Moderate GOP wing sees its opportunity

SEATAC – Moderate Republicans meeting near Seattle this weekend say they can offer two critical things – campaign help and electability – to a GOP bruised in both Washingtons.

“We have a special place in the political spectrum,” said Alex Hays, executive director of the Mainstream Republicans of Washington. “When voters get angry, they generally don’t take it out on us and our people.” The group is meeting at a Seatac hotel this weekend to “re-energize” the GOP. The title of the first presentation: “So Many Crises? So Little Hope?”

In major races, Washington continues to trend Democratic, according to pollster Stuart Elway. When he asks voters if they’ll choose a Democratic or Republican congressional candidate, Democrats now have a 15 percentage point lead. And that margin is increasing year by year.

Nationally, Democrats are hoping to turn the November election into a referendum on the nation’s top Republican, President Bush. According to a SurveyUSA poll this week, only in two states – Idaho and Utah – do a majority of citizens support Bush.

In Washington, a recent Strategic Vision poll found, only one voter out of three approves of Bush. And when the subject is his handling of the war in Iraq, it’s less than one out of four voters.

“If the election were held today, it could be pretty rough on the Republican Party,” concedes Hays.

But moderates, he says, are key to GOP victories in statewide offices and in the suburban neighborhoods that are the battleground for dominance of Olympia.

“Every statewide elected official is a moderate Republican,” Hays said. Among those appearing at the group’s convention: Attorney General Rob McKenna, state Lands Commissioner Doug Sutherland and Secretary of State Sam Reed.

The Mainstreamers, Hays said, tend to be pro-choice. Though fiscally conservative, he said, the group’s members broke with the state party when they decided to back a recent multibillion-dollar tax increase for transportation projects.

Elway took the Mainstreamers’ political pulse Friday night with an hour-long survey of the 100 people who turned out for the first panel.

Most viewed government as more efficient than it gets credit for. But most also thought taxes are too high. They favor more oil drilling and exploration over conservation and government regulation. Asked if war is worsening hate and terrorism or if it’s the correct way to defeat terrorists, most chose the latter. As with Elway’s results statewide, nearly two-thirds favor “earned citizenship” for illegal immigrants.

This year, Hays said, the Mainstreamers plan to raise $260,000 for a million pieces of mail promoting moderate Republicans.

Still, the Mainstreamers’ fundraising and campaign clout is dwarfed by the state GOP, which routinely raises ten times as much money – and sometimes much more.

“Nobody wins in this state without the support of the Washington State Republican Party,” party chairwoman Diane Tebelius said in an interview. “Nobody.”

The state party’s stance on the Mainstreamers: They’re just another Republican subgroup, like the Hispanic assembly or a legislative district group.

“The Republican Party has a big tent,” said Tebelius. “We are not the Republican Party of 1992.”

That was the year that convention delegates clashed in Yakima over calls to denounce witchcraft and yoga, among other things. Four years earlier, a push by Christian conservatives in the party made Washington the only state to nominate evangelist Pat Robertson for president. And in 1996, fellow Christian conservative Ellen Craswell was the party’s choice for governor. She lost to Democrat Gary Locke in a landslide.

The Mainstreamers have critics on both the left and the right. Both say the “moderates” label is merely a smokescreen.

“It’s a deceptive marketing gimmick,” said state Democratic Party spokesman Kelly Steele. In reality, he argues, many “mainstream” Republican candidates would be little more than rubber stamps for Bush.

“They are the Decepticons,” said Doug Parris, borrowing a term from The Transformers cartoon. Parris, who lives in Edmonds, runs www.thereaganwing.com, a conservative blog.

“Bottom line, they used to be openly liberal,” Parris said. “They’re still liberal, but they’re no longer open. …They’ve never been on our side.”

Parris concedes that most statewide Republican offices are held by moderates, but says that traditional conservatism can – and will – regain the upper hand from Democrats.

“I think we have winning issues,” he said. “Immigration’s a winning issue. Property rights. Marriage – people do not want gay marriage in this state.”

In response, Hays points to the Mainstreamers in statewide office.

“I guess you can pooh-pooh it,” he said, “but we’re busy running the state.”