GOP presidential contenders drift to the right

CHARLES BABINGTON

Asso­ci­ated Press

WASHINGTON — In the first pres­i­den­tial elec­tion since the tea party’s emer­gence, Repub­li­can can­di­dates are drift­ing right­ward on a range of issues, even though more cen­trist stands might play well in the 2012 gen­eral election.

On energy, taxes, health care and other top­ics, the top can­di­dates hold posi­tions that are more con­ser­v­a­tive than those they espoused a few years ago.

The shifts reflect the evolv­ing views of con­ser­v­a­tive vot­ers, who will play a major role in choos­ing the Repub­li­can nom­i­nee. In that sense, the can­di­dates’ repo­si­tion­ing seems savvy or even essential.

But the even­tual nom­i­nee will face Pres­i­dent Barack Obama in the 2012 gen­eral elec­tion, when inde­pen­dent vot­ers appear likely to be deci­sive play­ers once again. Those inde­pen­dents may be far less enam­ored of hard-right posi­tions than are the GOP activists who will wield power in the Iowa cau­cuses, the New Hamp­shire pri­mary and other nom­i­nat­ing contests.

“The most vis­i­ble shift in the polit­i­cal land­scape” in recent years “is the emer­gence of a sin­gle bloc of across-the-board con­ser­v­a­tives,” says the Pew Research Cen­ter, which con­ducts exten­sive voter sur­veys. Many of them “take extremely con­ser­v­a­tive posi­tions on nearly all issues,” Pew reports. They largely “agree with the tea party,” and “very strongly dis­ap­prove of Barack Obama’s job performance.”

Cli­mate pol­icy is a dra­matic exam­ple of how GOP pres­i­den­tial hope­fuls have shifted to the right in recent years. For­mer Govs. Mitt Rom­ney of Mass­a­chu­setts, Tim Paw­lenty of Min­nesota and Jon Hunts­man of Utah, along with other likely can­di­dates, have backed away from ear­lier embraces of regional “cap-and-trade” pro­grams to reduce green­house gas pollution.

Such stands were unre­mark­able in GOP cir­cles just a few years ago. Sen. John McCain, the 2008 pres­i­den­tial nom­i­nee, sup­ported a cap and trade plan to place prices and lim­its on the emis­sion of heat-trapping gasses.

Now the posi­tion is anath­ema to mil­lions of Repub­li­cans, and there­fore to the party’s can­di­dates. Paw­lenty is the most effu­sive in his back­track­ing. “I was wrong, it was a mis­take, and I’m sorry,” he says repeatedly.

The likely pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates have shifted right­ward on other issues as well.

Rom­ney, who leads in most polls, has rejected his ear­lier stands sup­port­ing abor­tion rights, gun con­trol and gay rights. He says his 2006 law requir­ing Mass­a­chu­setts res­i­dents to obtain health insur­ance was right for his state at the time, but he has con­demned the Obama-backed man­date that would cover all Americans.

Paw­lenty cam­paigns as a tight-fisted con­ser­v­a­tive who would refuse to raise the nation’s debt ceil­ing, even though many Repub­li­can lead­ers say eco­nomic chaos would ensue. Yet in 2006, Paw­lenty told a news­pa­per, “the era of small gov­ern­ment is over” and “gov­ern­ment has to be more proac­tive, more aggressive.”

Paw­lenty says he was partly quot­ing another per­son. But in the same 2006 inter­view he said, “there are cer­tain cir­cum­stances where you’ve got to have gov­ern­ment put up the guardrails or bust up entrenched inter­ests before they become too powerful.”

Paw­lenty has de-emphasized such talk in his pres­i­den­tial quest.

The Repub­li­can Party’s right­ward drift is caus­ing headaches for the pres­i­den­tial hope­fuls on the issue of Medicare, a poten­tial mine­field in the gen­eral elec­tion. House Repub­li­cans passed a bill that even­tu­ally would con­vert Medicare to a less costly, less gen­er­ous pro­gram. It would help older Amer­i­cans buy health insur­ance, but it no longer would pro­vide ben­e­fits based mainly on a patient’s needs rather than costs.

Pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Newt Gin­grich touched off a firestorm by call­ing the plan rad­i­cal. He spent the bet­ter part of a week try­ing to recant, change the sub­ject and get his cam­paign back on track.

Paw­lenty, after promis­ing to offer his own Medicare plan, acknowl­edged con­ser­v­a­tives’ pri­or­i­ties and said he would sign the House mea­sure if it were the only choice before him.

Rom­ney hedged Fri­day on whether he would sign the House bill into law. “That’s the kind of spec­u­la­tion that is get­ting the cart ahead of the horse,” he said. “I’m going to have my own plan.”

Many Repub­li­can activists are delighted by the right­ward tack of their party and its pres­i­den­tial contenders.

If any­thing, “main­stream Repub­li­can lead­ers are push­ing the party too far to the left,” said Sid Din­er­stein, GOP chair­man in Palm Beach County, Fla. The House plan for Medicare is the only one that makes sense, he said, and GOP can­di­dates “should become artic­u­late and knowl­edge­able in talk­ing about it.”

Louisiana’s Repub­li­can chair­man, Roger F. Villere Jr., agrees.

“The con­ser­v­a­tive issues are the cor­rect issues,” he said. The pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates should embrace the House stand, he said, and per­suade vot­ers they care more about sav­ing Medicare than the Democ­rats do.

Some in Obama’s camp, how­ever, say the pres­i­den­tial con­tenders risk lock­ing them­selves into hard-right posi­tions that won’t play well when less ide­o­log­i­cal vot­ers flock to the polls in Novem­ber 2012.

Rom­ney, Paw­lenty, Gin­grich and oth­ers “are wig­gling all over the place” to appease staunch con­ser­v­a­tives, said Bill Bur­ton, Obama’s for­mer spokesman and now a Demo­c­ra­tic fundraiser and advo­cate. Amer­i­cans want strong, con­sis­tent lead­ers, he said, and the Repub­li­can con­tenders aren’t fill­ing the bill.

Obama, of course, has had his own incon­sis­ten­cies, such as back­ing away from calls to increase pay­roll and income taxes on the wealthy.

More­over, com­pet­i­tive Demo­c­ra­tic pri­maries are usu­ally the mir­ror image of GOP con­tests. Demo­c­ra­tic can­di­dates gen­er­ally edge to the left to attract lib­eral activists before hew­ing back to the cen­ter for the gen­eral election.

This time, how­ever, Obama has no pri­mary oppo­nents to worry about. That allows him to focus on the all-important inde­pen­dent vot­ers, who swung the 2008 elec­tions to Democ­rats, and the 2010 midterm elec­tions to Republicans.

The lat­est Pew Research study sug­gests that inde­pen­dents, who “played a deter­mi­na­tive role in the last three national elec­tions,” will have even more clout in 2012. They com­prised 30 per­cent of the national elec­torate in 2005, Pew found. They now make up 37 percent.

Who­ever sur­vives the conservative-dominated Repub­li­can nom­i­nat­ing process will have to address those inde­pen­dents’ con­cerns quickly and adroitly.

Posted by AP News on May 30 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.