CONCORD, N.H. -- Moderate Republicans such as Rep. Charles Bass (N.H.) are already an endangered species in Congress. The gathering political storm could push them much closer to extinction.
In 2004, Bass won reelection by 20 percentage points, beating Paul Hodes, a Democratic lawyer and guitarist who dubbed his long-shot campaign the "Rock and Roll Back the Deficit Tour." This year, it's a different story. A University of New Hampshire survey released Thursday showed Hodes with a lead of 45 percent to 37 percent, with 14 percent undecided; the poll had a five-percentage-point margin of error.
Democrats have targeted three types of GOP House districts in their takeover bid: open seats being vacated by incumbents, districts represented by ethically challenged lawmakers and districts where voters supported Democratic presidential tickets in 2004 and 2000 by 48 percent or higher.
The Bass seat falls in the last category, along with those in 12 other districts. Most of the races remain too close to call. These districts are tough for Democrats to crack because the Republican incumbents tend to be savvy politicians, more alert to potential threats. There are 188 voting wards in Bass's district, and the congressman has campaign chairmen in all of them.
These Republicans also tend to be centrists, and if they lose in droves next week, the House GOP conference will become even more conservative than it has been in recent years. That has wide-ranging implications, no matter which party wins the majority.
Moderate Republican House members such as Bass, Christopher Shays of Connecticut, and Jim Gerlach and Michael G. Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania often side with Democrats on environmental, social and budget issues. On the rare occasion when a vote fails in the House, they are usually the culprits. Ditto for internal dissent. After then-Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) was indicted on campaign finance charges in Texas, Bass helped launch a petition drive to replace the powerful House majority leader. DeLay gave up his post a few days afterward and later resigned from Congress.
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In past elections, Democratic challengers have found moderate Republicans tough to unseat because there is little friction between them. Bass, who represents a scenic district along the Vermont border, often breaks with his party over the environment. He is pro-choice on abortion, supports embryonic stem cell research and voted against a ban on same-sex marriage.
But this year, voters are not as focused on specific issues. "They are looking at the bigger picture," said Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), the DCCC chairman.
That bigger picture is which party controls Congress.
The real problem with the moderate and centrist Republicans is that they have been forced to toe the hard-right Republican line for the past six years by the Bush administration and Karl Rove. Consider this New York Times story regarding the fight over nominating John Bolton as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations:
President Bush called the dissenting Republican, Senator George V. Voinovich of Ohio, on Wednesday, the day before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on which Mr. Voinovich serves, was to take up the nomination, the White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, said.
Karl Rove, the president's powerful political adviser, and Andrew H. Card Jr., the chief of staff, also called to chat with Mr. Voinovich in recent weeks, Mr. McClellan said.
And Mr. Voinovich, who has steadfastly refused to answer questions about any discussions with the White House, is hardly the only Republican who is feeling the squeeze these days.
From the fight over Mr. Bolton to the looming blowup over the president's judicial nominees to the debate over the proposal to overhaul Social Security, Republican moderates are caught in the middle as never before. As they look to the near future, to a possible vacancy on the Supreme Court, they realize that the pressures will only intensify.
"Bolton is a perfect example of putting the moderates in an impossible situation," said Senator Lincoln Chafee, the Rhode Island Republican who also sits on the Foreign Relations Committee and who agonized publicly over Mr. Bolton for weeks. "It's a no-win. Either we don't support the president or we vote for a very unpopular pick to represent us at the United Nations."
The elections in November put seven new Republicans, nearly all conservatives, in the Senate, increasing the party's majority to 55. As moderate Senate Republicans look out around the country, they are comforted by the ranks of moderate governors like Arnold Schwarzenegger in California, George E. Pataki in New York and Mitt Romney in Massachusetts.
But here in the Capitol, their numbers are so few, said Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, that they quit having their weekly lunches about a year ago.
