Moderate Republicans are feeling endangered

WASHINGTON — Facing the loss of fellow moderates in the Nov. 7 elections, Republican centrists in the House and Senate are faulting congressional and party leaders for pursuing a political strategy dominated by conservative themes.

Leading moderates say Republicans concentrated on social wedge issues like same-sex marriage while pressing national security almost to the exclusion of popular wage and health policies that could have helped endangered Republicans in the Northeast and Midwest.

"There wasn't an impetus to help develop a political and legislative plan that incorporated the broad umbrella of philosophy in our party," said Sen. Olympia J. Snowe, R-Maine, whom experts expect to be re-elected. "I think they always operated under the wrong assumption that you just appeal to the base and no more than that."

Snowe and other moderates, while holding out hope that most of their counterparts would hang on, were dismayed by the prospect of depleted ranks, saying it could lead to a more polarized Congress.

Two Senate Republicans often found in the small moderate bloc, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island and Mike DeWine of Ohio, are in serious jeopardy. Two leading House moderates are retiring, another lost a primary, and at least six others are in difficult re-election fights in Connecticut, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and elsewhere.

The centrists said heavy losses outside strongholds in the South and parts of the West and Midwest could imperil the party's future. They say Republicans cannot sustain a long-term majority unless the party thrives throughout the country.

"There are some people who, because they are so pure and so sure of themselves, they are willing to run the risk of having the Republican Party no longer be national but be more regional," said Rep. Sherwood L. Boehlert of New York, a respected moderate who is retiring. "They think they can maintain their majority as a regional party."

Conservatives say the overall party message was developed to draw the most loyal voters to the polls by emphasizing bedrock principles. The leader of one group that backed conservative candidates in Republican primaries, angering the moderate wing, said some moderates were in trouble simply because they strayed too far, alienating Republicans without attracting Democrats.

"We have people who are certainly well left of the center of the Republican conference on all issues, including economic and growth issues," said the leader, Pat Toomey, a former congressman from Pennsylvania who heads the Club for Growth. "I'm not hoping they lose. But if they do, I think we will be able to recapture those seats with pro-growth candidates who distance themselves from Democrats."