Focus 580; Its My Party Too: the Battle for the Heart of the GOP and the Future of America

In this hour of focus 580 we'll be talking with someone who's been involved with and has been watching American politics for quite a while now Christine Todd Whitman. She served in the Bush administration as the administrator of the EPA from January 2001 until May of 2003 and before that she was the governor of New Jersey She served two terms from 1993 to 2000 and she was the first woman elected governor of New Jersey. She is also recently now been rather outspoken in her criticism of her party the Republican Party saying that she feels that the party has moved too far and many of its positions too far to the right and is concerned that if that continues that is possible in future that will mean a loss of support for the Republican Party and perhaps a loss of the kind of success in Washington that they have had in recent years. She writes about this in her recently published book it's my party too the battle for the heart of the GOP and the future of America. It's published by the Penguin Press it's out now. In bookstores if

you would like to take a look at it questions and comments are welcome here on the program of course. We just ask callers to be brief so that we can keep the program going and getting as many folks as possible but of course people who are listening are certainly welcome to call here in Champaign Urbana where we are located the number is 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. We do also have a toll free line. And that's good anywhere that you can hear us. So if you're listening around Illinois and Indiana and it would be a long distance call for you. Use the toll free line in fact if there are people who are listening on the internet as long as you're in the United States. You may also use that toll free line that's 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. Governor Whitman Hello. Hello how are you. I'm fine thanks and thanks very much for talking with us today. My pleasure. He is a true i read somewhere that your parents actually met at a Republican convention. They did back in 1932. And that since you were a little girl you have actually been attending the conventions.

I have been to every convention since 1956. Guys are well it's in the blood so you know I don't know what you and I said to get away from it. You know I think that in recent years we have heard from people who've been in Washington for a long time that politics in Washington has become increasingly partisan and increasingly polarized. And although that if you look back in American history you can find plenty of times when in Washington there was real bare knuckles kind of politics. Oh yeah. You certainly hear though from people that they think that that it's been pretty intense. You know looking at their own political experience people who have been in the Senate and been in Congress people been round Washington for a long time particularly over the say maybe of the last 10 years maybe going back to 94 and they say that that makes it they think that that makes it difficult to get anything done. And it also contributes to the alienation from politics that a lot of people feel and maybe

disinclined them to vote and to be involved in assuming that that you agree with all of that. Why do you think that that has happened over the past say 10 years. Well first of all I do agree and that's exactly what concerns me. It concerns me not just for the future of the party but of the country because it's very difficult to get good policy enacted when people won't talk to one another. And I actually don't like one another and it has been something that we have seen as one of them as you mentioned since really starting since 1964 as a group and I won't even call these people I refer to them in the book as social fundamentalists to distinguish them from true conservatives because these are people who have an ever narrowing litmus test as to what it takes to be a good Republican. And as Ronald Reagan said you can't be a majority party if you're constantly looking for people with whom you won't associate with whom you won't work. And the issue is really. What seems to have been happening is we as elections have progressed. The parties both of them

and the Democrats I believe face the same thing on the left as Republicans do on the right have been focusing ever more narrowly on their base. It hasn't been you know Richard Nixon said it back in the 60s Republicans run to the right Democrats the left in primaries and they come back together running for that middle for the moderates in the general election. The problem is the right and left have gotten further and further apart and it's harder to get back to the middle and what that has done is that it's forced the parties to focus on that base and to to gear their message to that base which means it's got to be an ever more partisan message and a message that gets the base excited and that tends to be for Republicans it would be red meat for the red states. Given this last election of red and blue states and that makes it increasingly difficult after the election for people to get back together and we all suffer because we lose good policymaking when the legislators or the congressmen and senators can't agree on anything. Well let me ask you one of the questions that I am certain that every time you speak somebody

somebody brings up it goes something like this they say well you know if you look at the Congress Republicans have majorities in the House and in the Senate in the last election President Bush was re-elected so what's the problem. Doesn't that say that our strategy as a republic if we're Republicans doesn't that say our strategy is working. And I don't say I'm not taking away from the president's win but even Paul why Rick who is a very conservative grassroots organizer said a couple of months ago well Republicans have been winning since 94 the majority have been very slim and the loss of any part of the coalition that they have could mean the loss of that majority and we're in danger of losing the moderates who have really been essential to delivering elections in the past. And if you look at this last election and again I don't take anything away from the president's victory it's the first time since FDR that an incumbent president has brought in additional members of his own party in the Senate and the house. It's still represented the smallest plurality of any president ever re-elected in this country. Bill Clinton won

