"A National Party No More" & "It's My Party Too." - "Maybe these two former governors can get together and figure this stuff out for us."

In a 8-23-05 post entitled "But will you love me tomorrow? -- GOP Centrists to Speak at [Republican] Convention, but Will They Be Heard?," I quoted former New Jersey governor Christie Whitman and then head of the E.P.A. under Bush as follows:

"'If [Bush] loses, it is an absolute validation of the fact that you cannot be a national party if you are excluding people.'''

I noted that the former N.J. governor was a former GOP heroine. As we now know, has another "former" in her resume.

After suffering embarrassing policy reversals that might have driven a less loyal person out of town much sooner, Bush's decision to reverse a campaign pledge -- at the urging of Cheney you can rest assured -- to regulate emissions of carbon dioxide, the main global warming gas, only weeks after Ms. Whitman, acting on good faith and with Condoleezza Rice's assurances, had promised America's European allies that the pledge would be honored, was the straw that broke the camel's back. She resigned as head of the E.P.A.

But that's old news. In the August post linked above, I noted:

"Ms. Whitman is writing a book titled 'It's My Party Too.'

"Sen. Miller's 'A National Party No More: The Conscience of a Conservative Democrat,' says the Demo's have veered too far to the left.

"Ms. Whitman's will say the GOP has veered too far to the right.

"Maybe these two former governors can get together and figure this stuff out for us."
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Ms. Whitman's political memoir "It's My Party Too" has just hit the newstands.

A firm believer in Ronald Reagan's 11th Commandment -- "thou shalt not speak ill of other Republicans" -- she does not blow out Cheney, Rove, etc..

But as expected, she is very clear about the hijacking of her beloved Republican Party by the "fundamentalists," the "social conservatives" and the "ideological zealots" whose views on abortion, race and other big social issues she battled tirelessly as governor of New Jersey.

This is a call to arms to the remaining moderates of the Eisenhower/Rockefeller school, and a timely reminder in this age of bitter ideological combat that there was once a Republican mainstream, before the mainstream flowed right.

There is no doubt whatsoever that Vice President Dick Cheney's insistence on unilaterally dismantling the Clean Air Act to please the administration's industrial patrons torpedoed Ms. Whitman's dream of reforming that law in an orderly, bipartisan manner. But following the 11th amendment, she didn't say this in the book.

However, last week I read an article in the ajc (that I thought about doing a post about) reporting that Ms. Whitman said publicly last week that the weakening of the act had been the insult that finally persuaded her to resign. But in the book she refers only in the most general terms to the "antiregulation element of the base" and to officials who favored "the concerns of business" over the needs of the environment.

Ms. Whitman gives Bush a pass, describing him as the "most socially conservative president of my lifetime," and portraying him as a victim of the fundamentalists, not their standard bearer, and a prisoner of bad advice and pressures from industry and the right-wingers on Capitol Hill.

(2-1-05 New York Times.)
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The years 2006 and 2008 can be the Democrats' chance to recover. Why?

Without acknowledging Zell Miller -- but agreeing with what he says in his book to the effect that much of America agrees that the party has veered too far to the left -- the party is veering to the middle.

But the GOP is Washington, like the GOP in Georgia, is forgetting for the moment that the pendulum is always swinging. Thus the GOP is not listening to Ms. Whitman's message that the GOP has veered too far to the right.

This and hubris will do them in. Our task at hand is to make it sooner rather than later.