As any of my good friends can tell you, my political hero is Theodore Roosevelt. A two term GOP President, he brought the nation into the 20th century, championed reform of the civil service, established our credentials as a world power, was a prolific writer and political thinker, and helped shape the modern presidency. Those are the good things. He also led the largest schism in the history of the Republican Party, creating a third party that helped split GOP votes and return the Democrats to the White House for the first time in sixteen years. He took on Republican nominee and his former protege, William Howard Taft, who had the support of the conservatives within the party.
Fortunately, the schism didn’t last long, and within eight years we would return to the White House for the better part of two decades spanning three presidencies. The Progressive Party – Roosevelt’s ‘Bull Moose’ Party – was the most viable third party in American history, and his winning of 6 states, 88 electoral votes and 27% of the popular vote has been the high water mark of third party presidential hopes in American political history. If Theodore Roosevelt – probably the most well-known and popular man in the world in the years after he left the White House – couldn’t win at the head of a third party ticket, no one can.
Roosevelt has been on my mind lately, as I’ve been reading the third and final volume of Edmund Morris’s Theodore Roosevelt biography series, Colonel Roosevelt.
I couldn’t help but be reminded of what happened in 1912 when I read a story in today’s Politico about the Minnesota Republican Party expelling 18 prominent party members – including two former governors and one former U.S. Senator – over their support for a third party candidate in this year’s gubernatorial election there. The Minnesota GOP believes that support for the third-party candidate cost the Republican the race. The members who were expelled were considered more moderate, and Politico characterized the loss as similar to killing off an endangered species in one of its few remaining natural habitats. And as anyone who has read my stuff knows, I am closer to the center of our party.
That being said, I agree with what the Minnesota GOP did. Both the middle of the GOP, guys like me, and the right of the GOP need to stop with the bickering. It’s time to bury the hatchet and stop trying to fight for control of the party. We must learn to work together. If we don’t, we risk splitting the party like we did in 1912 – and that virtually hands the Democrats control. I’m a firm believer in the Republican party and in the democratic process. If moderates run and lose, I say support the nominee. If conservatives run and lose, I will still say support the nominee. I was upset when Mike Castle lost the nomination in Delaware, but I said we should support O’Donnell as our nominee. I was upset when Joe Miller beat Lisa Murkowski in the primary, but I still said support the nominee. I was unhappy when Pat Herrity lost to Keith Fimian, but on election day, I was standing in front of a polling place – as I always do – handing out sample ballots for Fimian and freezing my butt off. I believe in party loyalty. Every individual is different, but our party and our loyalty to that party is one the thread that ties us all together. I know that when I meet another Republican, he is going to agree with me on more issues than when I meet a Democrat. If you like sports analogies, here’s one – I may hate the Yankees with every fiber of my being, but I’ll be rooting for them in the World Series, because I’m an American League fan.
I am tired of seeing candidates who lose in a primary leave the party and keep running. It is divisive and it is unnecessary, even when they win. I’m sure many Republicans, like me, were happy when Joe Lieberman ran against Ned Lamont and won. But part of me always disliked him for doing that. No one was more critical of Arlen Spector when he switched parties than I was (although I understood why he did it). And I have to admit that I am not devastated to see Joe Miller lose in Alaska. But I stand by my condemnation of Lisa Murkowski for her write-in candidacy. Party primaries and conventions have to mean something. At the very least, we must all be able to agree to that much.
Now, these views have garnered me a lot of acrimony from a lot of folks on both sides of the aisle. Democrats say I should care more about the person running than their party – an easy thing to say when you want to get the other side to vote for your guy. Tea Partiers say that I have no principles and only care about winning elections – again, an easy thing to say. But I don’t simply believe in winning elections, I also care about governing. And governance means incremental change. It means compromise. It means striking the right balance between reform and the status quo. And when you have divided government – as we have in Virginia and will soon have again in Washington – it means not letting perfect be the enemy of good enough. It takes more than one man to govern effectively. It takes voting majorities. It takes groups willing to work together, and you can’t get those alone. It takes a party. And that’s why if we want center/right principles to win the day and be the foundation for policy, we need the strongest Republican Party we can find.
If the Tea Party decides to run off and form its own party, they will learn what the Progressives learned in 1912, the same lesson the Reformers learned in 1992. At best, we can split our base votes and hand election after election to the Democrats. And, in the end, we’ll be worse off for it. Contrary to what seems to be a mantra amongst some on the far right, a moderate Republican is NOT worse for governing than a liberal Democrat. Not by a long shot. While Clinton wasn’t the worst Democratic president we’ve ever had, I think another 4 years for George H.W. Bush would have been even better. And for my moderate colleagues who can’t stand conservatives like Sarah Palin or Christine O’Donnell, I will say the same thing – you’re not going to be able to split off and recreate the Whig Party and win. Those people who say they are “scared” of Sarah Palin or Christine O’Donnell can rest assured that the American system of governance is strong enough to withstand a weak executive or a bad legislator. We survived James Buchanan, Taft and Warren Harding in the White House and Huey Long, John C. Calhoun and Eugene McCarthy in the Senate – we could have survived an O’Donnell term in the Senate and we can still survive a Palin Administration. Our system is stronger than any one man, and those who are scared – even of Obama, Reid, Pelosi and others – should not allow their dislike to overcome their faith in our institutions. They have withstood time, war, famine and economic disaster. They will still be here long after we are all gone.
At the end of the day, we all have two choices – Republican or Democrat. Picking a third way is a waste and a cop-out, the easy choice of people unwilling to decide or defend their beliefs when challenged by others. It’s easy to say “I hate both sides” or “I’m independent” – it takes guts to pick and side and try and fix the problems you see from the inside rather throwing up your hands and going outside. Roosevelt did that and he was wrong. These 18 moderates in Minnesota did that and they were wrong. Third parties are not viable. They are a waste of time, a waste of resources and a wasted vote.
Both sides of our party need to recognize that we need the other. If you don’t believe that, take a look at what is happening inside the Democratic party right now. Modern day “progressives” (who are far closer to the Socialists of Eugene Debs in 1912 than Roosevelt’s Progressive Party) are livid with President Obama for recognizing that he can’t win everything he wants and compromising with us on extending the current tax rates for all Americans. They are as mad at Obama right now as the Tea Party is with George W. Bush and guys like me. These liberals laud guys like Bernie Sanders – a self-proclaimed socialist – and heap scorn on the man they all voted for and were proclaiming as the most transformational political figure in history just two years ago. If things keep going the way they are, all the comparisons between President Obama and Clinton, or Obama and Carter, are going to start turning into Obama and William Howard Taft – cut off at the knees by his more popular predecessor. The President should be fortunate that the 22nd Amendment bars Clinton from doing exactly what Roosevelt did to Taft.
As we prepare to move into the 2011 election season here in Virginia, I hope that both sides of our party can recognize that maintaining our control and expanding it in the House of Delegates, and winning back control of the Senate are our top priorities. To win, we are going to need moderates and conservatives, “RINOs” and Tea Partiers, working alike and across the state to elect Republicans to office. I firmly believe that we share far more similarities than differences, and even where the differences are more apparent, the are nothing compared to the differences we have with the folks on the other side of the aisle.
Roosevelt made a bad decision when he walked out of the Republican convention in June of 1912. Those moderates in Minnesota made a bad decision when they backed a third-party candidate for governor. I hope we can learn from these mistakes and move forward together. There’s too much at stake to make those same mistakes.