by eight percentage points Ronald Reagan by 18. Nixon by 23 George Bush defeated John Kerry by 2.5 percent less than 3 percent. Truman be doing by 5 percent. So it's not a huge mandate. And if you look at the country as a whole we are very evenly divided country. There are 49 states that are bi cameral bipartisan Nebraska is the only one that's unicameral nonpartisan. And if you look at those 49 states in the lower house of the assembly Republicans control 25 Democrats 24 in the upper houses it's just the opposite. Democrats control 25 percent of the 25 of the Senate and Republicans control 24 nationwide there. Seven thousand three hundred fifteen. Legislate tours. Fifty point three percent are Republican and forty nine point ninety seven percent are Democrat. That's a difference of four nationwide. So we are an evenly divided country and this election did not represent a

huge mandate for the party to move hard in one direction or another. We've got to be careful about not alienating people and right now with this increasingly narrow as I mentioned before litmus test as to what it takes to be a good Republican we're driving people away. So you think if this trend continues that we've seen with with the margins of victory in presidential elections getting smaller and smaller and smaller we get to the point where it takes doesn't take hardly anything to tip it one way or another and you think that that could result in one day the majority's flipping in Congress or perhaps a Democrat being elected president. I think absolutely. And as I say that it goes deeper than that though my concern because my concern is what happens after the elections when you have these extremely bitter and partisan elections and people come to their offices after those. It's very hard to get over some of the language that was used it's very hard for people to come back together and when you have. A very

strict starting to get stricter and stricter party line vote again a compromise becomes more difficult not of course their senators and their congressman who understand that the most important thing is to move policy forward and they do reach out but it's getting harder and harder for them and the American people lose them because we don't get legislation discussed we don't get the kind of problem solving that we need to have. Our guest in this hour of focus 580 Christine Todd Whitman she served in the Bush administration as head of the EPA. And then before that for term two terms was the governor of New Jersey. And she has out a new book laying out some of her concerns about where politics is headed in this country particularly with Republicans Her book is titled It's my party too. It's published by Penguin Press and. Out now in bookstores we do have a caller and I think we're getting somebody else lined up. And as I said questions are certainly welcome he'd like to talk with our guest 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 here in Champaign Urbana and toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. We

have someone to start with calling all the cell phone on our toll free line by line 4 below. Hi there good morning. Yes good morning good morning Governor Whitman I appreciate you guys taking my call. I like to call on your EPA roots and ask a brief question and then I'll let you respond. Are you familiar with the that America does offer free or perhaps relief and initiative to Africa for the 12 billion and fund over the next 10 years to do things such as look at the reduction capital reduction and. Gas mileage and so forth and other expenses to make up a little bit more or less rather energy dependent on foreign nations. So I just wanted to see if you were familiar with that and what your comment on that was. Well I'm not familiar with the specific letter that you're talking about of the effort but clearly there's a great deal that we can do to enhance our independence and

energy and that's a prime example of where we as the American people have lost with the partisanship that we're starting to see in Congress. You know like it or not the president put forward a national energy policy we haven't had one in decades that needs to be discussed it needs to be argued couldn't even get it discussed in the last Congress because Democrats didn't want to give the president any kind of thing and on the other side they were publicans who were split as to whether we wanted to see any kind of more regulations because more than half were not an excuse me not more than half almost half of the recommendations included conservation and renewable resources. And it brought up topics like nuclear energy which people don't want to talk about but we need to understand we're going to have to have a mix of energy and it deserves a disc. Passion but it became all embroiled in who did the vice president meet with and who didn't he meet with. Now to me that isn't not terribly relevant it's a policy we should care about and that policy was going to have to have been argued on the Hill and that's where we need to see it

argued we need to do more we need to do better we can increase gas mileage or just a whole host of things that we can do to improve our energy independence and we haven't taken those steps for a whole host of reasons. And part of it is because we have such splits in Congress that we can't even get the discussion to start. And we need to get it started. Why did you leave your job at EPA. When did I leave and why or why I should leave it all to reason I mean the main reason the actual reason I left was because my husband and I like living together and he couldn't leave his business up in New Jersey and I was in Washington and we really didn't. It was more of a burden living apart than we had anticipated. So that was the reason for leaving. The timing had to do with a set of regulations that were coming out that I've been working on for ever since I got to Washington on reforming something called New Source Review which I was totally comfortable with performing they needed reform but there were a number of cases that have been brought at the end of the Clinton administration against. Some of the worst behaving power plants plants that really had been taking

