Right makes might: GOP senators face challenges from conservatives

Story by Chris Graham

They don’t even try to call you a moderate anymore.

Nope, if you’re a Republican who believes that the state needs to figure out a way to commit more money to transportation or education or public safety or another public service, your name gets attached to the l-word label pretty quickly and readily.

And how do you fight back?

Seriously, Emmett Hanger would like to know.

“I’m not sure where that comes from, when you look at my voting record,” says Hanger, a Republican state senator from Augusta County who has been saddled with the liberal moniker by antitax groups within the GOP since he cast his vote in favor of the 2004 budget-reform package of former Democratic governor Mark Warner that resulted in an effective tax increase of more than $1 billion annually.

One antitax group responded to Hanger’s vote with commercials that aired on radio stations in Hanger’s home market that spring that referred to the senator as a “liberal” and featured a donkey - the longtime symbol of the Democratic Party - braying prominently in the background.

“When you’re fiscally responsible and fiscally conservative, you have to look at both sides of the ledger,” says Hanger, one of several incumbent GOP state senators who will be facing challenges for their Republican Party nominations this spring.

“What this is,” Hanger says of the attacks of his critics, “it’s really an attack on government, when you get right down to it.”

Which is a good retort, sure - but then, when the other side can get its point across in one word, liberal, you’re obviously fighting a rhetorical uphill battle.

 

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The roots of the intra-Republican Party discord date back to some time before 2004 - though the internal squabbles didn’t become publicly apparent until the state-budget battles that extended deep into the spring of that year.

And since then, “There have clearly been bad feelings lingering within the party,” says Mark Rozell, a political-science professor at George Mason University and author of Second Coming: The New Christian Right in Virginia Politics and The New Politics of the Old South.

“There is a serious divide between the pragmatic wing of the party and the grassroots-conservative wing - and this boils over during the budget battles, with the antitax crowd becoming disgruntled with much of its own party, and wanting to send a signal, that there is a political cost for not adhering to the basic principles of the party as they see it,” Rozell says.

Of interest to Sean O’Brien, the executive director of the Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership at the University of Virginia, is that it appears that there is no related political cost to conservatives who go on the attack against fellow Republicans.

“You can have a healthy debate within a party - what does it mean to be a Republican, what does it mean to be a Democrat? Is there room for these two positions? Of course there is - because being a member of one party or another is bigger than any one or two issues. It’s a philosophical position, really, on the role of government,” O’Brien says.
“What’s interesting is that within the Republican Party in Virginia right now, there seems to be little in terms of repercussions against people who primary - using primary as a verb - who primary incumbents if they primary from the right,” O’Brien says.

“That’s sort of an interesting place to be - because I don’t think that historically that’s necessarily been true in Virginia and nationwide, that you get a free pass because you ran further to the right than the establishment candidate,” O’Brien says.

Republican Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling has an easy answer to the question of why that is the case right now.

“One of the things that I’ve talked a lot about since the elections in November about what we need to do as a party to get back to where I want us to be is that I think we need to recommit ourselves to our conservative principles and values,” Bolling says.

“I think it’s important for us to be the party of less government and lower taxes and individual rights and responsibilities - the party of values like faith and family, and a party that believes in creating a pro-business environment in the state and the value of entrepreneurship, and all those things that Ronald Reagan talked a lot about,” Bolling says.

Harrisonburg Republican Sen. Mark Obenshain also invokes the name of Ronald Reagan in discussing where he stands on the fight for the future of the heart and soul of the Republican Party of Virginia.

“One of the campaigns that was most instructive to me was watching Ronald Reagan back in 1980 and 1984. We had a presidential candidate and a president who ran as an ideologically driven, principled candidate who was bold and unafraid to stand up and take positions - even on issues that his advisors were telling him were losing issues, that were going to cost him a lot of votes in this state or that state,” Obenshain says.

“I fully believe that what Americans and Virginians are looking for is elected officials and candidates who have the courage to stand up for their convictions - and not folks who are going to blow with the political breeze. I don’t think they’re looking for wishy-washy candidates who are trying to follow the voters. I think they’re looking for people who have values and principles that they’re willing to stand up for - and who are willing to lead,” Obenshain says.