And President Bush has been adept at using this pressure to keep the moderates squarely into the hard right Republican camp. Consider this Washington Post Story Bush's Conservative Policies Put Moderates on Edge:
President Bush has launched the new year with a flurry of conservative proposals, thrilling his most loyal backers but chipping away at his support from independent voters and moderate Republican lawmakers.
Last week, he rejected a plea by four GOP moderates in the Senate and sided with a conservative court challenge aimed at dismantling affirmative action. His $670 billion tax cut proposal has drawn objections from at least six Republican senators in a chamber where the party has a two-vote majority.
Bush's moves to ease provisions in the Clean Water Act and his renomination of judges with controversial records on racial issues have also worried centrists, while Republican senators of all stripes have been complaining about the administration's secrecy on military matters.
The actions by the White House are consistent with a strategy that has served Bush well from the start: Energize the Republican base with strikingly conservative policies, then win over moderates in both parties with Bush's popularity and soothing, compassionate rhetoric....
The problem here is that the Bush administration's extreme insistence that all Republicans follow the White House agenda, coupled with the administration's refusal to compromise on its hard-line conservative agenda is essentially destroying the moderate Republicans over the long term. Moderate Republican congressmen must face a constituency that is made up of a sizable number of Democratic voters, or is increasingly changing over to the Democrats. They have to balance their political views and legislative agenda to reflect this Democratic constituency. However, the Bush administration doesn't understand, or accept this balancing act that the moderate Republicans must face when considering the legislative agenda. Going back to the WaPost story Bush's Conservative Policies Put Moderates on Edge:
[T]here are signs that Bush's strategy of spending "political capital" to advance conservative programs is depleting his store. Republican moderates, a small but pivotal band, are getting edgy.
"The cliché is 'energize the base,' and he's just completely devoted to that unwaveringly," said Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee (R-R.I.). "It's divisive, and no one would dispute that we're in for a tough 108th [Congress]. It all leads to trench warfare -- more and more of it."
Chafee, sometimes a lonely GOP dissenter on Bush policies, said that on Bush's tax proposal in particular, "you won't see the conforming to the same degree of the spring of 2001," when many moderates supported Bush's first tax cut.
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on domestic matters, Bush is perceived in "increasingly partisan terms" because of his stands on the economy and race. "Their operating principle from the get-go has been to satisfy the base before doing anything else," [Democratic pollster Geoff] Garin said. "That has been helpful: The base could not be more solidified." But the fall in his overall standing "reflects his movement from being an above-the-fray national leader to a partisan leader."
Bush supporters say there is little chance the president will reverse course and adopt a moderate, split-the-difference approach. "This is a conviction president, driven by morality," said former Reagan aide Michael J. Horowitz of the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank. "Polls go up and go down, but people connect to the fact that the guy stands for something."
As the Bush White House continues to push their hard-line agenda, not only are they angering the moderates--who also face an angry Democratic constituency at home--but the administration has aligned itself to its base constituency, ignoring not just the liberal half of the country, but also the moderate and independent parts as well. A June 2006 Pew Research poll shows moderate Republicans giving Bush's job approval rating a drop of "20 percentage points since December 2004 (from 89% to 69%).
Pew Research Center graphicThis erosion of support has been most severe among Republicans describing themselves as moderate or liberal, where his rating has dropped 25 points from 81% to 56%." In an October 17, 2006 NPR poll, "a majority of moderates -- 59 percent -- said they plan to vote for Democrats running for Congress." None of this is good news for the moderate Republicans who are facing a potential voter wrath come three days. And there is plenty of voter wrath against the Republican-controlled Congress, with 16 percent of Americans approving the way Congress is doing its job.
These are the problems that moderate Republican congressmen have to deal with for this coming election. Forced to adhere to a hard-line conservative agenda by an uncompromising Bush White House, while angering their Democratic constituents at home, the moderate Republicans have pretty much dug their own grave for this election. Now whether the Democrats can take advantage of this liability the moderate Republican have in the next three days until the election is a big question.
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