Republican Leadership Challengers Press Party to Solidify Base

[Ron Burgundy]

Bloomberg - Nov. 17 (Bloomberg) -- House Republicans vote today in leadership elections that offer them a choice between staying with their current leaders or replacing them with challengers who say the party must reconnect with its base.

Representatives Mike Pence and John Shadegg, the challengers for the top two leadership posts, say Republicans must return to their traditional principles to recover from the loss of at least 29 seats in the Nov. 7 elections.

Pence of Indiana, who's challenging John Boehner of Ohio for minority leader, has criticized the party for failing to curb spending. Shadegg of Arizona, seeking to take over as the party's chief vote-counter, or whip, from Missouri's Roy Blunt, says the leaders ignored corruption and family issues.

The Republican dilemma is that most of the seats the party lost are in the Northeast, home to its most moderate members. To regain them, the party must reach out to independent voters.

``There is a lot of pressure from the rank and file for a leadership that is going to appeal to the base of the party and that is going to be able to articulate clear principles,'' said Representative Phil English of Pennsylvania. Yet the leaders must also ``offer a reform agenda that reaches beyond the Republican base, so there's going to be tension.''

Almost 40 percent of the approximately 200 Republicans in the next House will come from the South, the most conservative region, compared with 35 percent now. There's only one Republican member left in New England, Connecticut's Chris Shays.

Bush Presidency

Republicans on Nov. 7 lost two of their three seats in Connecticut and both in New Hampshire; they surrendered four of their 12 Pennsylvania seats and three of nine in New York.

``We're never going to be the majority party unless we get more seats in the Northeast,'' said Representative Peter King (news, bio, voting record), a New York Republican. ``So it's a combination of holding the base but also reaching out to show that we're a broad party.''

Allan Lichtman, a professor of political history at American University, said the most logical path for Republicans is to split their House leadership between the two viewpoints.

``It probably wouldn't make much sense to simply ratify the old leadership that represents a Congress with approval ratings lower than Death Valley,'' Lichtman said. ``On the other hand, you probably wouldn't want to throw out all of the old leaders.''

Pressure From Base

Boehner, who turns 57 today, was elected to the House in 1990 and served as Republican conference chairman, the No. 4 party job, from 1995 to 1999. He worked with Democrats to pass the No Child Left Behind Act, which increased the federal role in education, and legislation overhauling the U.S. pension system.

``We must rebuild the Republican coalition by focusing on reform ideas,'' Boehner wrote in an article this week in The Hill newspaper. Those ideas `` will not only win broad-based support among House members, but among the American people,'' he wrote.

Blunt, 56, won his seat in 1996, and after a single term was appointed chief deputy whip to then-Representative Tom DeLay, a Texas Republican who resigned his seat earlier this year after he was indicted for money laundering. Blunt became whip when DeLay was elected majority leader.

Conservative groups are pressuring members to dump both men and go with Pence, 47, and Shadegg, 57. They view the two challengers as more in line with the party base -- even though Boehner voted 100 percent of the time in line with the Alexandria, Virginia-based American Conservative Union in 2003 and Blunt voted above 90 percent.

Paul Weyrich, president of the Washington-based Free Congress Foundation, and Gary Bauer, head of American Values, an Arlington, Virginia-based group that advocates traditional marriage, are pulling for Pence. So are the American Conservative Union and the anti-tax Club for Growth, based in Washington.

`Moral Values'

Pence, who will begin his fourth term in January, said the way to reclaim the majority is by offering ``a unified message'' of ``limited government, strong defense and traditional moral values.''

``Allowing for the diversity in our party and in our conference is important, but I think we also ought to celebrate the views of the overwhelming majority of Republican voters,'' he said in an interview.

Shadegg, heading into his seventh term, says Republican leaders sacrificed their ideals. ``We ceded our reform-minded principles in exchange for a seemingly tighter grip on power,'' he said in a letter declaring his candidacy on Nov. 8.

Moderates `Wiped Out'

If Pence wins, ``that will only confirm the obvious -- the moderates got wiped out last Tuesday night,'' said Greg Valliere, chief political strategist at Washington-based Stanford Washington Research.

The elections swept away as many as nine House moderates, including Jim Leach of Iowa, one of six Republicans to vote against invading Iraq; Nancy Johnson of Connecticut, who opposed her party's effort to ban same-sex marriage; and Curt Weldon, who voted against the North American Free Trade Agreement and granting the president broader latitude to pursue trade deals.

``We certainly have to convince the American people that we are the party of ethics; we are the party of change; we are the party of balanced budgets,'' said Representative Joe Barton (news, bio, voting record), a Texas Republican who backs Boehner. ``It was stunning to see that two-thirds of independents thought that the Democrats would be better at controlling spending.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Jay Newton-Small in Washington at jnewtonsmall@bloomberg.net