advantage of existing loopholes in the regulations and new source review and had really increased their emissions into the air causing dirty air for all of us and real health problems and I wanted to make sure that as we reform New Source Review we did it in a way that didn't undermine those cases. But we were getting to the point where the numbers were going to come out and they were going to be set at a point that did that that undermined the cases and you know it was up to the president the president's policy and he has a right to set it where everyone said. But I ne Also I felt had the right to have an EPA administrator who could sign those regulations comfortably and I just couldn't. So I thought it was time for me to move on then. All right. Let's talk with some other callers. Next in line someone in her band. And this is. Lie number one. Hello. Come on in a question. The comment is that you were talking your basic thesis is that we've got to stop this polarization and all that. But.

You know my dictionary defines privative as someone who is non-committal to or an involved with anything other than his or her own immediate interests and lifestyle. And for a lot of people that's essentially kind of an adolescent position and it's completely anti-thetical to any kind of interest in the common good. And on the other hand an agency like an NC agency concerned with environmental issues is inextricably concerned with the common good. So I just don't see how anybody can give up any turf on this you know. Either you're going to be totally self-absorbed and interested in nothing but profit or you're going to be. Are you going to give some some you know. You can do you're going to give away things to the common good and be able and

be able to effect a fight for it. So I don't think there's any chance of saying at this the throwing curse stop at all I think but I have a question. On top of that and that is that it was said when you quit the EPA that by in particular this Andrew Revkin the environmental reporter for The New York Times that of the White House had its own source of fog of getting advice on issues like climate or water quality. Call the Council on Environmental Quality and that they work closely with President Bush and. I'd like to hear from you whether that that's accurate and that they actually whether And in fact they did go they rely more on them than they do deny the EPA and the head of the EPA and on up thanks. Well a couple things.

First of all I'm not as pessimistic as the caller is about businesses ability and willingness at times to step up to the plate and do things that are above and beyond what's required through the regulatory process because they're for the greater good I've I've seen that happen. There are number of voluntary programs that EPA runs that have been enormously successful and have really shown measurable improvements to the environment and have gone beyond what regulations require. And those are the kinds of things that they may not be enough totally and you can't stop there but they certainly should be recognized for the good that they have done and they should be encouraged. It is a way to harness the the really the intellectual stimulus and the creativity that the private sector has government is good at a lot of things. Creativity is not necessarily a strong point a strong point of a bureaucracy and to the extent that we can harness that ingenuity of the private sector in the United States we can move ahead further and faster and regulations call for and we've seen that we saw that with the acid rain training program when we provided an incentive.

For businesses and they moved ahead beyond what any regulations required and they did it faster and they did less cost than one is anticipated. So there is hope and there is a lot that can be done you don't walk away from regulations entirely and there are certainly a number of Republicans who recognize that don't forget the environ the Environmental Protection Agency was established by Richard Nixon. Clean Air Act Clean Water Act Richard Nixon. The toxic waste was requirements where under President Gerald Ford the Clean Air Act amendments were George Bush the forty first. So Republicans have a long history starting back with Teddy Roosevelt the National Parks Association of being good stewards of the environment and a lot of people would say Will Big businesses are a Republican and so there's an overlap there and there's a lot that we can do. The Council on Environmental Quality was established a long time ago. Really when the agency was first established and there's always been it's been there it's in the White House. It is there to provide information to the White House on environmental issues

and also to help coordinate with the other departments and agencies because with the environment you have a lot of crossover there are a lot of other departments and agencies that are impacted by decisions made to DPA. And there's always going to be tension there and there's always going to be pushback. Against what the agency wants to do simply because it's a regulatory agency and there are a lot of people don't like regulation and every decision it makes require someone to either change behavior or invest a lot of money for benefits they may never see. And that's tough. And you've got to keep reminding people of the greater good and the needed to breathe clean air and the need to have clean water and to have a quality of life was well protected land and open space. And so there always is that tension whether they relied on them more than they relied on EPA I don't think so certainly for any of the major decisions. I was I was at the table when we talked about the clear skies when we talked about the water issues that EPA did see to weigh in and did they bring to the table the other agencies perspectives

