I understand that the Dhimmicrat party has an opening in it for a liberal former Governor from NJ.

please leave.

[what's up]

Whitman is great for ultra-liberal states like NJ.

She should really stay there and quit trying to go national.

[july4thfreedomfoundation]

A good way to destroy the Republican party and ensure minority status forever would be to listen to Christie Todd Whitman and the rest of the RINO’s.

The author of the article claims that the democrats won a “landslide” victory. A victory, yes, but NOT a landslide.

The republicans did poorly because an entrenched, uninspiring RINO, a Washington insider, was the head of the ticket. Sarah Palin prevented a democrat landslide.

[beethovenfan]

Republicans never win when they run as “Democrat Lite”.

[AuntB]

“f the social conservatives are what’s destroying the Republican Party, will Christine Whitman and Robert Bostock kindly explain why traditional marriage initiatives all over the country, including California outperformed the Republican Party’s standard bearer? Its not conservatism the American people rejected this month.”

The point is, there are a lot more of US than there are of THEM.

So why do we put up with this crappola? The ‘republican’ label is tainted beyond repair. These RINO’s are demanding democrat lite (not very lite,either!) as a way to change it.. Abandon this old worn out GOP and let it sink into history where it belongs.

That’s the ‘change’ we need.

[org.whodat]

In Whitman's case it is “Dingbat middle”

You can throw the Texas witch, Hutchinson in on that as well.

[jwalsh07]

It takes either a very stupid or willfully ignorant politician not to acknowledge that the great majority of McCain/Palin voters were of the social conservative variety. It takes stupidity not to notice that the only thing that binds the Republican Party to the small Hispanic and Black vote it does manage to attract is those same social conservative issues.

[SJackson]

If the social conservatives are what's destroying the Republican Party, will Christine Whitman and Robert Bostock kindly explain why traditional marriage initiatives all over the country, including California outperformed the Republican Party's standard bearer? Its not conservatism the American people rejected this month.

Bigots who hate gay people?

[Roccus]

Snaggletooth

[Crim]

“On Nov. 4, the American people very clearly rejected the politics of demonization and division.”

Clueless....all Obama did for two years was sow demonization and division...

Bleh.

[SJackson]

It is time to have three major parties: Liberal, Conservative, Mushy Middle.

We have that, we always will. And it's imperative we get the mushy middle Christines to vote with us. But not to lead.

[SJackson]

She should really stay there and quit trying to go national.

She saw what the lovely lady from Alaska did.

[SumProVita]

“Christine Whitman and Robert Bostock: GOP can’t afford to remain hostage to social fundamentalists”

Translation: GOP can’t afford to adhere to absolute moral virtues.

[Richard Kimball]

We did not lose because of social conservatism. We lost because of big spending.

[leprechaun9]

Christy Witless, please as General Mac Arthur said, fade away like the old soldier of the Northeast elite that you represent (and did while serving as governor)!

By the way, your liberal daughter didn't do too well in her venture into public office. Perhaps you left too many people who worked for you that you left disappointed by your liberal appointees to the NJ Supreme Court.

[Mr. Jeeves]

I’m a small government fundamentalist...where did we all go? The Republicans certainly have nothing more to offer us.

[jwalsh07]

We lost for a number of reasons. Big spending I wouldn’t put high on the list since a majority of voters just voted for “big spending”.

[silverleaf]

Time for a new party for social conservatives
Seriously

I am tired of expending energy and intellectaul capital on having to associate much less support idiots calling themselves GOP who are contemptuous of moral values as a political concern. People who call Sarah Palin’s baby “it” for example.

[mathurine]

Christine, go off somewhere with Newt and suck on some sour grapes. You weren’t on the ticket; if you had been, it would have lost by a landslide. The conservatives almost saved McCain’s bacon, the moderates didn’t. Why should the moderates be presented as the potential saviors.

[Ingtar]

Two more Lepers.

[peggybac]

It’s a shame they believe the murder of babies, morality and the sanctity of marriage and family is so extreme.

