THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, May 31, 1996 TAG: 9605310020
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: 49 lines
Sen. John Warner is the highest-ranking elected official in the Virginia GOP. He's the only Virginia Republican in this century to have won three statewide elections. He's been in office 18 years.
All of which should make him the star attraction when Republican Party stalwarts gather in Roanoke for their state convention today. Right?
Wrong.
Warner, by choice, won't be speaking because of the strong-to-overwhelming likelihood that he'd be booed into silence. Anti-Warner sentiment dominates the party's right wing. Warner's refusal to back two of the party's recent standard-bearers, U.S. Senate candidate Oliver North in 1994 and lieutenant governor-hopeful Mike Farris in 1993, has boosted him onto the party's endangered-species list in the June 11 primary.
Such infighting, it turns out, isn't a Virginia phenomenon. With the GOP's national success has come the sort of factionalism that characterized the Democratic Party in the 1980s. It is personal. It is mean. It is widespread:
In Minnesota, former U.S. Sen. Rudy Boschwitz is carrying the moderate GOP banner. He's threatening to run as an independent if he's defeated, as expected, by the party's conservative faction in a primary. The likely result would be the re-election of Democrat Paul Wellstone, among the most-vulnerable Senate incumbents.
In Kansas, religious conservatives in the party are riled by the appointment of Lt. Gov. Sheila Frahm to replace Sen. Bob Dole, who is retiring to run for president. A moderate who supports abortion rights, Frahm will almost certainly be challenged by a conservative Republican in the November special election.
In states from Illinois to Indiana to Nevada, local versions of the moderate-conservative split are threatening to disrupt what should be political majorities.
Republicans have a choice. They can find ways to accentuate similarities and tolerate differences. That's the winning alternative. Or they can stick steadfastly to their individual principles and risk losing the game.
This is not as easy a choice as it might seem. Warner decided that to endorse either North or Farris would be too great a compromise. He balked; both lost. Many in the party's conservative wing, bound by deeply felt principles, hold that turnabout is fair play.
Compromise is seldom the first choice for people of conscience. But there can be no political majorities without it. A party that boos its most-popular elected official must weigh carefully whether the temporary thrill is worth the ultimate price. by CNB