the moderate crack-up
BARNES, FRED
The Moderate Crack-up You May Not Know This, but the Media's Favorite Republicans Crashed and Burned in 1996 By Fred Barnes For years now, economically conservative but socially liberal...
...Bill Weld in Massachusetts, who argues as strenuously for gay rights as he does for spending cuts...
...She described herself as a social progressive who's pro-choice, pro-gun control, and pro-environmental protection...
...He's for gay marriage and supported President Clinton's veto of the ban on partial-birth abortion...
...I'm unequivocally pro-life," she says...
...In Rhode Island, a pro-choice, pro-gun-control woman, state treasurer Nancy Mayer, was promoted by national Republican officials as having a real shot at the open Senate seat...
...Not so you'd notice...
...A Catholic and a state rep., she won by less than 1 point...
...One is the misconception about the gender gap...
...Living on the farm here has really taught us to appreciate how beautiful New Jersey is," she said...
...My being elected shows that's not necessarily the case...
...Yes, Kerry was well financed, attractive, and reasonably popular...
...Pete Wilson, was favored to win the open House seat...
...She lost by 11 points...
...This is what Democratic consultant Bob Shrum calls the "internal contradiction" of being economically conservative and socially liberal...
...What are the lessons from the 1996 debacle for economically conservative and socially liberal Republicans...
...In the end, enough pro-choice Republicans drifted to Pappas because they liked his conservative economic views...
...But pro-life Republicans are more intense about their issue than pro-choicers are...
...In one, Zimmer was shown feeding sheep, while his wife, Marfy Goodspeed, spoke...
...But on November 5, it didn't work out that way, quite the contrary...
...The hullabaloo over economically conservative, socially liberal Republicans was based on their supposed singular ability to overcome just such odds, while also blurring the GOP's otherwise harshly conservative image...
...New Jersey was the biggest nightmare for socially liberal Republicans...
...Weld has enormous personal charm, campaigns exuberantly, and is unabashed about his social liberalism...
...By softening his economic views and running away from Gingrich and congressional Republicans, Zim-mer lost some of his Republican base...
...She lost by nearly two to one...
...In the California district that includes Malibu, pro-choice Republican Rich Sybert, a former aide to Gov...
...Dick Zimmer, a moderate who backed partial-birth abortion and voted against the Republican budget, lost by 10 points to Democrat Bob Tor-ricelli...
...They could win in regions hostile to traditional conservatives like the Northeast and West Coast...
...In contrast, Pappas, a self-described social conservative, was helped by running in a normally Republican district...
...In New Jersey, Rep...
...Dick has always voted to protect the environment...
...His presidential prospects have suddenly dimmed...
...Bob Smith of New Hampshire, famous for bringing crude drawings to the Senate floor to illustrate the horror of partial-birth abortion, was regarded as vulnerable in a state that's trending Democratic...
...Thus, social liberals might have fared better with women if they'd moderated their economic conservatism...
...Sam Brownback knocked off Sen...
...Of course, there are many reasons why Weld lost, admirers of GOP social liberals will tell you...
...To the extent these Republicans lost, says James Pinker-ton, "it's unfortunate and it'll hurt the party...
...Peter Torkildsen, a Weld clone, was ousted from his House seat on the North Shore of Massachusetts...
...He was endorsed by the Sierra Club...
...Did this help him among female voters, as promised...
...Zimmer was "going after the shepherd vote," he laughed...
...Meanwhile, two socially liberal Republicans lost House seats in New Jersey, while a pro-life conservative, Mike Pappas, won Zimmer's old seat encompassing New Jersey horse country and Princeton...
...She irritated conservatives, provoked a pro-lifer to run as an independent, and lost to Democrat Mike Ward—despite the GOP sweep across the country...
...Yes, again, but that misses the point...
...I don't know about that...
...He won by 3 points, proving, he says, that social liberals aren't the wave of the future...
...In the district vacated by Torricelli, Republican Kathleen Donovan, a protegee of Gov...
...Christie Whitman, won the endorsement of the New York Times...
...But Zimmer caused himself a different problem...
...There was a decided group who started out with resentment because they disliked the religious Right...
...And, yes, Massachusetts is an incorrigibly Democratic state...
...In fact, the Weld gap among women was the same as that for Jesse Helms, the Senate's most unswerving social conservative, in North Carolina...
...She made an issue of Brownback's unflinching social conservatism...
...He played up his economic libertarianism and faced a bloated gender gap...
...The same may happen if you emphasize your social liberalism...
...Then he went soft and positive in his TV ads...
...And they're right...
...He won...
...True, states like Massachusetts and Rhode Island aren't likely to elect pro-lifers...
...Rick Shaftan, a New Jersey pollster, says Zimmer's support eroded badly when he stressed his moderation...
...But Brownback also wound up with a smaller (7 points) gender gap than Weld or Susan Collins (9 points) or Pat Roberts (9 points), the Republican who won the other Senate seat in Kansas...
