It's My Party Too, by Christine Todd Whitman

Last night, I finished Christine Todd Whitman's It's My Party Too: The Battle for the Heart of the GOP and the Future of America (New York: Penguin, 2005).

I liked Christine Todd Whitman ever since she gave the Republican response to President Clinton's 1995 State of the Union address. She was the governor of New Jersey at the time, and she did a much better job than Bobby Jindal in 2009! Although I'd be hesitant to vote for her because she is pro-choice, I admire her intelligence, her warmth, and her clear and bold articulation of Republican principles.

The thesis of her book is that the Republican Party is too divisive because of its extreme conservatism: on abortion, guns, regulation, etc. Here are some comments on parts of her book:

1. I enjoyed her discussion of her family background. Her dad was an old-style conservative who hated Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, and her mom was more of a Rockefeller Republican, who thought the government should have a social conscience. Actually, both of her parents knew Nelson Rockefeller, since they were heavily connected in the Republican Party. And, sure enough, her dad didn't like him on a personal level, whereas her mom did. But the point of Christine's discussion here is that Republicans should be united regardless of their differences, since they all need one another. Before Lee Atwater popularized the phrase "big tent," her father likened the diversity of the Republican Party to a big umbrella, which has one center but many rungs. Christine doesn't understand those who place conservatism ahead of the Republican Party, for she thinks all Republicans should all be united behind their party and the principle of less government (the center of the umbrella).

2. Christine herself was a Rockefeller Republican, and she traces a lot of the Republican Party's problems to Barry Goldwater's 1964 campaign for President, which brought a lot of rude right-wing extremists into the party. She thought his carping apocalypticism was a marked contrast to Nelson Rockefeller's sunny disposition. Eventually, Goldwater kind of grew on her, since she came to like his 1964 platform of less government better than what the religious right had to offer (e.g., anti-abortion, anti-homosexuality, etc.). Plus, she found him to be a charming guy when she met him later in life. From what Goldwater says in his autobiography, With No Apologies, I doubt he and his supporters were the only rude ones in 1964, since Rockefeller made some pretty unfounded accusations! But I enjoyed Christine's tour through Republican history.

3. My impression is that Christine believes the GOP should drop its pro-life stance. Ironically, she cites a 2005 Gallup Poll affirming that 55 percent believe abortion "should be legal only under certain circumstances," and 19 percent "believe it should be illegal in all circumstances" (76-77). The American public is roughly pro-life, so why does she believe abortion is a losing issue for the Republicans, especially when she thinks the GOP should base its global warming stance on polls (194)?

4. Interestingly, I found that Christine could be pretty pragmatic on the abortion issue. For example, as governor of New Jersey, she supported a ban on partial-birth abortion with an exception for the life and physical health of the mother. The part about "physical health" is important, since pro-lifers argue that a health exception can encompass just about anything and render the ban meaningless: a mother can abort her baby because she'd feel depressed giving birth, for example. I wouldn't support a general exception for "health" on this basis, but a physical health exception strikes me as reasonable, since I wouldn't want a woman to be paralyzed for the rest of her life on account of childbirth. According to Christine, Pat Robertson actually agrees with her on this! But the pro-life community in her state were unwilling to compromise, since they wanted either an absolute ban, or nothing at all. The result was that they got nothing, and partial-birth abortion continued in their state. But they could still exploit the issue for political purposes, which (according to Christine) was their real interest in the first place.

5. Christine does an excellent job detailing the Republicans' positive accomplishments on race and the environment. Although she criticizes George W. Bush for reversing his plan to reduce carbon emissions, she presents his environmental record as positive and effective, better than that of his predecessors. She also refutes environmental critics who claimed she wanted to add arsenic to drinking water when she was head of the EPA. Overall, I appreciated her balanced approach to the environment, as she steered a middle ground between conservatives who oppose regulation and liberals who grade environmental records by how much the government is spending and regulating. For her, we should evaluate environmental records according to whether or not the air and water are cleaner, not by how many government bureaucrats there are. (Imagine that!) She also states that businesses should be allowed to meet environmental standards using any means that they see fit, provided they actually meet them. According to Christine, this kind of flexible approach worked in New Jersey when she was governor.

6. I enjoyed her criticism of Democratic Senator Bill Bradley. When she worked in the Ford Administration under Donald Rumsfeld, Bradley came to intern there, and he asked her to bring him some coffee when they first met. She bit her lip and politely told him where the coffee was so he could get it himself. She also thought he was a condescending jerk years later, when she ran against him for his U.S. Senate seat. Everyone thought he was unbeatable, so even the Republican National Committee didn't help Christine's campaign financially. But she shocked everyone when she came close to beating him.

While she portrays Bradley as a sexist, her picture of Donald Rumsfeld is different. When she was at a meeting and someone cussed, another person rebuked him for being so crass in front of a lady. Rumsfeld then said, "Oh, don't worry about Christine. She's one of the guys!"

7. Her discussion of women and family was interesting. She said that, when she was on the county board of freeholders, she told her colleagues she'd have to miss a meeting to attend her daughter's soccer game. While they were initially judgmental, her act encouraged them to spend more time with their own families. All it takes is one trend-setter!

8. Christine also compares how women govern as opposed to how men govern. According to her, men tend to compete and obsess over who gets the credit, whereas women cooperate to accomplish the tasks at hand. Maybe she's right, or maybe her picture is idealized. But maybe men should imitate her depiction of women by working together.

9. I liked her discussion of her female support network in the Bush Administration, which included Interior Secretary Gail Norton. I appreciated her giving us a glance of Gail's human side, especially since she was so demonized by the left!

I expected this book to be a critique of pro-life conservatives, but it's much more than that. There's autobiography, wisdom, apologetics for the Bush Administration, reflective critiques of the Bush record, and history, all rolled up into one. It's a good book!