[SJackson]

Time for a new party for social conservatives Seriously

Like it or not, without fiscal and defense conservatives, you're left with maybe 30% of the vote, max. And they'll be purging each other over fiscal and defense issues. I really don't think there were many on the right calling Sarah's baby "it".

[sonofagun]

Her selection cost the ticket support among those moderate voters who saw it as a cynical sop to social fundamentalists, reinforcing the impression that they control the party, with the party's consent.

This may be true, but what the author fails to perceive is the dramatic upswing of conservative support her selection realized which led to the GOP ticket NOT being humiliated by a huge landslide defeat.

I suspect these moderate folks would have swung in Obama's favor anyway. The reason they are moderate is that they have no commitment to the issues they care about and as such, are easily swayed by the Obama "change" rhetoric.

Just a hunch on my part.

[what's up]

True. Perhaps it's a case of jealousy.

Whitman should follow Linda Lingle's lead. She is also a Repub Gov, (from Hawaii). She's considered a moderate, yet she doesn't find abortion, gay marriage or stem cell research stumbling blocks; Lingle backs Palin completely.

[texican01]

I agree.

RINO Whitman is a clueless fool.

Baby killing, pervert pandering and God mocking is not a winning platform in America.

Sarak Palin is the only articulate honest decent Republican on the public stage presently.

[hinckley buzzard]

It's all BS. "Social fundamentalist" issues were not on the table this election. McCain ignored them. The authors' basic premise is totally irrelevant to the recent election, just as they themselves have been irrelevent to the party these many yeas.

The GOP has nothing to gain by abandoning pro-lifers and cozying up to abortionists like Whitman.

[realdifferent1]

Two more insignificant members of the republican party giving us their insight.
I rank their opinion right up there with Barrymore and Lohan.

[scfischer7]

You mean it’s not a winning platform for conservatives. Liberals are just fine with all that... In fact they got their way.

[Presbyterian Reporter]

What I am hearing from the RINO Republicans is that they can better compete against the Liberal Fascism being advocated by the Democrat Party by putting up a Conservative Fascism.

I hate to remind the RINO’s but politics is not the same as a team sport.

The social conservative electorate is what keeps America from becoming like a multi-party European country where politicians form their alliances without being hampered by the electorate.

[datakcy]

Did anyone bother to tell this RINO nitwit that 3 more states outlawed same-sex marriage fraud? Even in ultra-liberal California it was overturned. Seems no matter where the people get to vote on this issue, it is overturned. Too bad the fascists of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Vermont won’t give the people a chance to speak their minds at the polls.

It seems whenever the party embraces the RINO philosophy we LOSE voters. It would appear that folks having the choice to vote for two shades of the same liberal flavor would prefer to stay home. Take note: whenever McCain moved to the right his poll numbers went up. Whenever he reverted back to his RINO status (suggesting putting Al Gore at EPA, jumping on the Socialist bailout, proposing even another $300 billion for home buyouts, etc.), McCain tanked in the polls.

Ms. Whitman - please do us a favor: come out of your liberal closet and go join the other RINOs and Democrats. You couldn’t get more RINO than McCain and it showed what an absolute mistake the party made. The liberal MSM baited the Republicans with their love for McCain only to demonize him after he was the nominee. Never again!!!

[nathanbedford]

Unless the Republican Party ends its self-imposed captivity to social fundamentalists, it will spend a long time in the political wilderness. On Nov. 4, the American people very clearly rejected the politics of demonization and division.

It is clear how Christie Todd Whitman regards social conservatives. She despises them so deeply she cannot even give a fellow Republican to courtesy of a proper appellation, she calls them "social fundamentalists" and obliquely charges them with "demonization." Before the election I wrote that I thought that the real problem for the Republican Party would be to resolve the differences between fiscal conservatives and social conservatives. In the context of what the fiscal conservatives must do if there is to be a rapprochement I said this:

Fiscal conservatives, for their part, must go to bat for Christians when they are embattled by the secularists who would rob them of their faith through the arm of government. Fiscal conservatives owe Christian conservatives one more consideration, they must stop their smug condescension and their eye rolling whenever Christians express their faith in public. Consider for example the execrable figure of the son of William F. Buckley Jr. abandoning the McCain/Palin ticket for ill disguised abhorrence of Palin's faith. This is probably the last kind of bigotry that is socially acceptable in America but it must no longer be acceptable among conservatives. Buckley claims that he is a "small government conservative" but I claim that no matter how small his government, he is no conservative at all but something quite alien to us.

