With her pleas for a more moderate, more mainstream GOP, Christine Todd Whitman has long been one of my favorite Republican voices — and she’s at it again, according to a report from Chris Cillizza late yesterday. Case in point:
Whitman criticizes her party for their recent debate over Obama’s “cap and trade” energy policy, noting that the Republican attacks centered on dismissing the proposal as “cap and tax” rather than offering solutions of their own. “The irony here is that the cap-and-trade concept was first used almost 20 years ago, under a Republican president, to successfully reduce acid rain,” she writes.
Of course, none of this has had much impact on an increasingly extreme, isolated, and simple-minded Republican Party. Then again, Cillizza suggests things might be different this time around:
… with moderates like Reps. Mark Kirk (Ill.) and Mike Castle (Del.) as well as Gov. Charlie Crist (Fla.) leading the Republican Senate recruiting class, Whitman’s message may well find more fertile ground within the party over the coming months and years.