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Would it be possible or desirable to create a broad consensus on the basics of public policy, either domestic or international?

Yes, on both counts. What’s most frustrating for me is the fact that in many cases, a broad consensus on policy does exist among the American people – the two parties and their respective activist classes are the ones most deeply divided.

Let’s take that most passionately held culture war third rail, abortion.  Roughly 20% of Americans believe that there ought to be a constitutional ban on abortion.  And roughly 20% believe there should be no restrictions on abortion.  Sixty percent of Americans are in the middle – which is as close to a durable consensus as ever likely to be achieved in a democracy.  They believe broadly in reasonable restrictions to reduce the tragedy of abortion (such as a ban on partial birth abortion, parental notification and incentives for adoption), while recognizing that ultimately the woman involved must make this decision, not the government.  There is a broad common ground that can be built upon even on this most difficult issue, but there is a lack of political will that stems from the all or nothing attitudes of influential interests that holds both parties hostage.

Likewise, let’s take the most contentious contemporary foreign policy, the War on Terror.  The United States (and most of the civilized) world are at war with radical Islamist terrorism.  It is a non-optional conflict.  In the aftermath of the attacks of September 11th, there was broad consensus even beyond the initial wave of shock and anger.  The nation was united around the invasion of Afghanistan, which occurred more than two months after the destruction of the World Trade Center.  Even strident liberal Democrats like Howard Dean supported the effort, and it’s unlikely that different actions would have been taken at that point had Al Gore won the 2000 election.  It was the adventurism into Iraq, a war of choice, that put a wedge between the American people that only grew wider as the costs grew and the conflict dragged on.   Of course, there will always be extremes on either sides who will oppose all U.S. military actions or reflexively encourage militarism – but we should do more to first define and then build on common ground.  The Obama Administration’s centrist foreign policy team – led by Secretary Gates, Secretary Clinton and NSA Jim Jones has offered a step in that direction with their Afghanistan policy to date.  Overall, we need to remember some Cold War wisdom – partisan politics ought to end at the water’s edge.

On which domestic issues and international issues do people with whom you generally agree take positions that trouble you? On which domestic issues and international issues do people with whom you generally disagree take positions that you welcome?

One of the reasons that I count myself among the 40% of Americans who declare themselves Independent is that it frees me from affiliations with the extremes of either party.  I often agree with both centrist Republicans and centrist DLC-style Democrats – and here’s the big secret hiding out in the open: they generally agree with each other.

Strip away the polarizing pressures of congress and partisan politics you’ll find an emerging centrist consensus surrounding principles of fiscal responsibility, strong national security and individual freedom.  Centrist Democrats struggle with liberals in their party about the need to pursue deficit reduction, balanced budgets and low-tax policies that encourage private sector job growth.  Centrist Republicans are derided as RINOS for their support of pro-choice policies, gay rights, immigration reform and even balanced budget mechanisms like Pay-Go.

If you approach politics wedded to the Democrat or Republican parties, this question has special resonance, because it is focused on what you don’t like within your given coalition or what you agree with in the opposition.  If you don’t view politics simply as being a left vs. right contest, it ends up giving you more freedom to speak your mind while standing up to the extremes on both sides.

Which issues are so important to you that you cannot envision compromising on them?

We can’t compromise on issues that represent an existential threat to the United States.  For me, the primary threats of this time in history are from radical Islamist terrorism and the unprecedented deficits and debts we face in the wake of stimulus overspending – and, more importantly – the costs of entitlements with the baby boomers on the cusp of retirement.  The world’s greatest debtor nation cannot remain the world’s greatest power indefinitely, especially with China as our banker.  There is a great deal of room to debate and determine the best means to confront these threats – but we can’t compromise on the need to confront these non-optional challenges.

Conversely have your political adversaries ever made arguments so compelling that they made you reconsider or revise long-held positions?

Most often in reminders that absolutist positions are unwise.  For example, in and around college, I was stridently pro-choice, which caused me to insufficiently appreciate complexities of the debate.  Thinking about the policy solely in terms of politics and abstract principle can cause you to forget about the real people involved.  Good people can disagree on difficult issues.  Likewise, I’ve found that it’s always easier to demonize people you don’t get to know personally.  One of the happy surprises of my adulthood is developing friendships with people whom I disagree with about politics very publically.  It’s a wake-up call and a reminder of one of my basic principles – one which politics can obscure – that there is much more that unites us than divides us. It’s also a reminder of what Teddy Roosevelt once said: “decency is the most practical form of politics.”