Absolutely. And sometimes EPA won and sometimes it didn't but from all that I have watched and seen of government in my time in and around government I don't think that is all that different than what you've seen in the past they've always been those tensions between See you in the agency. Well just reading about you what you have read about yourself what people have written about you it seems fairly clear that you were brought into the administration to do put a good face on things to make it look as if the administration had a commitment to the environment because you were someone who was seen as a progressive. For Republican on these issues and that you were increasingly frustrated and felt that you were able to do your job or at least warn able to carry out the kind of policies that you wanted eventually. Among the personal reasons that you cited that's the reason that you quit because you just had it. Is that is that true. Well as I said I had one of the reasons I quit was because of the frustration that I didn't have and the concern that I had about the new source

review regulations and where they were coming out what was happening with them and how that was going to impact the cases that had gone. We're going forward that had been brought up during my time actually as governor I've been party to some of those cases. And I really felt a commitment to them and a concern about undermining them and I felt we could actually change the regulation can it that we were concerned about without having to lose the cases. But that's not the way it went. So you know what this is never about an individual. This is about policy that's much broader and you know when somebody's going to lose some. When the forces really that make it difficult as a Republican in a Republican administration were were two fold. One is no secret that Karl Rove said from the very beginning shortly after the president got elected that his focus was going to be on the four million evangelical Christians who had not gone to the polls in 2000 and their pollsters were telling the White House that those people didn't care about the environment.

So that when we did things for the environment and the administration has probably a much better record on the environment than most people think. I mean I know we do because of the way the press has gone. We didn't talk about the good things and we emphasized and we projected messages in a way that was going to appeal to the group of people who really didn't want to know a lot about and increased environmental regulations and that sold the president short in many ways I think it really unaided him from those people who are moderates or who are Republicans who care deeply about the environment and felt that he didn't. And it also hurt us amongst our allies because on issues such as the Kyoto protocol when we disengage from it that was no surprise to anybody when Bill Clinton had the Clinton administration had. Negotiated the treaty they'd taken it up to the Senate and the Senate rejected it 95 to nothing. And every year after that they had prohibited any branch of the federal government from implementing anything that looks like Kyoto. So this country was never going to be a party to the protocol as it was

as it stands today and as it stood at the time that was not a surprise but because we wanted to make sure that the base understood that we weren't going to be involved in this kind of an international treaty and we weren't going to kowtow to people outside the country whom many people feel were trying to influence our economy over an issue that wasn't of great import global climate change. We didn't distinguish between the process that had been 10 years in the making and involve the rest of the developed world. And the protocol and when we did that the rest of the world thought well you know look at the United States. They're the bigger biggest producers of greenhouse gases. It's an issue that we care deeply about. They don't seem to care and they're telling us it doesn't matter to them whether we care or not is just what they care about. That's important and yet they're asking us to join them on some other things internationally that are pretty controversial. So and yet this president is spending and has spent more money on climate change research and technology development than the rest of the day.

I find he has called for an 80 percent reduction in greenhouse gas intensity over 10 years. He has entered into and had the government enter into agreements with other developed countries to use our of our greenhouse gas emissions and to develop new technologies coal bed methane and hydrogen fuel cell technology. So we are engaged internationally on this issue but nobody would know it because we didn't talk about it. We were only interested in reassuring the people who didn't like the idea of the Kyoto protocol that we weren't going to be involved. And that's again that's one of those it's those mixed messages it's that focus on a very partisan narrow partisan base that I believe has unduly hurt the administration. Well let me ask you have some other callers on promises people will get to them but let me ask another question is going back to you to your initial comments about your concerns about the party moving to the right particularly on social issues. It has been the case that in recent years one of the most reliable constituencies for

the Republican Party have been social conservatives and because they are there dedicated to the Republican cause that they're organized they're mobilized they work hard and they vote given that. Fact and given that they have been such loyal supporters of the Republican Party how how can you as a Republican or any one of the Republican go to them and say Well now look we realize that you think that gay marriage for example is one of the most important things going these days but you know the fact of the matter is that most Americans don't and that we think there are a lot of things that are a lot more rip important. So we're really not going to deal with that we're going to deal with a lot of other stuff like Social Security for example and I think there are now a lot of conservative Republicans socially conservative publicans who are really concerned because they feel that while the president has said he was committed to their issues that he has he isn't really doing anything about it. How now given the fact that those people have been very supportive Republicans do you say to them Well you know we really don't think your issues are very important.

