Word: republicanisms
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...this narrative doesn't hold up even in that New York congressional district, let alone in the rest of the country. Scozzafava was not a moderate Republican. Her support for same-sex marriage and her stance on unions put her to the left of many Democrats in Congress. Several moderate Republicans, such as former governor George Pataki, endorsed the Conservative Party candidate, Doug Hoffman. Anyway, Hoffman lost so narrowly as to suggest that a conservative could have won under slightly different circumstances. (See pictures of Republican memorabilia...
More important, a few Republican candidates have demonstrated that it is possible to transcend the party's conservative-moderate divide. In Virginia, Robert McDonnell won a landslide - the first Republican win in a governor's race there in 12 years - by running as a problem solver. Social conservatives know he is one of them. But independent voters strongly backed him too. Voters as a whole trusted him more than his Democratic opponent on everything from fixing the roads to strengthening the economy. Once he had that trust, Democrats were unable to get voters to see him as frighteningly conservative, although...
...Jersey, Republican Chris Christie - who beat a primary candidate running to his right - also won independent voters by big margins. The state has not given a majority of its votes to a Republican candidate for governor in 24 years. Christie didn't break 50% either, in part because of a third-party candidate but also because he ran a vague campaign that left voters unconvinced that he offered real solutions to the state's serious economic and budgetary woes. He won anyway because voters thought the Democratic incumbent, Jon Corzine, had already failed to deal with those problems...
Most of the Republican presidential contenders - yes, I'm afraid the 2012 race is starting up already - are not running hard to the right, at least so far. Mitt Romney has refrained from throwing himself behind the momentary passions of the party's base, for example, by staying out of the conservative-moderate fight in New York. Tim Pawlenty felt obliged to endorse Hoffman, but he has successfully governed a Midwestern state that has a strong liberal tradition. Sarah Palin, on the other hand, has been playing to the base and has the low poll numbers with moderates to prove...
This year's health care debate has helped the GOP, both by making independent voters anxious about the Democrats' ambitions and by forcing Republican candidates to pay more attention to the issue. The Republican comeback could yet fizzle out. But it is happening, and die-hard conservatives aren't the only ones taking part...