How can civility be brought back to political discourse?

First, by recognizing a constructive assumption of goodwill in the opposite party, especially in a president’s administration.  For too long we have indulged an impulse to try and delegitimize each elected president on purely partisan grounds.  The my-team versus your-team mentality ends up ignoring the most important thing – America itself.   This permanent opposition campaign is cynical and self-destructive for our country.

Second, members of both parties need to call out the extremes in their own party more.  There is a tolerance for extremists on your own side, in the theory that “they may be crazy, but they’re our crazy.”  Actions or statements that would be condemned if they came from Democrats are dismissed by too many Republicans, and vice versa.  Bush Derangement Syndrome was tolerated and even encouraged by folks on the left who enjoyed the partisan gain they got from the unhinged anger – and then that precedent is often used to justify inexcusable outbursts of Obama Derangement Syndrome that are in danger of being mainstreamed within the GOP.  When the fringe starts to blur with the base, as is happening now, it should be a primary concern to responsible party members.  The “no enemies on the right” attitude puts partisanship over patriotism.

Third, on the most practical and mechanical level, redistricting reform would do more than any other policy change to increase civility in our politics.  The rigged system of redistricting has essentially ended competitive general elections in most congressional seats.  This has pushed the power in our politics from the center to the margins.  In a 10% turnout closed partisan primary, 5.1% of the population makes a majority.  This is a paradise for activists but it leads to unrepresentative government, which is far more polarized than most citizens.  Non-partisan redistricting reform would make more politicians accountable to all their constituents, not just the angry activist class and their party’s respective special interests.  Redistricting reform with open primaries and competitive general elections would have a calming effect on our contorted civic discourse.  It would empower the center rather than the extremes.

Click here to read other contributions to this symposium.

I don’t think it is politically realistic for Republicans to aim for universal coverage – even a worthy minimal goal like catastrophic insurance could not get the necessary internal support because of the cost and implied coerciveness.  But what the GOP could and should do is become an explicit advocate for increasing coverage and decreasing cost through increased competition and choice.  This should include support for a non-profit co-op option along the lines that Senator Grassley has proposed in the current health-care debate.

As a matter of message clarity, it would make sense for responsible Republicans to huddle with doctors and come up with a “doctor-approved healthcare reform.”  This would include medical malpractice reform as a core way to reduce costs for both doctors and consumers.  It would include creating the ability to purchase health insurance across state lines, giving individuals more choice.  It would offer reduced rates for youth and young families, with incentives rather than mandates.  And by making health insurance tax deductable and increasing the portability of health savings accounts it would offer an individually-owned rather than group or government-rooted reform.

The larger problem is that Republicans have allowed themselves to be painted as somewhere between agnostic to uncaring on the issue of healthcare reform.  Democratic presidents since Truman have consistently attempted to address the issue while Republicans have been comparatively content to look like the Party of No – defenders of an increasingly indefensible status quo. When the GOP had unified control the best they could come up with was a politically conceived drug-plan that was both complex and a budget-busting waste of tax-payer dollars.  Only when Dems took control of Congress and Bush was a lame duck did he propose legislation making health-insurance tax deductable.   In the process, the costs of health insurance kept going up, far faster than the rate of inflation, and that impact on middle class wallets has created the broader appetite for healthcare reform.

The key question is what kind of reform will emerge – even with unified control of Congress, Democrats are realizing that the majority of the American people remain fundamentally resistant to anything that smacks of single payer or socialized medicine.   The responsibility for Republicans, then, is not to simply oppose any and all plans on a partisan basis, but to engage the debate with new ideas and try to build a truly bipartisan bill that increases coverage and decreases costs.

To read other contributions to this symposium, click here.

Consider the facts: the man has never lost an election in the Keystone State.  He developed a record as a proven fiscal conservative as Governor, holding government spending to at or below the rate of inflation and cutting taxes by over $2 billion, while squirreling away boom-time revenues for a $1 billion rainy-day fund.  A much decorated Vietnam veteran and local prosecutor, he’s strong on national security and law and order – a profile he only added to as the first Director of Homeland Security after the attacks of 9/11.  

After six successful congressional races, two gubernatorial wins (by increasing margins) and a cabinet post, Ridge has the record and the name recognition to appeal to voters across the political spectrum.  That’s precisely what Republicans would need to win in a state that is trending from swing to blue especially if he is to face the well-known entity of Arlen Specter. 

