Latest / BOB DOLE : 1995 Clinton's Comeback / Politically Speaking (Historical Collection 3, Lander College The Forum) Moderates Leaving Congress Oct 2 1995

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Politically Speaking (Historical Collection 3, Lander College The Forum) Moderates Leaving Congress Oct 2 1995 · BOB DOLE : 1995 Clinton's Comeback

• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: October second, nineteen ninety-five.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Moderates leaving Congress by Randall Wallace.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Throughout the past twenty-eight years, the Republican Party has represented the conservative and mainstream movements in America.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: The party reached out to those people who were in favor of law and order, pro-business and pro-family values.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: The party represented all those who were abandoned by the sharp left turn the Democratic Party took.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: A turn so liberal that the party was unable to elect a president without the help of a major scandal, Watergate, which helped Jimmy Carter's election, or a well-timed economic recession, like the recession in 1992 that helped Bill Clinton.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: The Democrats' continued movement away from the middle ground eventually cost them both houses of Congress in 1994.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Now it appears that those people who make up the mainstream of political life are becoming more and more unwelcome in the party that has been their home since the presidency of Richard Nixon.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: In the U.S.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Senate, the moderates of both parties that have for a long time tamed the agendas of both extremes of the political spectrum are now leaving in record numbers.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: Seven Democrats, most of whom are the centrists, are leaving at the end of their terms.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: The Republicans stand to pick up six of their seats.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: This would mean that the Democrats would not be able to filibuster any legislation on the Senate floor.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Add to these senators the three Republicans rumored to be considering retirement: Cassenbaum of Kansas, Hatfield of Oregon, and Brown of all Colorado, all of whom are moderates, and the loss of the Middle's most prominent and powerful figure, Bob Packwood, and suddenly the center is a mighty lonely place in the one institution where compromise has always been the rule, not the exception.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: The center position has long been gone from the Democratic Party, but now it is being squeezed out of the Republican Party as well.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: All across the country, the Christian coalition is seeing victory in the air.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: I have long believed that this group has deserved a place at the table.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: I felt very strongly that the nominations to the Supreme Court of Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas that were so hotly contested and in one case rejected on the basis of being pro-life were nominations that were deserved and that their views on abortion were not sufficient reason to try and reject them.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: Before Anita Hill, the Democrats fought against Thomas because of his conservative viewpoint.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: I supported the coalition's right to take part in government and still do.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: I felt the Republican Party was a party of inclusion.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: However, the coalition now wants the whole table, and they want to try and remove all those who disagree.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Take a look at the South Carolina, for example.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: During the coalition's recent national convention, South Carolina sent the largest delegation from a small state for the fifth straight year.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: The convention recognized our current governor as an example of what their cause can achieve.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: Pat Robertson, the group's leader, said that the goal now should be to take over the Republican Party in all 50 states during reorganization, which began last week.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: What happened next should be a wake-up call.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: When the delegation returned, there was an immediate attempt to purge the party of its old-time regulars.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: This was done with the full support of Governor Beasley's office.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: This action was so blatant that Richland County fundraiser George Shesias sent a letter out to the party regulars to help the party in its hour of need.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: Shesias letter discussed a phone campaign in which coalition members said they wanted to put our people in complete control of the party.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: Then up in Anderson County, Representative James Tucker, a Democrat, was going to switch parties only to be refused by the Anderson Party because he was pro-choice, even though he had supported the entire statewide Republican agenda.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: This type of action is alienating the people who built the Republican Party from scratch, the people who voted Republican when no one else was voting that way in the South.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Pat Robertson's group is driving a wedge in the party, and with each passing event, the party moves away from the center and out of the mainstream.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: One old-time Republican told me that just because you lose, you can't just quit playing.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: But facts are facts.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: Bill Clinton won't always be there to unite the party.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: The disgruntled, moderate, independent is the fastest growing, unorganized part of the electorate.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: If neither party is willing to take a turn to the center to appeal to those voters, they will be pushed aside in the next century by a third party that represents the views of the mainstream of America.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't believe that, check out the current interest of the book tour of General Cullen Powell.