It is clear that Whitman is not willing to stop rolling her eyes. I believe that this comes not from her green eye shade conclusions arrived at only after crunching numbers from the last election (which other analysts have crushed and come to exactly the opposite conclusion), but from the great cleft between the right and left in America: abortion. I think Christie Todd Whitman objects to Sarah Palin for one reason only and it has to do with abortion. I think that Whitman's objection to Palin and to social "fundamentalists" is purely visceral and comes out of the abortion issue. I want to Whitman to lose the argument which she makes as she contends for the soul of the Republican Party but I am very glad she is making the argument. It must be made and every body must understand that it has been made. At the end of the day conservatism will have to come to a bedrock understanding of its faith and that can only be done by a Darwinian process which hears out all sides. I had this to say elsewhere in the same post:

There will be finger-pointing and acrimony but that is necessary and good. We must rediscover our soul and that cannot be done without bloodletting.

Speaking of bloodletting, it is absolutely vital that the conservative wing of the party come to a final victory over the moderates or we conservatives simply must leave the party. There will be no better time, we will never have less to lose. We will be in control of most of the elected offices and we will be in solid red states, few though they may be. The moderates will be geographically scattered in occasional congressional seats with some odds and ends in statehouses. They will have their voices in the media and some access to money. Many of them will defect to the Democrat party. Some might become libertarians. But conservatives must get lean and mean and come to a clear understanding of who they are and what they stand for. Moderates can come along but only after capitulation. There is no sense taking stragglers and mutineers along into the wilderness.

Not less important than finding our soul, conservatives must ruthlessly enforce party discipline. That can only come after moderates are reconciled to conservative leadership or have gone their own way. There can be no doctrinal accommodation with moderates. There is nothing more to be gained by compromising principle for a few more votes in the caucus because the caucus will have no power anyway. Conservative power will come from the moral strength of ideas. Eventually, if Obama only perverts and does not subvert the constitutional system, the public will realize the moral corruption of the liberal regime.

[chesley]

OK. Refuse to answer our concerns.

Can the GOP gain enough “moderates”, leftists and Democrats to win when we are voting for a 3rd party?

Somehow, I don't think they think we will leave. But, I have voted for the RINO for the last time. I held my nose and voted for McCain, but he's shown a RINO can no longer win, so if I have to waste a vote, I'll do it for a real conservative, and not the cheap substiture who has spit in my eye for years.

Wake up, GOP leaders.

[wolf24]

The republicans did poorly because an entrenched, uninspiring RINO, a Washington insider, was the head of the ticket.

Yes. As usual these people have exactly wrong.

[GregoryFul]

The pubs lost because McCain was almost as far to the left as Osama.

[WaterBoard]

The Rhino Republicans (McCain, Graham, etc) had their chance at Democrat-Lite Republicanism and it failed miserably at the polls.

The “Contract with America” and Conservatism Policies got Republicans elected. But, once in office, they completely forgot the parties platform.

[dfwgator]

Seriously, what is the difference between “Republicans” like Whitman, and Democrats? What are their differences, I sure don’t see any. Whitman wants to the GOP to become the “Me Too!” party.

[huldah1776]

If this is true, then why didn’t the moderates vote for McCain who is a moderate?

[hinckley buzzard]

Her selection cost the ticket support among those moderate voters who saw it as a cynical sop to social fundamentalists

This is baloney. Political "insiders" think the general population thinks like they do. In fact you have it right--moderates have no commitment one way or the other re: "social fundamentalists" but were easily swayed by the content-free unctions of the snake oil salesman.

[wolf24]

It's all BS. "Social fundamentalist" issues were not on the table this election. McCain ignored them. The authors' basic premise is totally irrelevant to the recent election, just as they themselves have been irrelevent to the party these many yeas.