I know that's not a question of saying we don't think your issues are important but we what it is a question of saying you we don't hold the president for instance hostage. Gay marriage or that or a constitutional ban on same sex marriage. You don't hold him hostage to any discussion on Social Security which is what happened right after the election when the president stood up and said I want to and I think one of the most important things facing this country is going to be Social Security we need to discuss it. And he had members of his own party standing up and saying sorry we're not even going to begin this discussion until you convince us that you're going to be strong enough on this issue of a constitutional ban on same sex marriage. Now I know a lot of good conservatives who feel very strongly about same sex marriage they are not in support of it but they also don't believe that amending the Constitution for only the second time ever to restrict individual freedom is the way to deal with this issue. And so there it's not monolithic there it's not a question of walking away and saying we're not we've played with you we brought you to the table and now we're not going to deal with any of your issues.

There are a lot of issues that the president is dealing with this is the most socially conservative president certainly in my tough lifetime but it's a question of saying that these are the only issues we'll deal with. I have spent a lot of time in this party going around the country working for Republican candidates of all stripes pro-choice pro-life all of them. And yet I have noticed increasingly that those on the far right refuse to will not only refuse to support Republicans who may not believe exactly the way they do on these issues I mean they may be supportive of a ban on gay marriage but they dont believe you should amend the Constitution to do it. Thats not good enough for this group and they will go out and they will mount mount a campaign against those Republicans. And that's where you cross the line it is saying if you don't believe the way I do we're going to take you out even if by taking you a Republican office holder out in a primary we may end up with a Democrat in that city. We for some reason the mindset seems to be we'd they'd rather have someone who votes against them 100 percent of the time a Democrat than a

Republican who will vote with them 85 or 90 percent of the time. If they're not they've got to be a hundred percent. We have several callers and I think I probably should introduce very quickly. Again our guest with us our focus 580 We're talking with Christie. Todd Whitman she served in the Bush administration as the administrator or head of the EPA from January 2001 until May of 2003 and before that she was the first woman elected governor of the state of New Jersey serving two terms from 1983 to 2000 and she has authored a book laying out some of her ideas about American politics and the direction the Republican Party is going Her book is titled It's my party too the battle for the heart of the GOP and the future of America and it's published by the Penguin Press. Back to the phones here. And our next caller is on our line number two in Edgewood. Hello and thank you for coming on this radio show I'm a liberal who's always been very impressed by you and hope you get back into politics on a national level. However most of my

friends are very conservative down here very conservative part of the world United States. And and they face questions of high health care costs. We saw a bankruptcy bill passed last week which which left huge loopholes for the richest people in this country we're facing $2 a gallon gasoline or a lot more. We salt tax cuts for the rich. Over and over again money turns over in our community seven times we've been told that if that money would have been given to those of us who are regular people not the rich we would have seen a big boom in our economy. What I could go on and on but at what point will the public wake up. Or is this Karl Rove problem a propaganda machine just that good and it's going to keep going. Well I mean first of all I disagree with some of the cause and effect I have as a governor reduced taxes over 50 times and we stimulated the economy and saw the creation of more than 4 and 50000 jobs while I was governor. The

problem is you've got to control spending at the same time. Agree that that takes both sides and we've got to really focus on that. And that is a major concern I put in one of the things I did with the book which is slightly different and I think many as we put a website at the end of it. W w w dot my party to dot com. The purpose of that website was to give moderates a place to go to talk to one another to talk about the issues of importance to understand how you can support other moderates how could you can get a grassroots movement going to bring some moderation back to the political discussion. You know Karl Rove is very very good at what he does and I wouldn't take that away from him he did exactly what he was supposed to do as the head of the political operation the political shots in the White House. My concern is at what cost at what cost to continuing the dialogue of getting people back together being able to move the country forward. And I do believe that we are going we can have good discussions on these issues that we will get people back and focused on what makes sense and what doesn't make sense.

For the future the country as I say not against the tax cuts it's a question of what you do with the spending side of it in order to balance things out. But we need to have a fuller discussion right now. We can't even begin that because people are so polarized between Republicans and Democrats and within the Republican Party. And as I said I think the Democrats are facing the same kinds of issues and if we think we can get back together in a bipartisan way when you have a chairman a new chairman of the Democrat National Committee who said he hates all Republicans and everything they stand for. And that's not exactly reaching out. So both sides have to have to start grappling with these issues and we have to make ourselves heard. I think part of the problem and I say it in the book part of the problem and the reason why the social fundamentalists in my party of the extreme on the right in my party has been so successful is they've been single minded. They've been very focused. You know as was mentioned earlier they vote. They've they come out to the polls. They come out to all elections. They have been very good at taking over parties at the grassroots level. Moderates have to start pushing back. And if we really