And yet… some conservative absolutists are already busy sharpening their RINO-knives, criticizing Tom Ridge’s prospective candidacy under the same auspices with which they opposed his nomination for Vice President for John McCain.  He’s pro choice. 

Now, this fact is supposed to be irrelevant to Pat Toomey’s heretic-hunting approach to party purification.  The Club for Growth is supposed to be a libertarian organization, devoted to fiscal issues only, remember?  But when they say that Tom Ridge isn’t conservative enough, they can’t be talking about his military record or his tax cuts or his spending record or his national security credentials.  They’re not talking about support for gay marriage (Ridge doesn’t.) They’re talking about choice – which without delving too deeply into a well-trod debate – is supposedly the essence of libertarianism. 

Already Pat Toomey is running 20 points below the now Democrat senator, Arlen Specter, in the hypothetical fall election.  Specter was wrong to give the Democrats a filibuster proof majority, but he was right in recognizing that he had a better chance of winning a general election against Toomey than a low-turnout primary.  And a general election is a better test of the will of the people, unless you believe in putting party first.  Specter was right also in this – the defection of a five term senator who shepherded through the Roberts and Alito nominations ought to be a wake up call for the GOP.

Tom Ridge’s candidacy would pull some political judo on Specter’s logic – it would be a race decided between two general election candidates in the general election.  Ridge would present two viable candidates to the voters of Pennsylvania and a strong alternative to the unchecked Democratic tide in Washington DC. 

Playing the party purity game will not help address the GOP’s underlying electoral problems in the Keystone State or anywhere else.  Remember: ignoring electability is the fingerprint of fanaticism.

A group that calls itself Students for Radical Change has barricaded itself in the third cafeteria of the campus student center in a lame attempt to update the far-left’s “glory days” of 1968 campus occupations.  Even the campus Democrats have disavowed their overheated hysteria, which is perfectly illustrated in their list of demands, passed out on a Xeroxed pamphlet and viewable here.

This is a classic text of cluelessness and cultural myopia.  From the first “demands” – essentially asking for amnesty and payment for the employees they have displaced – to the larger geopolitical aims (excess supplies sent to the University of Gaza, a “reassessment of the recently lifted ban on Coca-Cola products”) – this is an impotent entitlement mentality run amuck.  

It’s a reminder of why the PC-excesses of the campus left has always been the unwitting ally and best recruiter for campus conservatives.

I think there are areas like education, where some in my party have been too resistant to reform, and have argued only money makes a difference. And there have been others on the Republican side or the conservative side who said, no matter how much money you spend, nothing makes a difference, so let’s just blow up the public school systems. And — and I think that both sides are going to have to acknowledge we’re going to need more money for new science labs, to pay teachers more effectively. But we’re also going to need more reform, which means that we’ve got to train teachers more effectively; bad teachers need to be fired after being given the opportunity to train effectively; that we should experiment with things like charter schools that are innovating in the classroom; that we should have high standards.

This is not a slam-dunk statement of agreement – its got Obama’s patented “on the one hand, on the other” framing – but it shows that Obama is open to solutions on education, even and especially on traditional Democrat third-rail issues, like teacher accountability, standards and charter schools.  And while he does not say it here, Obama has in the past indicated support for merit pay as well.  Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is not as aggressive a reformer as Michelle Rhee, but there may be room for Republicans to work with the administration and allies like Newark Mayor Corey Booker to implement further education reforms – because no one can seriously argue that the inner city status quo is working.

First, the selection of Steele would be a decisive step in the right direction toward addressing the diversity deficit the GOP faces.  Selecting Steele would not solve that gap, but it would offer undeniable evidence that the party understands the problem and intends to take proactive steps to address it.  This is not just cosmetic – it is a matter of political survival in the increasingly diverse America of the 21^st Century, and a matter of reconnecting to the founding principles of the Party of Lincoln.

Second, Michael Steele has proven himself to be a powerful and engaging advocate of a modern Republican Party. A frequent commentator on Fox News and other outlets, Steele can make the case for a forward-looking GOP in a way that people will want to listen.  He is an able persuader who can command attention, a conservative who can connect with voters across the center-right spectrum, a rising star in a party with too few. The job of the RNC chair – being the forward-looking face and voice for the party – is perfectly suited to Michael Steele’s strengths.