Very much worth repeating. The whole article is Red Herring.

[BillyBoy]

Christie Todd Witless’ thoughts on the GOP if she was alive in the 1850s:

---

Two years ago, in the week after the 1854 midterm election, we were working furiously to put the finishing touches on the book we co-authored, “It’s My Party Too: The Battle for the Heart of the GOP and the Future of America.”

Our central thesis was simple: The Republican Party had been taken hostage by “anti-slavery fundamentalists,” the people who base their votes on such social issues as slave abolition, human rights, racial equality, and moral values. Unless the GOP freed itself from their grip, we argued, it would so alienate itself from the broad center of the American electorate that it would become increasingly marginalized and find itself out of power.

At the time, this idea was roundly attacked by many who were convinced that holding on to the “abolitionist base” at all costs was the way to go. A former speech writer for the Whigs, Matthew Scully, who went on to work for the Fremont campaign this year, called the book “airy blather” and said its argument fell somewhere between “insufferable snobbery” and “complete cluelessness.” Gerald Bauer suggested that the book sounded as if it came from a “John Breckenridge radical.” American Review said its warnings were, “at best, counterintuitive,” and Harriet Beecher Stowe said the book was “based on conventional wisdom that is now known to be false.”

What a difference two years makes — and the data show it.

While a host of issues were at play in this election, the primary reason John C. Fremont lost was the substantial erosion of support from self-identified moderates compared with four years ago. In 1852 Democratic nominee Stephen Douglas held just a 9 percentage point margin among moderate voters. This year, the spread between James Buchanan and Fremont was 21 points among this group. The net difference between the two elections is a deficit of nearly 6.4 million moderate votes for the Republicans in 1856.

In seven of the nine states that switched this year from Republican to Democratic, Buchanan’s vote total exceeded the total won by Republicans two years ago. So even if Fremont had equaled the GOP’s numbers from 1854 (and he did not), they still would have lost in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina and Virginia (81 total electoral votes) — and lost the election. Fremont didn’t lose those states because he failed to hold the base. He lost them because Buchanan broadened his base.

Nor did the Republican ticket lose because “values voters” stayed home. On the contrary, according to exit polls, such voters made up a larger proportion of the electorate this year than in 2004 — 26 percent, up from 23 percent. Extrapolating from those data, Fremont actually won more votes from self-identified anti-slavery, Christian evangelical/born-again voters than the GOP did four years ago — 1.8 million more. But that was not enough to offset the loss of so many moderates.

Following the conventional wisdom of the past two presidential elections, Fremont tried mightily to assuage the Republican Party’s social-fundamentalist wing. His selection of Senator William Dayton, whose social views are entirely aligned with that wing, as his running mate was clearly meant to demonstrate his commitment to that bloc. Yet while his choice did comfort those voters, it made many others uncomfortable.

Dayton has many attractive qualities as a candidate. Being prepared to become president at a moment’s notice was not obviously among them this year. His selection cost the ticket support among those moderate voters who saw it as a cynical sop to anti-slavery fundamentalists, reinforcing the impression that they control the party, with the party’s consent.

In the wake of the Democrats’ landslide victory, and despite all evidence to the contrary, many in the GOP are arguing that John Fremont was defeated because the anti-slavery fundamentalists wouldn’t support him. They seem to be suffering from a political strain of Stockholm syndrome. They are identifying with the interests of their political captors and ignoring the views of the larger electorate. This has cost the Republican Party the votes of millions of people who don’t find a willingness to acquiesce to hostage-takers a positive trait in potential leaders.

Unless the Republican Party ends its self-imposed captivity to anti-slavery fundamentalists, it will spend a long time in the political wilderness. On Nov. 4, the American people very clearly rejected the politics of demonization and division. It’s long past time for the GOP to do the same.

Christine Todd Whitman, who served as administrator of the Fugetive Slave Bounty Board from 1851 to 1853, is co-chair of the Republican Leadership Council. Robert M. Bostock, a freelance speechwriter, was her co-author for the book “It’s My Party Too.” This column first appeared in the Washington Post.