Intending to indict conservatives, Snowe unintentionally indicts her fellow “moderates”
In her op-ed in yesterday’s
New York Times, Republican U.S. Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine makes two arguments: that her “moderate” Republican Senate colleague, Arlen Specter, was pushed out of the GOP by conservative Republicans’ ungenerous and non-inclusive attitude toward “moderates”; and that this non-inclusive attitude consists of a litmus test on “social” issues, meaning abortion, homosexual “marriage” and such like. But in both instances, Snowe inadvertently ends up saying the exact opposite of what she thinks she’s saying.
First, Snowe writes:
It was as though beginning with Senator Jeffords’s decision [to leave the GOP in 2001], 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.
This passage and others in the column create the impression that Specter’s Republican Senate colleagues and other party leaders made him feel increasingly unwelcome in the party. In reality, as Snowe herself admits in a subsequent passage, though without acknowledging its significance, what made Specter leave the party was not a lack of an “inclusive” attitude by the party elite, but the fact that he faced a primary challenge in Pennsylvania that he felt he couldn’t overcome. It is odd indeed when normal political competition is seen as non-inclusiveness and meanness. Perhaps we should simply do away with elections and let unelected leftist elites run society, as is increasingly the case in Europe.
Second, Snowe treats the late Ronald Reagan as her authority on what defines Republicanism:
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.
Reagan said that Republicanism is defined by such issues as restraining government spending and taxes, not by social and moral issues. The former should be a litmus test, the latter should not. And Snowe blames conservative Republicans for violating Reagan’s guidelines by making social issues the litmus test and so driving out poor Arlen Specter.
But in reality, as Specter and Snowe have both pointed out, Specter did not face defeat in the Republican primary because of his liberal stand on social issues. He faced defeat in the Republican primary because of his support for the stimulus package, which Snowe also supported. In other words, Republican voters were outraged at Specter for violating the Reaganite Republican litmus test of restraining government spending and keeping down taxes, which Snowe herself agrees ought to be the litmus test. According to Snowe’s own reasoning, then, it was she and Specter who betrayed Republican principles, while the voters who rejected Specter were being true to those principles.
In sum, Snowe makes it sound as though Specter was forced against his will to leave the Republican party because anti-abortion, anti-homosexual marriage Republican cadres were mean to him, when in fact he left the party because he had alienated Pennsylvania Republican voters by his support for unprecedentedly huge increases in government spending and taxes.
And, the final irony, so ensconced are Snowe and the Times editors in their unreflective knee-jerk liberal condemnation of social conservatives, that they failed to notice that her op-ed refuted itself.
Here is Snowe’s column:
April 29, 2009
Op-Ed Contributor
We Didn’t Have to Lose Arlen Specter
By OLYMPIA SNOWE
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.
- end of initial entry -
Jed W. writes:
This is a “cri de ceour” as Olympia may be the next to leave.
Tim W. writes:
Unmentioned in the media is the fact that the GOP treated Specter far more favorably than the Democrats would have treated a conservative in their ranks. For example, Specter was made chairman of the Judiciary Committee when the GOP controlled the Senate, despite his leftist views on abortion and other social issues. A Democrat who holds conservative views on those issues is not even allowed to serve on that committee, let alone to become its chairman under a Democrat Senate majority
It isn’t just that the press is trying to create a false image of an intolerant, ultra-right wing GOP. They’re providing political cover for an intolerant, ultra-left wing Democratic Party.
Richard W. writes:
A tour-de-force of logical refutation.
E. writes:
You are good.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at April 30, 2009 11:55 AM | Send