Crist Aims to Steer Florida GOP Toward Center
From the Palm Beach Post this encouraging report on the Centrist tendencies of new Governor Charlie Crist.
Not yet known, though, is whether these successes and even Crist’s stellar approval ratings can let him manage what could be his boldest but, so far, his least-publicized challenge: to remake the state Republican Party in his own, more centrist image.
“Clearly a more tolerant party that believes in good law and order, sound financial discipline but … a true compassion for people and our environment, particularly in a state like Florida, it is the wave of the future,” said Crist, who prefers to call himself a “problem-solver” rather than accept a label like “moderate.”
Yet on issue after issue – from cracking down on insurance companies to supporting implementation of the class-size amendment to pushing to scrap touch-screen voting machines – Crist has broken with conservative Republican orthodoxy of the past decade. Crist said he is merely trying to get his party back to the principles of founders such as Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt.
The strategy seems to be working so far. A recent Quinnipiac University poll showed Crist with a 69 percent approval rating, with only 6 percent disapproving.
“Charlie is hitting Republican politics at exactly the right time to moderate the Republican Party in the state,” said former state GOP Chairman Tom Slade, who cites the unpopularity of President Bush and the results of the 2006 congressional elections as proof that Crist is on the right track. “We have scared voters off with some of the hard-right stuff.”
“Charlie Crist is doing exactly the right thing,” said former GOP New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, who has taken the same message nationally with a book titled It’s My Party Too and a political action committee named for it.
She said recent polls show that 60 percent of Americans call themselves political centrists.
“That’s where we need to run,” she said. “We’re sick to death of this hard-edged, narrow-minded image. … We’ve had this attitude over the last few years that if you’re not with me, you’re against me.”
“…It may have the unintended additional effect of expanding the base of the party I happen to belong to,” Crist said. “I think it may open the eyes of some who may have thought that Republicans necessarily stood against the importation of prescription drugs from Canada, or stood against having a paper trail in our voting system, or stood against fighting for the betterment of our environment. But here we have a Republican governor who’s fighting for all of those things, and higher teacher pay, and so maybe it gets a second look as a result.”
It seems to me that Republican and Democratic Governors and Mayors are moving towards the Center, in an effort to reposition themselves as problem solvers rather than champions of extreme ideology, and thus appeal to more voters. I hope that they use their political capital to nurture the vitality of the Center by encouraging redistricting reform and public finance of campaigns like exist in seven states and two municipalities and bills are currently being considered in state capitols across the country.
This compares to what I feel is the relatively self destructive GOP point of view of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell who regularly calls for the abolishment of the presidential public financing system that was established after the Watergate scandals.
Public Campagin Action Funds responds:
“Senator McConnell apparently prefers to see presidential candidates race around the country scooping up checks from wealthy Americans rather than have the presidential campaign be a contest of ideas,” said David Donnelly, national campaigns director of Public Campaign Action Fund. “McConnell wants us all to wear blinders to the fact that our nation is about to see its first billion dollar presidential campaign.”
“It is unbelievable that three months after voters gave Congress a mandate to clean up corruption Senator McConnell is opposing doing away spending limits and public financing. The presidential system is weak, but it ought to be modernized, not thrown out,” commented Donnelly.
Public support for public financing is consistently strong. In a bipartisan survey done last summer, seventy-four percent supported publicly financed elections along with strict spending limits and tough enforcement.
17 Responses to “Crist Aims to Steer Florida GOP Toward Center”
Once the national organization sees the success that state and local officials have had with a more pragmatic, centrist approach, they may abandon the ideological hard line that has driven so many moderates and Independents over to the Democratic Party. Elsewhere on this blog is a post detailing the RNC’s choice of Newt Gingrich as a political consultant- which makes me think that as of this moment, they still don’t get what appeals to a majority of these voters and are striving to rally the base in ’08. Imo, if they remain in denial on this issue, they will become a permanent minority party with a narrow appeal to American voters.
