We Didn’t Have to Lose Arlen Specter
Ronald J. Cala II
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re-evaluation of the inclusiveness as a party that could have forestalled
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Government,Republican Party,Arlen Specter,James M Jeffords');
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By OLYMPIA SNOWE
Published: April 28, 2009
Washington
IT is disheartening and disconcerting, at the very least, that here we are
today — almost exactly eight years after Senator Jim Jeffords left the
Republican Party — witnessing the departure of my good friend and fellow
moderate Republican, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, for the Democratic
Party. And the announcement of his switch was all the more painful because I
believe it didn’t have to be this way.
When Senator Jeffords became an independent in 2001, I said it was a sad day
for the Republicans, but it would be even sadder if we failed to confront and
learn from the devaluation of diversity within the party that contributed to
his defection. I also noted that we were far from the heady days of 1998, when
Republicans were envisioning the possibility of a filibuster-proof 60-vote
margin. (Recall that in the 2000 election, most pundits were shocked when
Republicans lost five seats, resulting in a 50-50 Senate.)
I could have hardly imagined then that, in 2009, we would fondly reminisce
about the time when we were disappointed to fall short of 60 votes in the
Senate. Regrettably, we failed to learn the lessons of Jim Jeffords’s defection
in 2001. To the contrary, we overreached in interpreting the results of the
presidential election of 2004 as a mandate for the party. This resulted in the
disastrous elections of 2006 and 2008, which combined for a total loss of 51
Republicans in the House and 13 in the Senate — with a corresponding shift of
the Congressional majority and the White House to the Democrats.
It was as though beginning with Senator Jeffords’s decision, Republicans turned
a blind eye to the iceberg under the surface, failing to undertake the
re-evaluation of our inclusiveness as a party that could have forestalled many
of the losses we have suffered.
It is true that being a Republican moderate sometimes feels like being a cast
member of “Survivor” — you are presented with multiple challenges, and you
often get the distinct feeling that you’re no longer welcome in the tribe. But
it is truly a dangerous signal that a Republican senator of nearly three
decades no longer felt able to remain in the party.
Senator Specter indicated that his decision was based on the political
situation in Pennsylvania, where he faced a tough primary battle. In my view,
the political environment that has made it inhospitable for a moderate
Republican in Pennsylvania is a microcosm of a deeper, more pervasive problem
that places our party in jeopardy nationwide.
I have said that, without question, we cannot prevail as a party without
conservatives. But it is equally certain we cannot prevail in the future
without moderates.
In that same vein, I am reminded of a briefing by a prominent Republican
pollster after the 2004 election. He was asked what voter groups Republicans
might be able to win over. He responded: women in general, married women with
children, Hispanics, the middle class in general, and independents.
How well have we done as a party with these groups? Unfortunately, the answer
is obvious from the results of the last two elections. We should be reaching
out to these segments of our population — not de facto ceding them to the
opposing party.
There is no plausible scenario under which Republicans can grow into a majority
while shrinking our ideological confines and continuing to retract into a
regional party. Ideological purity is not the ticket back to the promised land
of governing majorities — indeed, it was when we began to emphasize social
issues to the detriment of some of our basic tenets as a party that we
encountered an electoral backlash.
It is for this reason that we should heed the words of President Ronald Reagan,
who urged, “We should emphasize the things that unite us and make these the
only ‘litmus test’ of what constitutes a Republican: our belief in restraining
government spending, pro-growth policies, tax reduction, sound national
defense, and maximum individual liberty.”
He continued, “As to the other issues that draw on the deep springs of morality
and emotion, let us decide that we can disagree among ourselves as Republicans
and tolerate the disagreement.”
I couldn’t agree more. We can’t continue to fold our philosophical tent into an
umbrella under which only a select few are worthy to stand. Rather, we should
view an expansion of diversity within the party as a triumph that will broaden
our appeal. That is the political road map we must follow to victory.
Olympia Snowe is a Republican senator from Maine.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/29/opinion/29snowe.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=snowe&st=Search
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