The grassroots conservatives, to appropriate Rozell’s term for use here, have seized the upper hand in the struggle for power within the GOP from the moderate-conservatives, if we can coin that term to describe the other players in this production, through use of this kind of pointed verbal imagery.

“There’s no doubt about it - they bring much more intensity to the process,” Rozell says. “Just by definition, moderates don’t tend to have the same political intensity as the more ideological factions within each of the parties. Their conviction and belief and their willingness to fight their battles as intensely as they can is a hallmark of the conservative wing of the party. And sometimes, it’s not numbers, it’s intensity, that prevails in politics.”

“Republican moderates are between a rock and a hard place here - they’re between their voters and constituents and conservatives in their party,” says Quentin Kidd, a political-science professor at Christopher Newport University and the author of Government and Politics in Virginia: The Old Dominion at the 21st Century.

“We should expect primary challenges in the Republican Party right now - because that’s where the division is, in particular over taxes and transportation. But that doesn’t mean that incumbents are going to find themselves on the losing end in June,” Kidd says.

That could be because incumbents like Emmett Hanger and Roanoke Republican Sen. Brandon Bell are doing their best to fight political fire with political fire.

“You’re going to have people in this discussion who have a very set way of thinking that their way is the only way the problem can be addressed - the idea of starving government to keep government smaller,” says Bell, who is being challenged for the Republican Party nomination in the 22nd Senate District by former Roanoke mayor Ralph Smith.

“Well, the way I see transportation, which is one of the areas where we’ve seen a lot of attention placed lately, is that we’ve already agreed that’s a core service of government. Transportation is something that we’re already doing,” Bell says. “We can agree to disagree how much we should pay for it, and who’s going to pay for it - if Northern Virginia needs to take over more of the cost for their needs or not, for example. But I don’t think we can stick our head in the sand and completely ignore the different options.”

“It’s ironic, really - because I think the Republican Party, in terms of its core principles, is broadly based enough that the overwhelming majority of people in Virginia support that philosophy,” says Hanger, a three-term incumbent who is being challenged by a political newcomer, Buena Vista businessman Scott Sayre, for the GOP nomination in the 24th Senate District.

“But then the interpretation of those that are getting their marching orders from some of these national groups - Americans for Tax Reform and about a half a dozen others - it’s a very narrow focus, and in my opinion, it’s fiscally irresponsible,” Hanger says.
“I think it becomes very obvious when we look at the federal level - and see that on the one hand, my party particularly is very supportive of the war on terrorism, very supportive of the war in Iraq, as I am, in terms of it being something that I view as unfortunately being necessary to support for our security and our future interests. But when you are at war, it should be a time of sacrifice,” Hanger says.

“Certainly the families involved directly, the young men and women in the armed services that are over there fighting on our behalf, and their extended families, are part of that sacrifice. But we as a nation are unwilling to pay for it. Our Congress, on our behalf, apparently because they think we are insisting that they do so, is not willing to raise the monies to pay for the bullets. So we’re waging a war, and we’re borrowing the money from the Chinese to pay for the bullets.

“That is just irrational, in my opinion. I’m supportive of low taxes, but you have to be prepared to pay for the policies that you put in place. And if you’re going to wage war, you need to pay for it. And if you’re serious about war, then we collectively need to be responsible enough that we’re willing to extract that money from our pockets to make those payments to support our troops - rather than say, No, we can’t do that, because we are pledged to be antitax,” Hanger says.

 

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The grassroots conservatives - again borrowing from Mark Rozell - appear to be at the least holding their own at this point as far as the fight for control of the GOP is concerned.

Indeed, it wouldn’t be a shock at all to see an upset or two or more in the spring nomination season - and even one would have to be considered significant, considering the natural advantages that incumbents enjoy, particularly in primary battles.

The next question, then, is - could a victory or victories in these intraparty battles lead to losses in the war in November with those on the other side of the political aisle?

