Interesting op-ed. It does seem our politics are becoming more and more polarized. __________________ Are Moderate Republicans Obsolete? By E. J. Dionne Jr. Tuesday, October 15, 2002; Page A19 Talk about scurrilous charges: Rep. Connie Morella (R-Md.) is running a television ad that ends with a vicious attack on her opponent. "To hear this guy talk," the announcer declares, "you'd think he was the Republican." What's so bad about calling somebody a Republican? Isn't that normal partisanship? But Connie Morella is -- don't say it out loud in Montgomery County -- the Republican incumbent. The guy she's accusing of being the Republican is state Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a popular liberal Democrat who is offering Morella her toughest challenge in 16 years. The irony was not lost on a large crowd gathered at the B'Nai Israel Synagogue in Rockville on Sunday morning to hear the two candidates debate. One questioner wanted to know why Morella was "hiding the fact that you are the Republican" while using the R-word to describe her opponent. Morella genially replied that she was trying to "level the playing field" in her very Democratic district and insisted that the ad was funny. Van Hollen was not amused and demanded that the spot be pulled because it was based on a "misleading and false" reading of his record. Whatever you make of that strange ad, it underscores why the Morella-Van Hollen contest is of genuine national importance. Its outcome hangs on the answer to a critical question: Are moderate Republicans obsolete? Morella concedes her political tribe "almost seems to be an endangered species." During the debate, an informal poll found that 85 percent of the audience had a favorable view of Morella -- "Everybody likes Connie" is a phrase used regularly by her opponents -- but that 60 percent of them planned to vote for Van Hollen. Almost plaintively, she asked: "Is it not in my hands anymore?" Afterward, Morella, who was hurt in a Democratic redistricting plan, explained that voters were reacting "against the Congress, not me." Steve Silverman, the president of the Montgomery County Council, agreed. Morella's party label, he said, "didn't make much difference" during the first eight years of her tenure, when Democrats controlled the House. Back then, many rank-and-file Democrats liked the idea of voting for liberal Republicans. But since the 1994 Gingrich revolution, Morella's victory margins have dropped steadily because her vote now helps keep Republicans in charge. Silverman, a Democrat, noted that Morella sided with the party leadership on the Bush tax cut, when her vote mattered, while differing with party elders when her vote was less critical. Playing off Morella's slogan, Silverman argued: "She's an independent voice when they can give her a pass." The Republican leadership is, indeed, throwing its whole weight behind Morella's campaign -- even if that means painting her as a less-than-loyal Republican. One campaign piece declares: "Connie Morella doesn't represent a political party, she represents us." The return address on the mailer is that of the National Republican Congressional Committee. Van Hollen says that the district's Democrats should know what Republican leaders know: that the power to control the House agenda usually trumps the isolated votes of dissidents. "Show me where she's had a moderating influence on Tom DeLay," Van Hollen says of the House whip and talisman of the Republican right. The growing power of DeLay-style southern conservatism in the Republican Party explains why so many moderate, suburban areas outside the South have swung to the Democrats over the last decade. That shift, documented by John Judis and Ruy Teixeira in "The Emerging Democratic Majority," was first visible in presidential elections. It's now starting to take hold at the congressional level. Consider the contest to succeed the retiring Rep. Marge Roukema, a moderate Republican of the Morella stripe, in a district centered on suburban Bergen County in New Jersey. The Republican nominee, Scott Garrett, is a staunch conservative who twice challenged Roukema in primaries for being too liberal. The Democratic nominee: Anne Sumers, a former Republican and enthusiastic Roukema supporter who is attacking Garrett for his stands on guns, the environment, abortion and school vouchers. Sumers paraphrased Ronald Reagan in an interview: "I didn't leave the Republican Party. The Republican Party left me. On social issues, there was no longer a voice for the moderate Republicans. I realized that what I really am is a New Democrat, pro-business but socially moderate." Morella insists that her moderation is the perfect "offset" to "the partisan polarization that has occurred." The paradox is that moderate Republicans might have more power if their party lost more seats such as hers and Roukema's. Such defeats would eventually force Republican leaders to a reckoning with moderate suburbia. Unfortunately for the personable Morella, this would mean that she and some like-minded colleagues would not be around to enjoy the result.
