Posted on 12/01/2006 9:39:14 PM PST by Aussie Dasher
They call themselves Main Street Republicans, moderates consigned to the back alleys of politics by their own party. But despite a severe bruising in the fall election, this minority within a minority finds itself with new avenues to explore, including working more closely with Democrats.
The Republican Main Street Partnership, a leading voice of GOP moderates in Congress, lost seven of its 48 House members to Democratic challengers in the November election. Two other senior members, Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, R-N.Y., and Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., are retiring.
The group also saw Sen. Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I., one of its eight Senate members and possibly the most liberal Republican in Congress, get swamped by the Democratic deluge.
"We had some difficult losses, people who had been very vocal and active in terms of being moderates," Rep. Mike Castle, R-Del., a Main Street leader, said in an interview. Castle said his group still can be a force in the new Democratic-controlled Congress by working with conservative and moderate Democrats.
Holding one-fifth of the GOP's seats in the House, Republican moderates will be needed by Democrats, particularly on such issues as expanding stem cell research, improving access to health care and promoting alternative energy. Republicans moderates also hold the key to any Democratic hope of overriding vetoes by President Bush.
Rep. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., a Main Street member who also heads an overlapping group of centrists called the Tuesday Group, said he plans to work with the Blue Dogs, conservative House Democrats who are demanding a bigger role in policymaking because of their pivotal role in the elections.
Kirk is promoting a "suburban agenda" that includes such issues as tax-deferred savings programs for children and protecting suburban open space.
The election losses for GOP moderates were all the more painful because moderates on the Democratic ticket flourished, helping carry their party back into the majority. Indiana, a solid red state, went from a 7-2 Republican advantage in the House to a 5-4 Democratic edge because three Democratic moderates ousted conservative incumbents.
"Indiana is really more moderate than it is Republican," said Robert Schmuhl, a political analyst and University of Notre Dame professor. "That is something we learned from the election."
But GOP moderates tend to come from more diverse, Democratic-leaning districts that make them vulnerable when the political winds shift. That was the fate of losing Main Street members Reps. Rob Simmons and Nancy Johnson of Connecticut.
Another victim was Rep. Jim Leach, a 15-term lawmaker from Iowa who opposed the war in Iraq and supported abortion rights. Other defeated GOP Main Streeters were Charles Bass and Jeb Bradley of New Hampshire, Sue Kelly of New York and Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania.
Another departed member is Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., who resigned in September after it was revealed he had sent sexually explicit electronic messages to former House pages.
Main Street executive director Sarah Chamberlain Resnick said fiscal conservatives in her group who share some views with Democrats on social and environmental issues were also hurt because "the Republican Party wasn't a big enough tent" for them.
While the new Democratic majority ranges in political philosophy from liberal Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi of California to conservative freshman Heath Shuler, a former NFL quarterback from North Carolina, Republicans concentrated on shoring up their conservative base, Resnick said.
"If it all adds up to just appealing to a more conservative base, then we are dealing at the margins in terms of gaining seats," Castle said of fellow Republicans.
Moderates were heartened that Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, considered to be open to all wings of the party, defeated conservative standard-bearer Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., in party leadership elections earlier this month. But Main Street's only spot in the leadership went to Rep. Kay Granger, R-Texas, one of its more conservative members, who was elected GOP conference vice-chair.
Pence made a name for himself by heading the Main Streeters' conservative counterpart, the Republican Study Committee. It went into the election with 110 members, almost half of all House Republicans. Despite GOP losses in the election of 30-plus seats, the RSC expects to come close to maintaining its current membership level.
Meanwhile, of the 13 Republican freshman in the next Congress, only one, Dean Heller of Nevada, has said he is joining the Main Street caucus.
the independent vote, which is even more RINO than the RINO voteThe independent vote is subject to change. That's why it's called independent. They went for Reagan twice, and W twice. We just need good conservative candidates and we can win the independent vote.
Independents are basically morons. It takes a moron to be independent in today's world. (Oh, today I think I'll vote for the party that protects America against terrorism. Ok, new day. Now I'm going to vote for the terrorists.)
They are morons, but they are reachable. We don't need to run RINOs (morons themselves) to get the moron vote. Morons will vote for non-morons; we just have to run the right non-morons.
oxymoronic.......
Futility on steroids.