“There’s two perspectives on how parties can deal with their opposition’s ideological infighting. The first is to leave them alone - and I’m in that school. Leave them alone, let them fight out their fight, and go after the winner of that,” says Waldo Jaquith, a Democratic blogger from Charlottesville.

“As a Democrat, I love seeing the radical Republicans saying, We weren’t radical enough,” Jaquith says. “It reminds me so much of what happened after John Kerry lost the 2004 presidential election - and strong supporters of very liberal values said, See, the problem was, we weren’t far enough to the left. That’s crazy - and I think it’s just as crazy to see Republicans coming to the conclusion that the reason moderate Democrats won is because Republicans weren’t far enough to the right.

“As a Democrat, I am awfully happy to see that perspective being taken. Because I think it is completely wrong. Virginia has shown year after year after year that it is a moderate state that is slightly to the right. So they can run people far to the right - but it’s not going to win them any votes in November,” Jaquith says.

“As you narrow what it means to be a member of one party or the other, it means that less and less people will heed the definitions. And if we know anything about the demographics and future of Virginia, it’s going to be more and more diverse - there’s going to be more African-Americans, more Latinos, more Asians, more educated women. It’s going to be a different state than it has been - and parties are going to need to appeal to a wider range of voters to be successful,” Sean O’Brien at the Sorensen Institute at the University of Virginia says.
“I think the Republicans are in some real potential trouble - with the shift in state politics, and the sense that the Democratic Party has taken over the reasonable center in state politics,” Mark Rozell says.

“The conservative wing of the party can win the intraparty battles - but the big question is, can they put up candidates who can win in a general election? Do they have alternatives?” Rozell says.

“This is the big dilemma right now within the Republican Party. If the ideological wing of the party is making a lot of noise, and that’s what people are hearing about the GOP, it makes Democrats appear more reasonable, and much more attractive to middle-of-the-road voters,” Rozell says.

“What does it mean to be a big tent?” Roanoke Sen. Brandon Bell says.

“What can we disagree on? Can we disagree on, say, being pro-life or pro-choice? Or being pay-as-you-go versus no taxes to address any current needs? If we can have those kind of internal debates and not run all our people out of town, good for us. If we do the second approach and run everybody out, it’s going to help the Democrats - because they’ve figured out a way to handle their moderate and liberal wings and still govern,” Bell says.

“We need to continue to look for ways to have what I call our conservative and our really, really conservative wings to work together so we can find a way to govern. And if we can’t, voters will turn back to the other party - and they did that nationally. It wasn’t so much the positives of the Democrats as much as maybe the shortcomings of the Republicans. We’ve got to be able to prove that we can do that - and that’s difficult for both parties,” Bell says.

The hardliners, for their part, are beginning to acknowledge the arguments being made by the likes of Bell and Hanger and others, and they’re crafting an effective retort that blames the excesses at the state and federal levels on those that they refer to as RINOs- Republicans In Name Only.

“As far as Washington is concerned, I think the Republicans did drift away from the principles on which they were elected - lower taxes, smaller government and principled ethics reform. They strayed away from that - and the voters punished them for it,” says Ben Cline, a Republican from Rockbridge County who represents the 24th House District in the Virginia General Assembly.

“I think it was more that the Republicans lost the 2006 midterms rather than the Democrats won on any platform. And the way for Republicans their majority back is for Republicans to return to those principles. And at the state level, for us to keep our majority, we need to keep pushing and keep advocating for those very same principles,” Cline says.

“I do think that there is dissatisfaction within the Republican Party with elected officials who are not governing as Republican principles call for,” says Joe Blackburn, a Henrico County Republican who is challenging Senate Majority Leader Walter Stosch for the GOP nomination in the 12th Senate District.

“I think we see that nationally - you look nationally, a lot of the Democrats who won races in the House of Representatives around the country ran on a very conservative platform. I think people are predominantly conservative-minded - and I just don’t think we’re getting that type of representation in the state Senate,” Blackburn says.

“We definitely need a change in what’s going on,” says Phillip Rodokanakis, the president of the Northern Virginia-based Virginia Club for Growth, a grassroots-conservative group.