Kritter,
I tend to agree with you. The moderate GOP organizations like the Republican Main Street Partnership and It’s my Party Too are ignored and somewhat dormant.
It seems to me that much of the conduct of the GOP Congress is off putting to moderates and independents.
I keep bringing up my concern about public financing but no one has addressed it. Am I the only one who thinks that the lack of accountability of 527s is a huge problem? If groups that have an agenda want to get out a message to hurt an opponent’s campaign, they will be MORE able to do so if we weaken the legitimate use of private funds being given to an official campaign. I think the attack ads will explode if we have a publicly financed election: the funding for attack ads will be driven completely ‘underground’ to 527s, in which case there is plausible deniability for the candidates themselves.
This is a good sign from Crist. Jebadiah pandered to the Wingnuts, see Terry Schioavo, in a belief that he could coattail on his brothers pandering to the Radical Right that used to be the dominant wing of the Republicans.
Ka-ching.
I’m telling you, this will work for the GOP.
Yes, CS that is a potential problem, but you don’t want to “throw the baby out with the bath water” do you? It doesn’t mean that the entire idea of public financing for elections is a bad one. I’d support anything that would minimize the effects of special interest money on elections, and make our government more responsive to the governed.
Kim,
The problem is that I think that public financing directly would cause an increase in the non-campaign financed ads from corporations and special interest groups. So no, I don’t want to throw out the baby with the bathwater in terms of abandoning the idea of campaign reform, but I can’t support something that I think will have the opposite of the intended effect. Good goal, wrong solution IMO (but I don’t pretend to know the right solution either!)
All ready happened with Webb, Tester and Schuler, but those Brie eating surrender monkey Demonocrat Party hate our troops and love alQaeda……
All ready happened with Webb, Tester and Schuler, but those Brie eating surrender monkey Demonocrat Party hate our troops and love alQaeda……
And as we know from PM Howard, they are on their prayer mats 7 times a day facing Mecca, praying that madrassa graduate Barack Hussein Obama delivers them from the Great Satan in ’08.
C Stanley,
I agree with your concern for unlimited third party campaigning and would like to hear possible remedies.
My favorite would be for the Supreme Court to reconcile the conflict between free speech and the intend of the framers that voters are to have the control to elect their own representatives without the influence of rich outside forces.
My preference would be to allow political contributions only from individuals in the district. Unions and Corporations should be banned from contributions and from concentrating insurmountable marketing power.
Paul,
I think you’re missing my point. I think that as soon as you tell corporations that they can’t fund their favored candidate, they will seek out the nearest 527 which supports him and put their money there. And then those ads give the candidates a means to put out a message that they don’t have to take responsibility for.
I just don’t think you can stop corporate “speech” by banning it. You’ll only drive it underground if you don’t allow it in the official campaign.
Again, I wish I had the answer, but I really think that the ones proposed so far will do more harm than good.
How about changing the tax code to allow deductions to any campign or 527 groups to a $100 limit, $1000 or corps and unions. Anything else would be a real gift, no deduction. The new tax code demands reciepts for $2 cash donations to the Red Cross and Salvation Army. The bell ringers get the shaft, while corps and unions carry on.
Might have some merit Rudi, but I’m not convinced that the corporations wouldn’t give just as much even if it weren’t deductible. Their interest is in influencing policy, not saving on taxes.
What about changing the law that gives corporations the same rights as people? I really don’t understand why they have the same rights but not the same restrictions.
What law exactly are you talking about, Kim? I think that’s just an interpretation of law, not an actual statute, but I could be wrong.
And I think that it’s not that there are responsibilities that are assigned to individuals but not corps- it’s more that there are limits to the financial resources of an individual while a corp has a much higher limit by virtue of having greater resources at its disposal.
CS LOL My proposal might help bring down our debt. I agree the unions and corps would continue handing out the dole, but you and I would continue to subsidise the grease.
I think it is the interpretation, CS. Corporations are given the same rights as individuals with regard to free speech, which translates to campaign contributions.