A Ridge Too Far?
BARNES, FRED
A Ridge Too Far? Will Bush select the pro-choice Pennsylvania governor as his running mate? BY FRED BARNES THE LOGIC BEHIND Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge as George W. Bush's vice presidential...
...Every exception to abortion you can name, he's for," says a prominent GOP backer of Ridge...
...Ridge would make Bush odds-on to win Pennsylvania, a marginally Democratic state in presidential races and one Al Gore desperately needs to offset Bush's strength in the South, plains, and Rockies...
...In fact, Ridge was first alerted that the Reuters story led with the abortion issue by an official of the Bush presidential campaign...
...Patrick Buchanan, the likely Reform party candidate and a strong abortion foe, "has no legs," says a Bush adviser...
...Ridge is experienced, both as a House member and a governor...
...Perhaps some pro-lifers will be mollified, but picking Ridge would hardly be risk-free...
...And they may be assuaged by Ridge's insistence that he doesn't want a platform fight, since that would help Gore...
...Deal Hudson, the editor of Crisis, a conservative Catholic magazine, said Ridge had "seriously damaged his status [at Bush headquarters] in Austin...
...BY FRED BARNES THE LOGIC BEHIND Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge as George W. Bush's vice presidential running mate is almost impeccable...
...But if he opts for Ridge, "the whole three months [after the Republican convention] will be about abortion, and that's not on message," says GOP senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania...
...What matters is winning the presidency and Congress and making sure conservative judges are nominated...
...Like Bush, he has a moderate-to-conservative record on hot button Republican issues such as taxes and school choice...
...Ridge is clearly available, and should Bush pass him over, the press will jump on him for wimping out...
...What gives this theory credence is that Bush is already emulating some of Clinton's 1992 strategy...
...But the private reaction was highly negative...
...Thus, there's a double problem with Ridge...
...Picking Ridge now, he said, would jeopardize Bush's support among both Catholics and pro-lifers, including Hudson himself...
...Pro-lifers oppose him, and so do a number of Catholic Republicans who are close to Bush...
...Ridge is Catholic, and Catholics are the single most sought after group by the Bush campaign...
...They believe that putting a pro-choice Catholic on the ticket, particularly one who's feuding with his bishop, would drive away the conservative Catholic voters that Bush is eager to attract...
...He's distanced himself from his party's congressional wing...
...Besides, the adviser says, pro-lifers have grown up and realize there are bigger things at stake in the election than the vice presidential candidate's position on abortion...
...He's stayed calm in the face of relentless attacks...
...While Ridge doesn't favor abortion on demand, he is pro-choice in a party that's at least nominally pro-life...
...He favors parental consent if a minor wants an abortion...
...He's a Vietnam vet and slightly disabled...
...In Bush's case, tapping Ridge would show he has the moxie to confront the GOP's pro-life wing...
...However, the claim Ridge is only mildly pro-choice is undercut by his inconsistent record in the House...
...As it now stands, Bush's decision on Ridge looms as one of his most important of the campaign...
...Hudson said Bush has "already taken risks" with his pro-life supporters by refusing to rule out a pro-choice vice president...
...Most pro-lifers have focused on the doughnut, not the hole," the adviser says...
...The public reaction to Ridge's comments was muted, though Republican David Dreier, chairman of the House Rules Committee and a Ridge backer, told Fox News Channel the remarks were not helpful...
...He voted against forcing abortion providers to notify the parents of minors who had sought an abortion...
...This, of course, clashes with Bush's position that the platform shouldn't be tinkered with...
...And Bush likes him, which is an important factor, and so do many other GOP leaders, including a cluster of Bush advisers...
...Ridge also says he would acknowledge Bush's position on abortion takes precedence over his...
...He emphasizes the other party's issues, while holding his own party's base...
...Ridge's value to Bush, says a Republican strategist, has become "pretty apparent, pretty widely...
...Ridge opposes partial-birth abortion...
...It positioned Clinton in the political center, exactly where he wanted to be, and made him more acceptable to moderates and even conservatives...
...Ridge is bound to be near the top of Bush's veep list, if only because others have taken their names off...
...There's just one problem: abortion...
...There's a counter-theory, however, that says picking Ridge would be Bush's version of Bill Clinton's attack on Sister Souljah in 1992, which demonstrated Clinton's willingness to stand up to Jesse Jackson and the Democratic party's left...
...Would it really...
...As everyone knows, Bush is downright obsessive about staying on message...
...Last month, a Reuters reporter from Washington, Alan Elsner, interviewed Ridge and quoted him as saying he wishes the antiabortion plank in the GOP platform would be dropped or modified to include "at least a recognition that the decent God-fearing people don't always have the same view on this...
...Former defense secretary Richard Cheney says he's promised the board at Haliburton, the oil services company he heads, that he won't leave any time soon...
...He is allowed to attend mass, but that's it...
...He supported, then opposed, the "Mexico City policy" of ending foreign aid to organizations that promote abortion around the world...
...The abortion plank as written since 1980 hurts the party, Ridge indicated...
...He's against taxpayer-funded abortion...
...As a Catholic, Ridge has for two years been barred by his hometown bishop in Erie, Donald Trautman, from speaking or even appearing at any Catholic event...
...Some in the Bush campaign think pro-lifers have no place else to go...
...Hudson is a close ally of Bush strategist Karl Rove and put together a Catholic advisory group for the campaign...
...Republican leaders who favor Ridge make a different case: Ridge is not all that pro-choice and wouldn't touch off pro-life protests...
...He once voted to repeal the Hyde Amendment, which bars taxpayer-financed abortions, but later voted for it...
...As luck would have it, there's already been a trial run of whether Ridge's pro-choice views would rile a significant number of Republicans...
...Colin Powell and senators John McCain and Connie Mack are adamant about not wanting the job...
...Hudson told me: "To select a Catholic running mate who is under sanction by his bishop would be an insult to Catholic voters...
...It would tilt him toward the center, win praise from the media, and lure moderates and liberals...
...But the problem goes beyond the anger that Bush might kindle among ardently pro-life Republicans if he picked Ridge...
Vol. 5 • May 2000 • No. 33
