“The majority of the
American people are centrists — and our party lost many
seats because the party was not in touch with what the
American people care about,” said Rep. Michael N. Castle
of Delaware, a prominent GOP centrist who easily won
re-election.
At 12:16 a.m. Wednesday,
Sarah Chamberlain Resnick, the executive director of the
Republican Main Street Partnership, a caucus of
moderates, issued a statement:
“For the last two
years centrist GOPers have warned the leadership of our
party of the consequences of pushing a legislative
agenda kow-towing to the far right in our party,” she
said. “Our warnings were ignored, and now our party is
paying a devastating price.”
At least eight of
the 48 House Republicans who identify themselves as Main
Street members were defeated Tuesday, along with Sen.
Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, one of the Senate’s
best-known Republican moderates.
Conservatives took
hits as well. Paul S. Teller, deputy director of the
Republican Study Committee (RSC), a caucus of more than
100 House conservatives, said the group lost 13 members,
either through election defeats or retirements. But it
also was poised to gain 10 new members, he said.
“The silver lining
from last night is that the RSC will remain robust and
not fade away into the night, as some had predicted,”
Teller said. “The defenders of conservative principles
are alive and well, and ready to assertively advance
them in the 110th Congress.”
The defeated GOP
House moderates include Charles Bass and Jeb Bradley of
New Hampshire, Nancy L. Johnson of Connecticut, Sue W.
Kelly of New York and Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania.
In addition,
moderate Republicans Sherwood Boehlert of New York and
Jim Kolbe of Arizona retired; their seats were claimed
by Democrats. Moderate Joe Schwarz of Michigan was
defeated in his Republican primary by conservative Tim
Walberg, who also won Tuesday.
Resnick issued a
second statement early Wednesday blasting the Club for
Growth, a conservative group that backed Walberg and
Chafee’s Republican primary opponent, Steve Laffey: “The
Club spent hundreds of thousands of dollars working to
convince Rhode Island voters that Lincoln Chafee
shouldn’t be representing them in Washington. Sadly
their smear campaign worked and helped elect a
Democrat.”
Steven C. Clemons, a
senior fellow at the centrist New America Foundation who
identifies himself as a moderate Republican, said
Tuesday’s elections may prompt a shift. “A new
competition has broken out for the soul of the
Republican Party,” he said.
Clemons tied the
moderates’ election losses to the House GOP leadership
elections in February. After then-Majority Leader Tom
DeLay of Texas resigned, moderate Rules Chairman David
Dreier of California briefly appeared in line to claim
the job. But the GOP caucus instead elected John A.
Boehner of Ohio, who embraced the causes of
conservatives who had supported him.
“Had David Dreier
moved into Boehner’s seat, I think the picture would
have been different,” Clemons said. “Before the
election, you would have seen more work to position
Republicans closer to the center than they did.”
Instead, Boehner
scheduled votes on issues dear to conservatives, such as
a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage (H J Res
88), a bill (HR 5429) to authorize oil drilling in the
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and legislation (HR
2389) that would prevent most federal courts from
hearing cases challenging the constitutionality of the
Pledge of Allegiance.
Meanwhile, the House
voted to sustain President Bush’s veto of a bill (HR
810) to expand federally sponsored research into medical
uses of embryonic stem cells. After pressure from
moderates, Boehner allowed a vote on a minimum wage
increase — but only as part of a package that included a
reduction of the estate tax, yet another conservative
priority. The bill (HR 5970) was blocked in the Senate.
“We didn’t have
anything to run on,” Resnick said. She said Main Street
members planned to hold a conference call Wednesday to
discuss the election and how to regroup.
Doing that will be
difficult, Clemons believes. “While they’re in a morally
superior position, they’re in a politically inferior
position,” he said.
Resnick agreed that
moderate Republicans were weakened. But she said the
long-term prospects for the Republican Party could
depend on a resurgence by its moderates. “If they
don’t,” she said, “Democrats are going to have the
majority for years.”
Jonathan Allen
contributed to this report.