If you are in danger of losing the center, then you jump wayocer to the left? Giuliani is NOT a Moderate. He is NOT a centrist. He is a leftwinger who is unsound(vis-a-vis liberals and other socialists) on crime.You might as well call Bloomberg a Republican, or McCain stable.
is dedicated to being invited to the right cocktail parties where they can hobnob with prominent socialists and MSM editors.
Very true. One need only look back at the election of 2004. The Republican Party did not win it, the Democrats lost. They lost because Kerry put all his eggs into one basket...the left wing of the Party. America rejected that just as they rejected the Republicans this year.
But right after the election loss in 2004, a reading of the Democrat sites such as DU or Democrats.com reflected a sentiment that (along with Republicans "stealing" the votes), the moderate (DINO) wing of the Democrats lost the election.
Almost all of FR's sentiments have been very similar. Most here are blaming the moderates in the Party and calling for a rejection of them and a move back to the right wing. This will be fatal in 2008 if not corrected early on. America is tiring rapidly of extremism, no matter which side of the political spectrum it sprouts from.
Better than Rudy, why don't we just draft Hillary ?? They'll never see that coming and then we'll get all our "moderates and independents" back.
One thing the right wing can't seem to learn any more than the left is that when you are in power, you still have responsibilities greater than your own personal agendas. Republicans made many grandiose promises, but delivered on few. They failed to learn that major legislative initiatives by default require some compromise, since nothing substantial can be achieved in this Country without it.
Republicans drew their lines in the sand with immigration, energy, taxes, and social security. As a result we got an unfunded fence but no real immigration reform. We got some tax credits for oil companies, but no real comprehensive energy independence; We got some temporary tax cuts, but no tax reform. We got nothing on social security, one of the mainstay promises of the Republican Party.
Instead we were toasted with such innovations as the Terri Schiavo legislation (what happened to federalism?), efforts to pass a gay marriage amendment and an anti-free speech amendment; stem cell debates, prayer in schools, Ten Commandment debates, evolution teaching in schools, ballooning budgets and enough corruption to make the mafia blush.
Were those the "correct" positions you were referring to?
And while the right wing was decrying the Gang of 14, who managed to get a bunch of judicial nominees confirmed, they praised Brownback who put several holds on Bush nominees because they did not share his fundamentalist beliefs.
Yeah, toss out the moderates in the Party and prepare for a very long wait for another chance at leadership such as the one we blew completely.
Personally, if the GOP nominates Rudy, McCain, Pataki, Romney or any other RINO - I'm voting third party. I would rather see the GOP lose, then to see them win with a candidate that does not reflect my core convictions.
I hear that a lot here, but in the end, the right wing has no place to go. The moderates do. Americans are basically conservative and have a way of exorcising the extremists from both sides when they get too comfortable.
Yea buddy!
We sure showed them huh? And, I bet you sure can't wait until '07 when those newly elected Democrats get a free shot at the newly opened "Cookie Jar"......
You have Leach and Kolbe backwards.
We want to keep the Republican party conservative not sell out to moderates. Moderates are all spineless.
I have noticed thaty people like Moran are really doing well in VA lately. Do you think Allen lost because of his apologetics over his own foolish remarks?
Actually many of the "moderates" have more (liberal) spine than do the GOP regular "conservatives", who often are afraid of their political shadows.
I have corrected my list and folks will see your and others comments above. I will leave list up as is and hopefullyfolks will read down the thread and see corrections. The end effect is the same. Thanks!
I guess I can afford to repost the list I popped up earlier with corrections that have been made.. Thanks!
If you live in some parts of the country, you can usually win by running against Washington and the federal government. If you live in other parts, you can't.
The Northeast and West Coast and Great Lakes States look like sell-outs or cavers to the the more deeply Republican areas. But to those on the Coasts, there looks to be something a little deluded or mistaken in the deep red states.
In much of the country, representatives get elected running against Washington, and then spend their time getting pork for their own districts. To judge from recent Congresses, they talk against big government, but aren't going to do anything about it.
People may hate the Main Streeters (and some of them deserve it), but some of them may be more realistic and less hypocritical than many others in Congress.
Delusional self indulgence is akin to gluttony, and gluttony is a sin.
That's quite a way of putting it. I'd have to think about it before agreeing or disagreeing.
Fairfax County has 600,000 voters who are rats and who are flaming buttholes. That is where George lost big. Plus lots of Republicans got mad at him and voted for Dim Webb.
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