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COMMENTARY
With every new Presidency, there is always a media chronicling of the first 100 days. April 29th marked President Barack Obama's 100th day in office. How interesting that on day 99, Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter single-handedly changed the subject by changing his party affiliation. While it might look like a coup for the Democrats on the surface, putting them one person closer to the filibuster proof number of 60, it could also be an invitation to overreach. It has happened before. Remember the 1995 government shutdown? Newt Gingrich and the Republicans were emboldened by their massive wins in the 1994 midterm elections, but President Clinton was able to use an ill-timed (and some might say an ill-advised) comment by Gingrich to turn public opinion in his favor, leaving the GOP to take the blame for the shutdown. While it didn't really hurt Congressional Republicans in the 1996 elections, it didn't really help Bob Dole's presidential campaign.
What does Senator Specter's defection to the Democrats mean for the GOP? The party seems split over the implications. There's the one camp that says "goodbye and good riddance" because Specter was a RINO, or a Republican in name only. Others, including Maine moderate Olympia Snowe, lament that driving away the moderates will mean the GOP won't be able to compete effectively nationally because the party will only appeal to Southern, mostly white, social conservatives.
On Thursday of
this week, I interviewed former Defense Secretary William Cohen, a Northeastern Republican who, not all that long ago was a Senator from Maine. He told me Specter's party change wasn't a surprise because the party has moved so far to the right that Spector no longer felt comfortable in the GOP and definitely couldn't survive a primary challenge by a more conservative candidate. I asked the former Secretary if he still felt comfortable in the GOP. He said he's comfortable as a "Maine Republican", but added that the party has moved very far away from his philosophy. You can see the interview at http://www.federalnewstonight.com/.
The big question the GOP has to answer is "are the William Cohen, Colin Powell, Olympia Snowe, and Susan Collins-type Republicans welcome in the party?" Some prominent GOP supporters such as Rush Limbaugh are making it quite clear they are not. For this side of the party, only so-called "real" conservatives need apply, but where would such a stance leave Republicans? They would certainly be walking away from a history that includes men and women who've had an impact (whether you agree with their politics or not) on this nation, a list that includes the late Senate Minority Leader Everett McKinley Dirksen, the late Pennsylvania Senator John Heinz, the late President Gerald Ford, as well as the late Mary Dent Crisp (full disclosure -- I knew her personally) who was co-chair of the Republican National Committee in the late 1970s, just to name a few. Many Republicans are quick to point out their history with civil rights, but at the time Dirksen was working to break that 83-day filibuster in 1964, his position was considered progressive... not conservative.
On Saturday, several GOP leaders are launching the National Council for a New America to begin what Arizona Senator John McCain has been quoted as saying is a "conversation with America". Will the NCNA have the same moderating role for the GOP that the centrist Democratic Leadership Council has had for Democrats? Others involved in the NCNA have said the effort is meant to develop new ideas for the future on issues such as education, the economy and national security to name a few. And while focusing on generating new ideas is always a good thing for any political party, Republicans also have to decide whether moderates truly have a place at their table. They did once, but do they today? Perhaps it's not a question they tackle during this initial meeting, but eventually it has to be answered.
If moderates aren't welcome in the GOP, then where do they go? A Pew poll released this week indicates that fewer and fewer people are identifying as Republicans, but the GOP losses don't add up to dramatic gains for Democrats. The growth is in the number of folks calling themselves Independents, which begs another question to be answered: Could the time be right for a third political party in America? That's a subject for another blog!
October