...Looking at the ad, Mellman said, "most people in New Jersey asked, 'What state are they in?'" Within days, the pollster called Torricelli and assured him he'd won...
...He lost by 8 points...
...He's pro-choice and split with House Republicans in backing gun control and a minimum-wage hike...
...Their admirers are not giving up, however...
...Brownback won by 11 points, no doubt aided by the strong Republican surge behind Dole in Kansas...
...The Moderate Crack-up You May Not Know This, but the Media's Favorite Republicans Crashed and Burned in 1996 By Fred Barnes For years now, economically conservative but socially liberal Republicans—you know, the Wilson, Whitman & Weld brigades—have been touted as politically perfect for the 1990s and beyond...
...At every joint appearance, Democrat David Del Vecchio began by bringing up the abortion issue and pointing to Pappas's pro-life stance...
...But in 1996, running against the mildest of Democratic tides, economically conservative and socially liberal Republicans took a beating...
...If you trim your conservatism, you stand to lose GOP support...
...There's a flip side to the failure of economically conservative, socially liberal candidates: Republicans who are conservative economically and socially often won, even when challenged by economically conservative but socially liberal Democrats...
...A very important part of the coalition I put together was social conservatives," he told me...
...The idea was these Republicans had unique appeal to women and independents and young people and yuppies and moderates and some Democrats...
...It wasn't how I began every speech, but I was unequivocal there was no excuse for that vote," she says...
...In 1994, the Republican candidate was moderate Susan Stokes, a pro-choice state legislator...
...Two other points...
...But he was hardly a cinch since the votes of GOP moderates were, as Congressional Quarterly put it, "up for grabs...
...So it turns out they're not the wave of the future, or even the present, after all...
...They've got to succeed electorally to have a large role in the party...
...And in the GOP, pro-choice Republicans are more likely to vote for a pro-life candidate than vice versa...
...When Torricelli's pollster, Mark Mellman, saw the ad, he declared it "insane...
...One is that their position on abortion may hurt more than it helps...
...The GOP will be a minority party so long as its socially liberal wing atrophies, according to Pinkerton, one of the chief promoters of Weld-type Republicanism...
...Strom Thurmond's in South Carolina (5 points...
...He lost by 3 points...
...The burden of proof is not on Republicans in general, but on Weld and his ilk...
...So does the election of Ann Northrup, the mother of six kids, in Louisville, Kentucky...
...In 1996, they didn't...
...In Maine, a socially moderate woman, Susan Collins, won the Senate race, but her opponent was a tired Democratic hack, Joe Brennan...
...The big gap is on things like the Contract with America and ending welfare— spending issues...
...His general election foe was the Democratic equivalent of Bill Weld, a pro-choice stockbroker named Jill Docking who pledged she'd never vote for a tax hike...
...Zimmer, once a conservative, ran a mean and effective campaign against Torricelli until the final weeks...
...In Kansas, Rep...
...Nothing happened on November 5 that leads me to believe that [being a socially liberal Republican] is a recipe for political death," says GOP consultant Jay Smith...
...Weld didn't...
...Indeed, a few have, notably Gov...
...This year, Northrup attacked Ward for voting against the partial-birth abortion ban...
...Weld, defeated by incumbent John Kerry in the country's most watched Senate contest, was the biggest loser...
...And while he lost, he wiped out his gender gap...
...But those people came back to me," Northrup says, "because I was right enough for them on other issues...
...As Mark Shields noted in the Washington Post, there are millions more single-issue voters who oppose abortion than favor it...
...Sheila Frahm, a pro-choice moderate, in the primary, angering some moderates and women and a lot of the media...
...They don't fit in a category...
...Bill Martini, elected in the 1994 Republican sweep, emphasized his environmental zeal...
...Zimmer did...
...They could even capture Democratic strongholds...
...Yes, voters could have both Kerry as senator and Weld as governor—but only by making sure Kerry didn't give up his Senate seat to Weld...
...Yes, the Republican party, with glowering Newt Gingrich as congressional leader, is held in minimum regard in the Northeast...
...Pappas didn't waffle, though he preferred to talk about economic issues...
...Worse, socially liberal Republicans "appear insincere because they're all over the map," says Mellman...
...All this, says polling expert Everett Carll Ladd, was "too much for Weld to overcome...
...It has nothing to do with abortion and social issues," insists Republican strategist Jeffrey Bell...
...His gender gap—the failure of women to vote Republican as much as men—was 9 points, nearly twice as large as Sen...
...They lost race after race...
...Also, she played up the fact that she's a single mother with an adopted child...
...Northrup's nomination precluded a third-party candidate, but alarmed pro-choice and moderate Republicans...
...Yes, Clinton beat Bob Dole in Massachusetts by 34 points (Weld lost by 7), creating a Democratic landslide...
...Donovan's campaign manager labeled her "the right fit" for the district...
Vol. 2 • December 1996 • No. 12