“We can’t continue to keep having so-called Republicans in the Senate that are really Democrats. John Chichester, for example, changed the D for an R after his name and purports himself to be a Republican. He’s no Republican - he’s as bad as all the other Democrats when it comes to spending,” Rodokanakis says.
“We really need to bring some order. Are we the party of smaller government and less taxes - or are we the party of bigger government and expanding programs?” Rodokanakis says.

“If you look at history in our party, we have not prevailed by moving to the center over time,” says Pat McSweeney, whose Virginia Conservative Alliance political-action committee paid for the anti-Emmett Hanger radio ads that ran in Hanger’s home market in 2004.

“Our big battles have been principled battles - and we’ve made gains with independents when we were not a big tent, but a big magnet, and had ideas that challenged people,” McSweeney says.

“We can call it left or right, but the media insists on calling tax cuts and limited government a ‘right-wing idea.’ I think that’s a traditional American idea. That’s the kind of thing that challenged voters - made them think that there was some value to participating in politics and maybe getting out of the rut of Republican and Democrat and thinking about ideas for a change,” McSweeney says.

 

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This is starting to get the look and feel of the Cold War - so it is perhaps appropriate to frame our next question in that context.

Is detente possible here between the two conservative wings of the Republican Party?

Scott Leake, the executive director of the Virginia Senate Republican Leadership Trust, the political-action committee of the moderate-conservative Senate Republican leadership, thinks it is possible that the two sides can start to come together

“The negotiations that led to the transportation package this year, at least with the elected leadership of the House and the Senate, were very productive - because they really did start talking with each other. There was a majority in both the House and the Senate that said that failure is no longer an option - that nonproduction is no longer an option,” Leake says.

Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling thinks Republicans will have to continue those kinds of bridge-building efforts to be successful at the polls in November.

“We have to realize that the Republican Party is a big-tent party - and sometimes it means different things to be a Republican in one part of the state as it means in another,” Bolling says.

“We’ve got Republicans at the national level who are Republicans in Northeastern New England states who may not feel the same way about things as a Republican in the South does. I think the same thing is true in Virginia,” Bolling says.

“We’re a big party, and sometimes that means that we don’t always agree on issues - and sometimes that leads to debate and discussion and competition. As long as we keep our focus on our conservative values and issues and ideas and offer a positive vision for the future, that stuff’s not always easy, but it can be healthy,” Bolling says.

The Sorensen Institute at UVa.’s Sean O’Brien sees that as a nice sentiment - but he doesn’t think Virginia Republicans are going to be able to resolve their differences with each other anytime soon.

“It’s going to depend on what happens in the next couple of elections - whether Democrats gain control of one house or not, whether or not they maintain control of the governor’s mansion,” O’Brien says.

“Let’s say that they maintain control, and regain control of the governor’s mansion - you’re going to see a very different map of voting districts than if it’s a split group. And it’s very likely if it’s all controlled by the Republicans, it’s going to be drawn to the maximum advantage of Republicans - which happens across the country and is not unique to Virginia. Democrats used to do it here, Republicans have done it. That will probably accelerate the drift to the right of the Republican Party - and potentially disenfranchise or at least disillusion moderate Republicans, who might see the need to vote with moderate Democrats to get their perspectives represented,” O’Brien says.

“Bottom line - it’s going to take at least until the first election after redistricting, maybe the second, before we’ll really be able to know,” O’Brien says.

 

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As long as it all stays above board between now and then, Emmett Hanger will be happy.

“I don’t mind someone telling people what I’ve actually done or what my voting record is - because I think that should be published, and I think people should be aware of the positions that I take. But I think that those who are determined to get me now, if you will, will be surprised if they really look at my record to find that I remain absolutely the most active senator in the legislature on a variety of issues and unquestionably one of the most conservative members of the Senate down here,” Hanger says.

“One thing that bothers me is that we’ve had instances now in our party statewide where if you can agree on a lot of things, but if you disagree on one thing, some of the party organizations want to kick you out of the party - because you’re not pure enough, you’re not really a Republican if you don’t believe exactly as I do,” Hanger says.

“We need to work beyond that if we want to be able to maintain a broad-enough base that can win elections,” Hanger says.