We need political centrism, but instead, "Party politics has degenerated into dangerous factionalism"

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Demands for "purity" destroying politics
By Kingsley Guy, January 26, 2014

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's recent fundraising foray into Florida created its share of scathing rhetoric. U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz even followed Christie around the state, speaking to every media outlet that would listen about his "bullying" style, and the notorious lane closings on the George Washington Bridge concocted by Christie acolytes as retribution toward a recalcitrant Democratic mayor.

With Christie bloodied by the scandal, the Democratic pack is circling. In a poll several months ago, Christie came out as the only GOP hopeful who could beat Hillary Clinton in a presidential contest, so it behooves the Democrats to rip him apart early and kill his chances for the nomination. As the late House Speaker Tip O'Neill noted, "Politics ain't beanbag."

But it's not only Democrats who are critical of Christie. Plenty of Republicans see him as a turncoat for cozying up to President Obama, who came to New Jersey offering federal aid in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. For them, a GOP governor appearing on the same dais with Obama is tantamount to treason worse than Benedict Arnold's. Just ask former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, whose quest for the GOP U.S. Senate nomination in 2010 crashed and burned after he hugged Obama and accepted federal economic stimulus money for Florida.

Among Florida Republicans critical of Christie is Sid Dinnerstein, former head of the Palm Beach County Republican Party. He told The Wall Street Journal during the New Jersey governor's Florida trip, "If Christie becomes the Republican [presidential] nominee, a minimum of 10 million Republicans would stay home, guaranteeing that we would lose."

Dinnerstein has a point. Millions of GOP voters didn't consider Mitt Romney a pure enough Republican to warrant going to the polls to vote for him, so they sat out the 2012 election. After all, as governor of Massachusetts, Romney was the chief engineer of a health-care plan that bore striking similarities to Obamacare. He also at one time supported a woman's right to have an abortion.

It's doubtful, however, that even Ronald Reagan would qualify today as being sufficiently Republican to warrant nomination for the presidency. Remember, Reagan was a staunch advocate of immigration reform, a position considered anathema to the far right in today's GOP. He also signed an abortion bill into law as governor of California.

And what about Barry Goldwater, for decades the standard bearer for the Republican conservative movement? When gays in the military became an issue in the early 1990s, he supported the idea as a senator, noting: "You don't need to be 'straight' to fight and die for your country, you just need to shoot straight." This won him the eternal enmity of those in the GOP who derive their politics from the book of Leviticus.

The Republican Party faces a conundrum. It can nominate candidates in primary elections that generate enthusiasm among the base and get right-wing Republicans to the polls. These candidates, however, can so alienate independent voters that they drive them into the Democratic camp in the general election, and lose as a result.

This scenario has played out in several high-profile senatorial races in the past two elections, and may have cost the GOP control of the Senate. It also played out in the 2010 Florida gubernatorial race. With support of the tea party movement, novice Republican Rick Scott beat established Republican Bill McCollum in the gubernatorial primary. Scott barely eked out a victory against Democrat Alex Sink, and this year Scott stands a good chance of losing to the Democratic nominee.

Thirty years ago, Democrats faced a similar conundrum to the one Republicans face now. The party during the Vietnam era had slid to the left, and Democrats lost a series of presidential elections, including the landslide defeat in 1984 of Walter Mondale by Reagan.

Centrist Democrats, including Bill Clinton and Florida's own Bob Graham, decided to take action and bring the Democratic Party back toward the American mainstream. In 1985, they formed the Democratic Leadership Council that advocated more centrist policies for the party. The result was Clinton's election in 1992 and re-election in 1996.

The DLC has since withered away, which is too bad. Democrats again are in need of adult supervision, and a reformulation of the DLC is in order. So is the creation of a similar organization that would draw the Republican Party toward the center.

Party politics has degenerated into dangerous factionalism. The American people deserve better, and it's about time they got it.
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