GOP Conservative Republicans take aim at moderate party members

The conservative GOP group wants veteran Sen. Arlen Specter out.
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
PHILADELPHIA -- Stephen Moore and his die-hard conservative allies are taking lots of hits these days. They're reviled as "cannibals." They're accused of "eating their own." They're "fratricidal purists." Their tactics are "stupid."
And that's just what fellow Republicans say about them.
The GOP reigns in Washington, but not always harmoniously. There are fissures at the moment -- purists vs. pragmatists, conservatives vs. moderates -- and the name-calling has gotten so bad, you would think they were auditioning for "The Jerry Springer Show."
Basically, the purists are not satisfied with the Republican triumph. They see enemies in their own ranks. They want to purge the GOP of "Benedict Arnolds" and "Franco-Republicans" who seem insufficiently zealous about cutting taxes. And the purists want to cleanse the party of its few remaining Northeastern moderate lawmakers.
But let Stephen Moore tell it: "The only reason God put Republicans on this earth is to cut taxes. We want to improve the party's gene pool."
And that's why Moore -- president of a well-financed, Wall Street-connected, much-feared conservative group called the Club for Growth -- took up residence last week at the Union League in Philadelphia.
Targeting Specter
He was making a pitch to rich donors, seeking their aid in his mission to help conservative Pennsylvania Rep. Pat Toomey knock off Sen. Arlen Specter in the GOP primary next April.
Specter is one of those "Benedict Arnolds" (Moore's phrase), because, among his wayward acts, he voted against Bush's first tax cut in 2001. Moore is eager to whack a few other incumbent Republicans next year -- two moderate New York congressmen and another in Maryland.
But Specter comes first, "because if we can take out a four-term incumbent, the other moderates in Congress will start behaving themselves, for fear of suffering the same death experience."
But to critics, this kind of talk violates Ronald Reagan's famous 11th Commandment -- "Thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican" -- and even the Bush White House is wary of the Club for Growth, fearing that its uncompromising quest for purity (and its current vow to raise $20 million for next year's congressional races) could backfire, endangering some of the Republican moderates who have helped the GOP attain majority status.
Many GOP strategists are afraid to utter even a word of criticism because they don't want Moore to target their candidates.
Pragmatists, however, also have formed a group -- the Republican Main Street Partnership -- to fight the purists, dollar for dollar. In fact, this group is sponsoring a fund-raiser for Specter in a few weeks.
Sarah Chamberlain Resnick, the group director, says the purists "don't really care about the party. It's an ego thing."
It seems more important for them to have like-minded, lock-step people instead of a majority. To challenge our incumbents in primaries, that's ridiculous.
"And now here's the Pennsylvania mess. It's a swing state, yet now we have two Republican factions fighting each other. We'd rather be spending our money against the Democrats, but if this is what [Club for Growth leaders] want to do, then, well, two can play that game."
Some critics have likened the club activists to the Jacobins of the French Revolution, the 18th-century zealots who beheaded their own comrades in a bid for ideological perfection. Moore likes the comparison -- "When your opponents attack you like that, you've got to feel good about it" -- and has even circulated a guillotine picture among his allies.
On the rise
But there's a modern context for these tensions. GOP conservatives have scorned moderates at least since 1964, when followers of presidential candidate Barry Goldwater booed New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller at the national convention. Generally, however, the purists -- often from the religious right -- stressed social issues, notably abortion. The new purists stress economics.
There are other groups in this purist coalition -- notably Americans for Tax Reform -- but the club is the most electorally active. It evolved in 1999 from a small cadre of Wall Street executives and free-market economists (including CNBC host Larry Kudlow and Milton Friedman), and now boasts nearly 10,000 members.
Neil Newhouse, a national GOP pollster who works on congressional races, says: "They wield very significant clout. They're a significant rising power within the party. They have the attention of candidates and consultants, because they can raise money and move conservative voters. People have the utmost respect for them."
But respect is not to be confused with admiration.
Many Republicans are still furious that the club ran TV ads last spring attacking two Republican senators, Olympia Snowe of Maine and George V. Voinovich of Ohio, because they had refused to support Bush's original pitch for a new tax cut worth $726 billion. Snowe and Voinovich still wanted to cut taxes, but by $350 billion.