Don Feder
GOP shouldn't look to media for advice
EVERY TWO YEARS, the media set up shop as unofficial campaign consultants to the
Republican Party. They do so out of boundless admiration and affection for the GOP.
Invariably, their advice is simple, straightforward and suicidal: It is disastrous for
Republicans to run conservative candidates, especially social conservatives. Ideally, in any 
election, the party's nominee should appear to be cloned from his Democratic opponent.
Last week, media tongues were clucking over the failure of Republican primary voters in
Illinois to heed their counsel in choosing a Senate candidate to oppose Carol
Moseley-Braun.
In selecting State Sen. Peter Fitzgerald over State Comptroller Loleta Didrickson, voters
spurned media wisdom. An article in The New York Times described Didrickson as a
"centrist woman," while an AP report called her a "moderate." You know,
middle-of-the-road -- on a highway laid out by Nelson Rockefeller and paved by
former Gov. William Weld.
By any honest assessment, Didrickson is a liberal. She is anti-term limits and a supporter of
abortion deluxe.
As a member of the Illinois legislature, Didrickson voted for the two largest tax hikes in
state history. Her record on taxes and spending was nearly indistinguishable from
Moseley-Braun's when they served together in the '80s.
Fitzgerald thinks being a Republican should mean something. He is pro-life and anti-gun
confiscation, favors term-limitation, and views government expansion with suspicion. "We're
not going to water down the party platform into mush," the nominee declares.
The New York Times harrumphs that with Fitzgerald as the GOP candidate, this year will be
a reprise of 1996, when Prairie State Republicans chose Al Salvi for an open senate seat
over another media-designated moderate. Salvi went on to lose in November.
The Times forgot to mention that Salvi self-destructed. Badgered on the gun issue, at a
memorable October press conference the candidate charged that James Brady, of Brady
Bill fame, had a license to sell machine guns, a piece of misinformation he picked up from
the Internet. Salvi lost not on ideology but credibility.
But go back a bit further to 1992, when Moseley-Braun was first elected. To oppose this
stalwart anti-lifer, the GOP chose Reagan aide Richard Williamson, who immediately did a
belly-flop on abortion, undergoing one of those miraculous election-year conversions after
which he proclaimed himself "firmly pro-choice." Moseley-Braun had him for lunch.
It is a source of constant wonderment that the media can sell their baloney in the face of
recent history. In 1994 and 1996, the Republican Party elected a total of 20 freshman to
the United States Senate. Of them, all but two are solid conservatives and defenders of the
unborn.
Compare the moderates' track record. Bob Dole, who served as Didrickson's national
finance chairman, ran to the right in the 1996 primaries, then ran away from the Republican
platform as soon as he'd secured the nomination.
Dole's campaign was a textbook case of how to alienate the party's core constituency and
anesthetize the electorate.
George Bush should have ended the debate about which type of Republican is more
electable. In the squire of Kennebunkport, we had two different candidates in the same
man.
In 1988, Bush won as a Reagan Republican. In 1992, he campaigned as a Gerald Ford
moderate and lost handsomely.
A Washington-based consultant who's close to Newt Gingrich says a primary win by
Didrickson would have provided a world of contrast in the general election.
Moseley-Braun is black; Didrickson is white. The Democrat has embraced Sani Abacha, the
loathsome dictator of Nigeria; the Republican has not. And -- well, that about exhausts the
differences.
On the day that Fitzgerald took the Republican Senate nomination, Congressman Glenn
Poshard won the Democratic gubernatorial nod with 38 percent of the vote in a five-way
race. Poshard is pro-life and anti-gun control.
Does the media therefore say: "Aha, there is a pro-life, pro-Second Amendment
constituency in the Democratic Party. Republicans can tap into this base." They would, if
they were really interested in advancing Republican fortunes or just providing an objective
analysis.
If Republicans listen to their friends in the Fourth Estate, soon there will be no one left to
vote for them save reporters and editors -- if any could actually bring themselves to pull the
Republican lever.
Mona Charen