For the poor Republican Party, beset lately with so many problems, there comes at last a small ray of good news. Rep. Steve LaTourette, recently retired after 18 years in Congress representing Ohio’s 4th, has become President and CEO the Republican Main Street Partnership and launched an effort to protect the “good guys” in the Republican Party from primary challenges by the likes of the Club for Growth and other male factors. LaTourette’s departure from the Congress is certainly not good news but this initiative is a welcome step. Many moderate Republicans worried about the invasion of the well-healed body snatchers in their primaries now have some help in defending themselves. The Main Street Partnership promises to come in with cash to help moderates or perhaps we should say center right Republicans to rebut misleading and unfair charges by the well-organized far right activist groups. The Partnership is going to maintain a high tone and not go around attacking other groups or challengers, snooping in garbage cans for dirt on anybody, or pick fights with other elements of the party. It will mainly try to say good things about the center right Republicans trying to stay politically alive and neutralize negative ads that can have an outsize influence in some primary battles.
Karl Rove, not usually viewed as the face of the moderate Republicans, is also reportedly concerned with finding (and funding) Senate candidates who have a chance of winning and discouraging the likes of far right candidates who blew winnable Senate seats in Indiana, Nevada, Delaware, and Missouri after winning in the primary. This attitude was expressed most pithily by Governor Bobby Jindal in his injunction that we should stop being the “stupid” party. Of course the Democrats claim that a PR makeover and face lift will not change the underlying realities so long as Republicans cling to their outmoded ideas and remain the party of “no.” But more than public relations is involved in this host of recent actions. John Boehner’s quite remarkable feat of leadership in getting his caucus to abandon the debt ceiling focus in favor of a sequester strategy should be appreciated for what it was: a significant shift toward pragmatism. The switch of House Republicans on immigration is another astounding development. Hardliners now start by conceding that illegal immigrants now in the country should have legal status and argue only whether this status should include a path to citizenship and, if so, how long the path should be. They seem willing to concede that significant progress has been made on border enforcement and want better enforcement inside the country and at ports. A likely compromise is that illegal immigrants now here will get a path to citizenship but will have to go to the “end of the line” (i.e., meaning in practice that the path will take ten to fifteen years after the backlog of applicants for legal entry is cleared up but the path could be shortened at some future point).
There is another interesting development in the fight still to unfold over the succession to the Boehner Speakership to take place probably two years hence. The rumor in Washington a while ago was that Paul Ryan, having bigger fish to fry, would resign his seat after this year’s budget battles and concentrate on a race for the Presidential nomination in 2016. Now the thinking is that he feels his contribution should be to focus on the “inside” – that is, on the House and his potential role in the future leadership. He seems to be shaping up as the center right alternative to the far right Eric Cantor. In this fight I certainly prefer Ryan as a Midwestern pragmatist over the Southern ideologue. The specter of Hillary Clinton on the Democratic ticket in 2016 is daunting and even Joe Biden would be formidable candidate if Hillary’s health isn't up to the challenge or she chooses not to run. We have considerable talent and are not to be counted out for 2016 and that of course is the real answer to party splits. The unity of the Republican Party would be reestablished in a hurry if we could win back the Presidency and then it would the Democrats turn to look fractured.
