Moderates Unhappy but Sticking With GOP for Now By Claudia Deane and Chris
Cillizza
One potential wedge is the role of conservative religious groups in determining the party’s agenda. In the most recent
Post-ABC News poll, 44 percent of GOP moderates said that conservative religious groups have “too much influence” in the Bush
administration, compared with 17 percent who thought those groups didn’t hold enough sway [mjh: how can one be a
moderate and think that?]. About a third saw religious conservatives as appropriately influential. …
The poll offered a
couple of consolations for the Republican leadership: First, conservatives in their party still outnumber moderates (55 to 39
percent in the most recent survey). Second, few moderates currently see the Democrats as an appealing alternative. Asked which
party they would support if the midterm elections were being held now, 13 percent of Republican moderates chose the Democrats, and 80
percent stuck with the GOP.
Political Center Makes a Comeback By David S. Broder
In Congress and in constituencies across the country, last week
demonstrated a powerful and welcome trend: After a long eclipse, the people in the political center, the moderates, have regained
their voice and are reasserting themselves. [mjh: yeah, all 39% of them] …
Now that public mood — which was amply
demonstrated in last Tuesday’s off-year voting — has stiffened spines in the Capitol. On Thursday at least 22 House Republican
moderates balked at cutting programs for low-income people and at opening portions of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil
drilling. They forced the leadership of their party to pull a budget bill endorsed by the president and containing those provisions.
It was the second successful rebellion by the long-scorned Main Street Coalition [mjh: aka RINOs to their disdainful cohort], which also nudged the Bush administration to reverse itself
on encouraging pay at less than prevailing local wages for Hurricane Katrina reconstruction.