Knight-Ridder's Steven Thomma writes that the recent compromise brokered by moderate Republicans in the U.S. Senate on judicial nominations represents but one of several issues on which non-ideologue GOP members are prepared to flex muscle. Stricter federal spending controls, and support for federal financing for stem-cell research using human embryos are among other priorities for Republican moderates, Thomma says. The battle for the '08 GOP presidential nomination could come down to a revealing contest for the party's soul, between hardliner and U.S. Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tennessee) or moderate U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona).

If the filibuster shoe were on the other foot, and the GOP was in the minority, trying to block a Democratic president's appointees, conservatives would be howling to preserve the filibuster, and not sacrifice it even to let three detested nominees through the turnstile, as Senate Democrats did. The Schiavo thing was utter and total overkill, right-wing posturing run amok. As far as federal funding for stem-cell research, it may be tantamount to supporting abortion in the minds of some pro-lifers, but to many others it amounts to a legitimate investment in medical research that could eventually help cure diseases and save lives. The inflamed arguments from The Right on these issues may be heart-felt, but they are alienating to many swing voters.

Politics is the art of the possible; you have to leave a few things out of your shopping cart at check-out time. You've only got so much political capital to spend, even as a majority party. Republican moderates, willing to buck the party's intemperate, politically greedy right wing, are my kind of Republicans.

I will define whether I am a Republican or not; and I am one. (Why? Keep reading). Some party hack isn't going to tell me I don't make the team because I'm not outraged over federal funding for stem-cell research, because I'm pro-choice, or because I don't lie up nights plotting Arlen Specter's demise. I think Republicans need to reach out to those who simply call themselves "conservatives," and be ready to talk to self-declared, unaffiliated "moderates" as well. "Leaving The Left" doesn't necessarily mean Embracing The Right.

It turns out Petaluma, California writer Keith Thompson, who wrote the excellent and much-noticed essay "Leaving The Left" in this past Sunday's San Francisco Chronicle, has his own blog. It's called "Sane Nation." And, inspired by some of the reactions from readers of his Chron op-ed, Thompson has a recent post taking apart the "either-or" political paradigm, titled, "Free To Leap."

Is leaving the left synonymous with moving right? By strict binary logic, the answer would seem to be yes. But not so fast—all choices in the real world aren't limited to sets of mutually exclusive twos. Contrary to popular belief, politics need not be a game in which the only way to move from the left is to head squarely in the opposite direction, or vice versa. There is another alternative, one that people on both sides of the continuum are getting hip to: We are free at any time to leap off the left-right line altogether and begin making political choices liberated from the gravity of the ideological continuum, whose pull turns out to be surprisingly escapable.

Republicans, with whom I am allied on many issues - including strong suppport for President Bush, the war in Iraq and the war against terrorists, and hostility to "identity politics" and "victim politics" - nonetheless need to understand that their own "litmus tests" are a form of political correctness, no less odious than much of the thought-policing that comes from The Left.

The truth is that just as there are Democrats who support school choice, plus our country's direction in foreign policy and, oh, say, forest management; there are Republicans who are pro-choice, alarmed at the federal deficit, and appalled by mindless American consumerism and workaholism.

Or, let's frame things in terms of certain Puget Sound and Washington state policy debates. You can support urban density and the overall thrust of state growth management legislation at the same time you may also oppose overbearing county regulation of rural landowners' properties. You can strongly support serious performance audits for state, regional and local governments, and cuts in programs, yet still grow incredibly weary of the "Always Say No" anti-tax contingent who attempt to hijack the discussion on regional road and transit funding at each and every opportunity.

Everything is not a zero sum game in policy and politics, though for some, it is easier to argue from such a premise.

It is very often the people in the middle, not hard-line party zealots, who decide elections. A group which understands this is the Republican Main Street Partnership, and they are mentioned in Thomma's above-linked Knight-Ridder piece about the GOP's increasingly relevant moderate wing.

"This is a big-tent party," said Sarah Chamberlain Resnick, the excutive director of the partnership. "Without us in the tent, they don't have a majority."

I'll cater the banquet inside the tent one of these months, here in Puget Sound. On the menu: Nine-Flavor Beef, Crab Claws, and Crispy Tofu With Vegetables.

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at May 26, 2005 10:24 AM

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