"Moderate" Republicans Beware

The contrast between Whitman's squeaker and the Giuliani and Gilmore landslides is stark. It will only grow from here.

by Rod D. Martin
November 14, 1997

The relentless freight train of realignment barreled through Election '97 Station last week. It nearly ran Christie Whitman down.

Whitman, who annihilated her opposition four years ago on a platform of massive tax cuts -- cuts which she delivered -- has been an outspoken "moderate" Republican. "Moderation" in Whitman-speak means "anti-Christian," and good-as-advertised, "moderate" Whitman placed herself to the left of Dick Gephardt last year, vetoing a ban on the gruesome partial birth abortion procedure.

Conservative Evangelicals and Catholics abandoned her in droves, voting both Democrat and Libertarian to unseat her. She squeaked under the wire with 47%.

This was a dramatic contrast to the landslides of New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Virginia Governor-elect Jim Gilmore. Giuliani, tough on crime and corruption but otherwise no social conservative, took great pains not to alienate the Christian right, and was rewarded mightily. Gilmore, a solid Christi…