care enough if we really think these issues are important we have to start to get organized at the local level and that's how you build a consensus. The interesting thing to me is you. Nobody is monolithic. And just last month you saw for the first time some articles saying that the Christian evangelicals have. Focus has started to focus on the environment have decided the environment is an important issue and one where they need to be involved because we need to have more environmental protection. That's good news as far as I'm concerned. I'm very pleased to hear that it is not been the case in the past but that's where they seem to be going and we ought to work together on that and we can. Well I hope they get to the comments of the caller let's go on here as I do have some other thoughts go to line number three this is someone here in Champaign or Oh yes hello. Interesting comment please on the European situation for examining new products or regulating them because there was an op ed article that said Europe has health plans that are pretty universal. One might

have to wait in long lines. But it has fewer lawsuits and the loser has to pay and there's no big awards. And the article seemed to suggest big awards in the states are necessary to quote curb dangerous products because the EPA could never ban best dose Roscius. Well can you respond to that. Well I'm not exactly sure where the question is. Yes Europe has very different standards in many areas I am not sure that I would adopt the European system I have lived abroad at different times actually. Our first child was born in England and while the system is great for those who can pay it's not so great for those who can't everyone gets coverage but you do wait in line and what may be considered elective or nonessential surgery to this system may seem very essential to the person who needs it. And just as you look at the Canadian system it's got some very good things to it but you also see a lot of Canadian doctors coming across the border so that they can practice medicine in a way that they feel is more

responsive and respectful of the patient. So you know we have our problems and I do believe that we need some curbing of lawsuits. And frivolous lawsuits there is no question but they do drive up the cost of providing medicine and when you live in a state for instance as I do in New Jersey where we're losing and because of the cost of medical malpractise you begin to see that this is can be counterproductive and why you want to protect the rights of those who have a legitimate suit case to bring. You also need to understand that we are now put getting to the point where some of these awards and some of the cases we sort of have an attitude nothing can ever go wrong any time it never should. And if it does it's somebody's fault and somebody's got to pay. In some instances that's absolutely true. In other times there are things that happen and if you undergo a risky procedure you have to understand there's a risk associated with it. We just need to bring some balance back to the process so we don't see losing we don't see ourselves losing doctors.

Now as far as the impact of EPA is not regulating as best as EPA does have a lot of regulations relative to asbestos and how best to use it and how to encapsulate it. There is a real discussion going on right now among scientists as to what form of Us Best This is the most problematic. What length of asbestos fiber we see a lot of things in this country that we think are going to be the next generation as well as Festus came in it was a wonderful boon to the people it was used in almost everything and only was only after a period of time that we suddenly realized the problems with it and the downside and now the next step is how far do you go do you take out all asbestos. Never use it again. Or do you recognize if you in caps elated and don't move it that it can be all right. But you don't use any new less Festus. These are questions that are being determined it's not a question about the agency not being able to make design a regulation they can any time they do it'll end up in court and it offends. That's why it's much better to have Congress act than it is to have the EPA on some of these issues because when

Congress acts that's the law and you don't have the same recourse to the courts as you do when the EPA establishes a regulation but there are. Prohibitions again are there not prohibitions but there are recommendations about how to use asbestos. There are lots of warnings out there there but there's a real discussion in the environmental community even about whether it should be banned everywhere or whether it should be just it can be used appropriately. All right let's go to another caller. This is someone listening in Chicago wind for us hello. I would disagree with your guest on her basic premise. First of all and also her terminology I feel that it's very important to offer voters a choice. And when you have a situation where insiders are controlling a party on both sides and you don't really have room for people you know ideals people who believe in certain things and leaving them strongly. And I think you have a very you know dangerous situation where you just basically have status quo politics and I think you have that on both sides and I think it's very important for conservatives to

have their point of view heard and given an alternative to the other side I think this is very important. Secondly on your terminology when you use the word moderate I think if you really look at it it's just another word for a liberal Republican we call them moderates but if you look at their views pro-abortion pro-homo sexuality This is the liberal point of view and when these people are in control voters do not have a choice. And so you really defeat the Democratic process that's really should be there. Oh well I certainly agree voters should have a choice. And I have always supported that not to have supported candidates of all stripes but I believe the caller's doing exactly what I am concerned about and lumping everybody together and saying there can be only one way to think moderates. You know these terms are all very problematic people say to me what are you moderate conservative liberal and say tell me the issue and I'll tell you where I stand and then you decide as I say I'm someone who cut taxes

