GOP Governors Divide Over Stimulus
While Barack Obama’s stimulus package faced nearly unanimous Republican congressional opposition, it also exposed an unmistakable fault line among the 22 GOP governors, several of whom took high-profile positions in support of the $787 billion plan.
The governors’ rift was ostensibly about the economic recovery plan, but there was another high-stakes conflict behind the scenes, marked by two competing visions of a new Republican Party represented by two governors who may face off in the 2012 GOP presidential primary.
On the one side is South Carolina’s Mark Sanford, the chairman of the Republican Governors Association, who refers to the spending package as “a tremendous mistake.”
“The spending plan will prove to be an absolute disaster,” Sanford said in an interview. “The bottom line is that it’s horrible.”
On the other is Florida’s Charlie Crist, the popular first-term governor who appeared on stage with Obama last week to urge passage of the stimulus.
“I support the stimulus plan because, number one, we need it,” Crist told Politico. “Florida sends an awful lot of tax dollars to D.C. and we ought to get some of it back.”
Many Republican governors, including party heavyweights Mississippi’s Haley Barbour, Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal, Alaska’s Sarah Palin and Rick Perry of Texas, have taken a hard line against what they say are the debt-increasing measures in the economic recovery bill. But Crist and a few others, most notably California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, have been more receptive to the new federal funds.
To some degree, the varying approaches adopted by Sanford and Crist reflect the unique political environments in which they operate. Sanford represents a heavily Republican state where his message has a resonance it wouldn’t have in Florida, where Crist must contend with a far more competitive two-party landscape and a budget shortfall that could lead to draconian cuts in services.
Nonetheless, their dueling approaches have suddenly designated Sanford and Crist as the two poles of Republican restoration theory—one that calls for a return to core conservative principles and a back-to-basics approach, and another that is more pragmatic and bipartisan in tone.
“[Sanford] is a guy with a longstanding philosophy and ideological approach to free markets. The dire fiscal situation in Florida is what’s driving Charlie Crist," said Republican consultant Phil Musser, a former executive director of the Republican Governors Association.
“Different Republican governors represent different directional visions for the party. Sanford has been out there with his and Crist has followed a different path. Which vision is most politically viable won't be hashed out for a while but is one of the most interesting questions out there," he said.
Both governors downplay the notion of a rivalry. And some Republicans dispute the notion that the stimulus package betrayed any divide among the governors.
“There is no inner gubernatorial divide here,” said Nick Ayers, executive director of the RGA. “Our governors understand that a successful national party requires diverse ideas that may vary by state and region. What might be good for Vermont isn't necessarily what's good for Mississippi.”
Still, the distinctiveness of the Sanford and Crist political styles and their unambiguous, high-profile roles on the stimulus package may make a rivalry unavoidable as each continues to draw mention as a prospective national candidate, in a party where much of the current talent is in the statehouses.
“The Republican Party, when it gets in trouble, always decides that the future and the rebuilding has to get done by governors,” said Tommy Thompson, the former Wisconsin governor who was at the forefront of GOP advances in the 1990s.
That Crist and anford should emerge as lodestars is itself a reflection of the uncertainty that grips the GOP. Both are political individualists without strong ties to the party establishment and opinion about them, even among their GOP colleagues, is mixed.
Sanford has been at war with his Republican-controlled legislature for much of his two terms in office, at one point bringing pigs into the State House to protest against pork-barrel politics. Crist’s appearance with Obama, who won the state in November, was viewed as an act of political heresy by some Republicans who lump him together with Arnold Schwarzenegger, another Republican mega-state governor who is at odds with party regulars.
“A few of our governors govern by photo-op,” explained one Republican operative, “and there are no better examples than our coastal governors.”
Yet Crist’s approach can’t easily be dismissed. He is among the nation’s most popular governors with an astounding 73 percent approval rating, according to a recent Florida Chamber of Commerce poll.
“To me it’s kind of sad that people would think it’s not appropriate to appear with the President,” said Crist. “We’re certainly bipartisan here in Florida, non-partisan. We’re proud of that in Tallahassee.”
“I think it’s a model for the country,” he added. “People are frustrated and tired of political bickering.”
Sanford’s model is more confrontational, if not by design than in effect. Indeed, his criticism of the stimulus so rankled House Majority Whip James Clyburn, a fellow South Carolina pol, that the Democrat crafted a Sanford-inspired requirement in the final stimulus bill that forces governors to publicly accept or decline the federal money and enables state legislatures to accept the federal money in the event their governors oppose it.
“The problem with the Republican brand is that we haven’t done as advertised. We ran as conservatives and didn’t govern that way,” said Sanford. “The way out of the electoral carnage of the last few years does not rest in being all things to all people. It’s delivering on what you promised.”
“I don’t begrudge Charlie or Arnold or whoever doing what they want to do. We’ve got 50 different states and 50 different incubators,” he added. “I think it’s a mistake though.”