Katherine Kersten: Plenty of surprises in Ghost Town of political moderates

For years, media types have told a tall tale of the moderate Republican ghost town. Every moderate Republican politician who rides into the sunset is the last of a dying breed, they sigh, leaving nothing but the whistling wind and the tumbling tumbleweed behind.

Rep. Jim Ramstad of the Third Congressional District, who recently announced his retirement, is the latest to star in this tragic/heroic role.

A "moderate" Republican, in the mythmakers' lingo, is one with a knack for voting with the Democrats. Ramstad was quick on the crossover trigger. When the Democrats took control of the House last January and passed a six-point "100 hours agenda," he was the only Republican to vote with them on every major bill.

Why is the moderate Republican ghost town emptying out? The mythmakers claim it has a sheriff -- a mean, low-down hombre with a glint of religious zealotry in his eye.

He and his posse threaten to string up any candidate with a streak of independence if he doesn't clear out of town.

But even though Ramstad has hit the dusty trail, the moderate Republican ghost town seems a pretty busy place. One of its best-known citizens is California Gov. Arnold Schwartzenegger, who is for abortion rights, has advocated a higher minimum wage, and is liberal on social issues like domestic partnerships and stem cell research.

Come to think of it, even the party's standard bearers -- its presidential candidates -- are a diverse gang. Rudy Giuliani, for example, cuts his own trail. Giuliani is for abortion rights and for domestic partnerships, and he has been an outspoken advocate of gun control. Despite this, he's the front-runner in the race for the GOP nomination.

John McCain is another maverick. He has championed campaign finance reform that is wildly unpopular with the party's conservative base, and worked hand in glove with left-wing Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., to get it passed.

On hot-button issues like immigration, Republican views span the spectrum. President Bush has pushed for "comprehensive" immigration reform that some say verges on amnesty, while Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., is the scourge of illegal immigrants.

Don't get me wrong. There is a real moderate ghost town, where the broken shutters and saloon doors flap lifelessly in the breeze. But the town's entrance is marked with a big blue "D."

In Minnesota, for example, the DFL's left wing is the boss. Last year, when Martin Olav Sabo retired from his Fifth District congressional seat, he tapped moderate Mike Erlandson as his successor. But Erlandson and others got walloped by Keith Ellison, whose immoderate credentials include former ties to Louis Farakhan's Nation of Islam.

Can the DFL field a "moderate" candidate in Jim Ramstad's mold for the Third District seat, one who will vote with Republicans as often as Ramstad voted with Democrats? I won't hold my breath.

Meanwhile, it's hard to imagine a pro-life Democrat bucking party orthodoxy as Giuliani has and retaining any chance to win the presidential nomination.

Take Iraq. Two weeks ago, the left-wing activist group MoveOn.org sponsored a scurrilous ad in the New York Times that smeared Gen. David Petraeus, the commander in Iraq, as a traitor to his country. The Senate passed a resolution condemning the ad, which even the Times' public editor admits violated its standards. Yet not one of the Senate Democrats who wants to be the military's next commander in chief voted for it.

Likewise, nearly all the Democratic presidential candidates attended the Daily Kos' annual conference in Chicago this summer. The leftist power-blog's founder, Markos Mouilitsas Zuniga, is notorious for his comment after the 2004 mutilation of four American contractors in Fallujah, Iraq: "I feel nothing over the death of the mercenaries. ... Screw them."

However, not one presidential candidate showed up at the centrist Democratic Leadership Conference's annual convention a few days earlier. The DLC was founded in 1985 to broaden Democrats' appeal to swing voters, and helped put Bill Clinton on the map in 1991. Now, "the council has become radioactive among Democratic primary voters," according to the New Republic's Noam Scheiber.

In short, the Democratic Party really does have a sheriff's posse that rides herd on strays. Activist organizations like Moveon.org, blogs like the Daily Kos, and billionaire financiers like George Soros are increasingly using their leverage to move the party to the left.

Sen. Joe Lieberman knows why Democratic candidates don't want to challenge these pressure groups. In 2006, left-wing activists effectively drove him out of the party in retaliation for his support of the Iraq war.

Lieberman ran as an independent after losing in the primary, and is still in the Senate. The people of Connecticut, a true-blue state, were repelled by the tactics of the extremist left that's bidding to take over the Democratic Party.

Today, there's a regular stampede of moderates running for office. But they are more likely to wear a red Republican R brand than a blue D

Katherine Kersten • kkersten@startribune.com Join the conversation at my blog, Think Again, which can be found at www.startribune.com/thinkagain.