over 50 times in my state we enacted Megan's Law we reduce crime to the lowest levels in generations. We reduced government spending. If you look at my record it's a very conservative record. Do I believe a woman has a right to make some decisions on our body. Yes I absolutely do but I also wrote a bill that would have for the first time in the history of the state of New Jersey put some restrictions on late term abortions. Unfortunately they were those in authority that said you have to absolute there can be no exceptions rape incest life health of the mother no exceptions. And they insisted that that's the way the language read. And that was unconstitutional in our state I said it was unconstitutional so as I said I rewrote the bill to provide the protection and recognize that a woman doesn't stop being a human being just because she gets pregnant for a life for physical health or in danger. She has a right to have a say in this decision. And unfortunately I was overridden in that and it went to the courts. They spent a lot of money in the legislature a lot of public money here defending it and it was declared unconstitutional.

You know that's where you start to get into the other side. There's always room in the party as I see it for people with very passionate and strong views but we can be respectful of one another and we can understand and respect that there are others who feel just as passionately on the other side. Unfortunately what we're seeing today is there's no room in their party in their party for someone like me. You know the most recent instance and one that really brings it and particularly goes to what the caller just talked about about not having a diversity of opinion. Ken Mehlman who is the new chairman of the Republican National Committee chose as his vice chairwoman vice chairman a woman from Ohio John Davidson who had been a speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives who had been very instrumental in the president's key victory there in Ohio was key to the president's re-election but who was also on the board of Republicans for Choice. Because of that decision the e-mail traffic went wild. The calls into the national committee you can't appoint somebody like this it's a disgrace to have

someone representing the national party who believes in a woman's right to choose and the president had to intercede and had to say look this is someone who has been loyal to the party who was instrumental in my re-election and who can be very helpful in broadening the base of the party and bringing people to the party. Unfortunately and that worked and she is now the vice chairman. But she had to agree never to appear before a pro-choice fundraiser. Now I'm a Republican. I have been a Republican all my life. I was raised in the party as you pointed out my parents met through the party. And I'm pro-choice. What does that tell me that people are very happy to take my money. They love and particularly many conservative candidates. I raised in fact and when I was in the cabinet I did more fund raising for Republican candidates in the 2002 cycle and raised more money than anybody in the cabin and I was just behind the vice president raising money for Republican candidates. So they're happy to use me that way but I don't have a

right to be respected for my opinion on choice at the national level. That's the kind of thing that we need to get over we need to understand that there are people who believe passionately in in the pro-life position passionately in the pro-choice position. There are a lot of things where we can agree and we should move forward on where we can agree and not get ourselves in dug into these holes where we just can't even talk about the issue and then we lose the ability to discuss things such as talking about abstinence talking about and I've spent a lot of money when I was governor on programs on abstinence we just that wasn't the only thing we taught in sex education. But I said I'm fine starting the sex ed program with that and ending it with that as that's the only sure way to prevent an unwanted pregnancy. We put money in programs for unwed moms to give them a place to go and help if they felt they couldn't bring the child to term because they couldn't live at home there all those other things on which we can agree. And that's where we ought to focus. We have 10 minutes left to be a little bit less. And we have some other callers I do want to try to include some

more and for anyone who might have tuned in in the last 10 or 15 minutes I probably also should introduce again the guest. We're talking this morning with Christine Todd Whitman she served in the Bush cabinet as the administrator of the EPA from January 2001 until May of 2003 and before that she served two terms as the governor of New Jersey. Questions welcome 3 3 3 W I L L toll free 800 1:58 w I'll back here to some local folks in the next is in champagne wine one fellow. Yes I guess I disagree with the previous caller. I'm a political independent. But when I was a boy growing up I'm about the governor's age. I could identify a fairly large number of moderate principled Republican leaders. Romney of Michigan procedure don't normally play a family here in Illinois. It broke in Massachusetts and we had Richardson and Massachusetts one of the heroes of my generation for the role he

played. Roger great. Gerald Ford even Nelson Rockefeller it seemed to me that that was really the high point of the moderate control of the Republican Party 30 years ago. But now again from my perspective it seems like the traditional Republican Party the party of Abraham Lincoln here in the state of Illinois has been hijacked by a game of right wing extremists who are bigoted racist reactionary totalitarian and greedy and selfish. And I guess the question I assume Governor Whitman what what are you going to do. What's your strategy for regaining control of the Republican Party. Or if you can't regain control what about the idea floated by former Congressman Paul Finley here who served in Congress as a Republican for 22 years of just moving out and setting up another party. A third party