Third, Steele won statewide office in Democratic Maryland as Lt. Governor alongside Bob Ehrlich.  They were a popular problem-solving team who knew how to appeal across party lines, reconnecting with centrists and independents.  They made fiscal responsibility, education, health and the environment, public safety, and commerce the “five pillars” of their administration.  They knew how to make government work on a local level – and such statewide efforts will be the route to Republican’s resurgence in the future as it has been in the past.  The fact that Ehrlich lost re-election, despite approval ratings reaching 60%, had much more to do with the misfortune of running against the Bush-DeLay backlash of 2006 – a dynamic which also denied Steele the distinction of being the first African-American Republican Senator since Ed Brooke.

Other candidates, like South Carolina’s Katon Dawson, have able records at party rebuilding and increasing diversity recruitment.  Ohio’s former Secretary of State Ken Blackwell may draw some votes for diversity away from Steele, but he has proven to be a far more polarizing figure.  Steele can preside over a team of rivals, and advance the ideas of thought-leaders like Newt Gingrich.  Michael Steele might be considered a long-shot by some party elders, but they should listen to younger voters and make a decision for the future – electing Michael Steele would provide an immediate and overnight shot in the arm for the Republican Party.  No other candidate would come close.

First, as Nancy Pelosi no doubt knows, New York’s 20th Congressional District – stretching from Cooperstown to Lake Placid – enjoys an 80,000 Republican registration advantage.  It voted for Bush back in 2000 and 2004 – despite the district’s Democratic roots, as home to both Martin Van Buren and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

But the district swung to the politically connected and well-funded lawyer Kirsten Gillibrand in 2006, after the incumbent John Sweeney was caught in a flurry of well timed personal scandals.  Gillibrand was able to ride the Bush backlash (armed with a centrist Blue Dog voting record) to a devastating re-election over former state GOP chairman Sandy Treadwell, who spent millions and lost 60-40.

Now with Gillibrand getting a boost to the Senate, and without an obvious successor in a solidly Republican district, this should be the prime opportunity for the GOP to get its groove back in a state with only three Republican congressmen left.

But today’s county-chairman vote determining the GOP candidate for the special election looks likely to illustrate the problems of New York’s Republican Party, rather than solve them.  It appears that the party is set to nominate the 58-year old Assembly Minority leader Jim Tedesco – despite the fact he lives outside the district – or 68-year old State Senator Betty Little, passing over the respected fiscal conservative and former 2006 Gubernatorial nominee John Faso or the young attorney and former Bloomberg aide Richard Wager, who won grassroots support against Treadwell in the 2006 primary.

The final results are expected to be announced later today.  More than a dozen Democrats are vying for a similar nomination, but Republicans should have the edge in this race – if they nominate a candidate who can win broad support with new ideas, especially on the fiscal crisis.  Resorting to the clubhouse is not the way to win back the House.

How can Republicans regain their foothold and run successfully again in the Northeast, especially in former swing states like New York, New Jersey and Connecticut?

Let’s look at the math.  New Jersey and Connecticut are 2 of 7 states where independent voters outnumber Republicans or Democrats.  In New York, 47.8% of voters are now registered Democrats, with Republicans at 26.3% and Independents at 25.8%.  For Republicans to regain a competitive edge in these states, they need to forge common cause with independent voters.

Independent voters tend to be fiscally conservative, socially progressive and strong on national security.  Reaching out to them is entirely consistent with the Republicans’ historic identity as the party of fiscal responsibility, individual liberty and national unity – but there are powerful counter-veiling forces, rigid litmus-test social conservatives who see any outreach to independents as ideological surrender.  They are the primary internal obstacle to Republican renewal nationally because of their focus on playing to an ever-shrinking base, but this is especially deadly in the Northeast.  Below are a few strategic steps that Republicans should take if they want to emerge from the wilderness re-energized and relevant in the Northeast.

1) Admit the Mistakes of the Bush Era: Republicans looking to reengage voters in the Northeast should speak frankly about the mistakes of the Bush era.  They do not need to throw the former President under the bus, but they must show a clear understanding of why the combination of Bush and Tom Delay’s conservative congress alienated so many voters – especially the corrupt hyper-partisanship and unprecedented pork-barrel spending.  This honesty will create enough daylight to allow voters to look fresh at a local Republican candidate.  Admitting a problem is the first step toward recovery.