where you would try to get some Democrats you can agree with a punt and move forward with that. Thank you. OK well you know all of the people you listed are people that I feel represented our party well and I was very supportive of all of them really. And fact it's interesting today Barry Goldwater would be looked on as a moderate because he was pro-choice and he didn't believe that he didn't have a problem with with gays in the military. But what I'm doing is exactly what I've mentioned before that's why we put the website in the at the end of the book the w w w dot my party to dot com to give people a place to go to start the discussion to give moderates a place where they can come together and get support from other moderates and start to understand how to. Defined the issues that are important and how to talk about them. The goal of

forming the with the website we have a PAC and the goal informing the PAC is to build that strong grassroots movement that fosters the growth and influence of moderate Republicans all across America. The point is as Ronald Reagan said I don't. He said he didn't review the rich didn't view the Republican Party as one based on a principle of exclusion that you don't get to be a majority party by searching for groups you won't associate a word with. That's absolutely true. We can't continue to be a majority party by searching for groups and people we won't associate with either. And so we need to start to take some action. The problem with a third party and it's been suggested by a number of people because as I have said a couple of times already the Democrats are facing much the same decision making this is the first time since 1952 that there is no incumbent running for either party or president for re-election or a vice president stepping up so it's a perfect time to have this discussion. But third parties generally don't do terribly well in this country. And now because of the enormous cost of elections at least at the

presidential level it would be enormously hard to run a competitive race without the apparatus of a party underneath you to help get out the vote to help bring the voters to the polls. And so. It really I don't think at this point it it's very problematic and I'm a Republican so I want to start. I want to fight within the party to bring us back to our roots to those days of Republicans where we had everybody in the party the kind of Republican I believe and I talk about in the book in the history of the party and what makes me proud to be a Republican. You know as as I've been listening to you here throughout the hour particularly before we took the last call I was thinking to myself You sure sound like you're running for something. Are you even in your wildest dreams do you think about the possibility of let's say running for president now. No I couldn't have written a book if I were going to run for president. I'm not in office and I'm not planning to be in office so I can say things that other Republican officeholders may thank but don't can't say because they have a political future ahead of

them. And you don't have specially my party if you're going to try to run for president you don't start by poking the hornets nest which is something I've kind of done with as well which I get one more call or at least line to this is. Champagne below. First I'd like to thank you for broadening the conversation in particular with respect to the political parties I'd like to go back to environmental policy for a second. Teddy Roosevelt said that the private interests and national natural resources were outweighed by the public interest. And it seems to me that good sound environmental policy is both intergenerational multinational and based on good science and it sort of appears to me that the Bush administration has tried to undermine environmental policy on all those levels and with a limit amount time will hang up and listen to your response to that but how can government operate on national election cycles when it's trying to meet this broader environmental goal. Thank you.

Well I have again I had as I mentioned earlier on I think the Bush administration has a better environmental record than many people believe because we just didn't talk about the good stuff much a non-road diesel rule that we put into place the regulation that controls emissions from backhoes and tractors which are much much bigger problem then on the road was called by the national the Resource Defense Council probably possibly one of the most important things for human health since lead was taken out of gasoline it was a regulation went right to the base. The administration did it. We the history of the environmental movement as a Republican history. We need to get back to those roots we need to stop being embarrassed about it and we need to recognize that we can move forward now building on all the good work that was done through the top down command and control approach that we did adopted in the early days because really we had no choice. We were in the mess we were in because of the way business had ignored its responsibility to the environment. But we now need to understand that those during the course of those 30 some odd years there's been a change in this country. There is a new

environmental ethos and we should build on that and look for the ability to make progress through capturing the ingenuity of the private sector and through regulatory work. And I believe you're going to. You just saw a new set of regulations come out of the Environmental Protection Agency on interstate transport much stronger than many people believed was going to happen. So I'm very hopeful that they're going to be good things that are going to continue to occur for the environment with even with this administration and with the people that they're focused. All right well you know we're going to have to stop the apologies we have a caller we can't take but we are at the end of the time if you're interested in reading more from our guest Christine Todd Whitman. You can look for her book. It's my party too the battle for the heart of the GOP and the future of America. It's published by the Penguin Press or if you'd like to join in this discussion that she ducked about. You can go to the website which is w w w dot my party to dot com and be involved in that way. And Governor Whitman we want to say to you thank you very much for talking with us. Thank you it's been my pleasure.