2) Regain Credibility on Fiscal Responsibility: There will be a voter backlash against the bailouts and the ballooning deficit – especially as the bad economy drags on and cities start declaring bankruptcy, along the lines of Vallejo, California.  Every crisis contains an opportunity, but Republicans need to regain credibility on fiscal issues to benefit.  Right now, there doesn’t seem to be a deficit hawk left in DC – Republicans should fill this gap.  This is an issue of generational responsibility, at a time when baby boomers’ retirement is set to explode entitlement spending.  Tax-cuts are a great contrast, especially on a state-level – and the GOP should sharpen its identity as the party of the entrepreneur.  But tax cuts can’t continue to take the place of theology – applied on faith to every problem our nation faces.  Republicans must do the math, bring us back to balanced budgets and become a force for fiscal discipline again.

3) Stay Strong on National Security:  The morass in Iraq divided the American people on the wider war on terror, but the attacks of September 11th defined a generation and retain personal resonance, especially in the northeast.  We are engaged in a non-optional global war against Jihadism, and while some Republicans feel like Churchill in the 1930s, this war is a reality from which we cannot retreat.  This does not mean invoking 9/11 at every turn or reflexively seeking to criticize the Obama Administration’s national security team just to provide political contrast – this is bigger than politics – but it does mean sticking to principle.  This war is far from over.

4) Embrace the Big Tent: Somehow Republicans have lost common ground – Reagan invoked the Big Tent constantly as a way of collecting libertarian conservatives, national security conservatives, economic conservatives and social conservatives under one banner.  But the spirit of outreach and inclusiveness has been drummed out of the GOP – disagreement is seen as disloyalty, and the search for heretics has become a hobby.  Libertarians are losing any logical reason to affiliate with the GOP, while centrist Republicans are seen as suspect almost by definition.  When Senators like Olympia Snowe or John McCain win re-election with over 70% of the vote, they are considered sell-outs rather than successes. I’ve debated conservatives on TV who were rooting for Norm Coleman to lose, because they considered him insufficiently conservative.  This road leads not just to political disaster, but party suicide. Republicans who have won statewide in the Northeast tend to be centrist on social issues, especially on a woman’s right to chose and gay civil rights.  Republicans must welcome social moderates into the big tent of the GOP, focus on finding common ground and not treat them as second class citizens.  Remember: In a place where everyone thinks alike, nobody is thinking very much.

5) Look like the Party of Lincoln:  The Republican Party suffers from a pathetic lack of diversity on its political bench. It is out of step with America in the 21st Century.  The candidacies of Michael Steele and Ken Blackwell for RNC Chair and the successes of Bobby Jindal and Joseph Cao in the Big Easy are a start – but only a start.  There is a rational reason that minority candidates have felt unwelcome in the Party of Lincoln this side of 1964 [for my take on the back-story, click here].  The regional traditionalist appeals that have helped the GOP gain strength in other regions has contributed to its failure in the northeast, one of the most diverse areas in the United States.  President Bush’s hopes to realign Hispanic voters went down with the immigration bill, especially the way opposition was painted as Nativist with assistance of some conservative commentators. The Republican Party needs to actively recruit candidates who look like the full diversity of America – articulating its alternative philosophy of how best to rise out of poverty and succeed in American society.  It’s the reaching out that hasn’t been consistently done.

6) Run Against Congress, not Obama: One of the most critical questions facing Republicans in the coming days is whether they will pursue a simply obstructionist opposition to the Obama administration, or whether they will work to find the reasonable legislation and make it more responsible.  The obstructionist school will fail at the ballot box in coming years, just as the “No-Bama” strategy failed in the campaign of 2008.  President Obama will be the first pop-culture president in decades, so broadly popular and widely covered, he’ll grace publications from People to Rolling Stone, from Time to Newsweek.  His largely centrist cabinet appointments have made the desperate “socialist” and “un-American” campaign ploys be seen as the attempts at fear-mongering that they were.  Rather than defining the Republican Party simply and instinctively in opposition to the President, GOP candidates should run against the liberal congress.  Independent and swing voters understand the virtue of checks and balances as well as James Madison – that’s why they so often split their ticket.  The House leadership is considerably more liberal than the cabinet – even less popular than President Bush.  Running against them, not Obama, is the answer to restoring balance, building contrast and reinforcing core Republican principles.

There are some people who are in denial about the depth of the GOP’s problems – they will counsel no change, just more of the same, and wait until Democrats over-reach to declare victory. This is an essentially passive strategy.  It might be comfortable for some to simply play to a shrinking white, rural, traditionalist base – but it is insufficient to meeting the challenges facing our nation.  The Republican Party must modernize, or risk becoming little more than a collection of common grievances.  Rediscovering the founding values of individual liberty, fiscal responsibility and national unity – and applying them with renewed consistency – can lead to the Party of Lincoln’s resurgence, even in the Northeast.