Republican Party

The Republican candidates for U.S. Senate traded foreign policy insults in a tense first debate Friday, with businesswoman Carly Fiorina hitting former Rep. Tom Campbell for associating with supporters of terrorism and Campbell accusing Fiorina's campaign of smearing him as anti-Semitic. "That whispering campaign, that silent slander stops today," Campbell said, his hands and voice shaking in the first minutes of the hourlong debate on "The Capitol Hour" on KTKZ-AM (1380). Campbell called for the debate after earlier Fiorina attacks on his congressional record on Israel, including two efforts to trim economic aid to the nation, and for connections with men who later pleaded guilty to or were charged with crimes associated with terrorism.

First there was the "tea party" protester. Now meet the Tea-publican. Conservative activists who once protested the political establishment are now flooding the lowest level of the Republican Party apparatus hoping to take over the party they once scorned -- one precinct at a time. Across the country, tea party groups that had focused on planning rallies are educating members on how to run for GOP precinct representative positions. The representatives help elect county party leaders, who write the platform and, in some places, determine endorsements.

When Matt Clemente went to a December meeting of "tea party" activists in Worcester, Mass., he was shocked to find the hall packed. "They were all talking about Scott Brown," he said. That was when Clemente, a student at College of the Holy Cross, realized Brown wasn't just another Republican running a long-shot campaign for the seat held by liberal Sen. Edward M. Kennedy since 1962. He actually had a chance to win, and the conservative activists who had been organizing around the country against the healthcare overhaul, bank bailouts and increased government regulation could put him over the top if they could get organized in time.

After months of criticizing Democratic healthcare proposals from the sidelines, House Republicans this week stepped up efforts to promote their own plan and challenge critics' efforts to portray the GOP as the "party of no." Unlike the Democrats' strategy of trying to provide near-universal coverage and force other major changes to the insurance system, the Republican approach is an incremental one that would do far less to reduce the ranks of the uninsured. It would instead give priority to controlling healthcare costs.

Republican politicians and conservative activists are launching a ballot campaign to suspend California's landmark global-warming law, in what they hope will serve as a showcase for a national backlash against climate regulations. Supporters say they have "solid commitments" of nearly $600,000 to pay signature gatherers for a November initiative aimed at delaying curbs on the greenhouse gas emissions of power plants and factories until the state's unemployment rate drops. GOP gubernatorial candidates and Tea Party organizers paint the 2006 law, considered a model for other state and federal efforts, as a job-killing interference in the economy.

If John McCain becomes president, Americans would be steered toward buying individual health insurance policies, and job-related coverage eventually could decline. If Barack Obama or Hillary Rodham Clinton wins, more people would get their insurance from the government -- with many workers offered the equivalent of Medicare and employers facing new coverage mandates. In the past, voters sometimes have complained that there was little difference between Republicans and Democrats.

Meg Whitman is campaigning for governor as a political outsider, but behind the scenes she is playing classic political hardball in her quest for the Republican nomination. She tried to push her chief GOP opponent, Steve Poizner, out of the primary contest with a consultant's threat to wage a negative ad campaign that would destroy his career. Her advisors have worked, with some success, to siphon away Poizner supporters, orchestrating calls by former Gov. Pete Wilson and others for the party to unite -- four months before the primary election -- behind her candidacy.

Dozens of newly minted Republican voters say they were duped into joining the party by a GOP contractor with a trail of fraud complaints stretching across the country. Voters contacted by The Times said they were tricked into switching parties while signing what they believed were petitions for tougher penalties against child molesters. Some said they were told that they had to become Republicans to sign the petition, contrary to California initiative law.

No doubt about it, Dick Cheney, the Republican vice presidential candidate, had one of the most conservative voting records of any member of Congress during his five terms in the House. Most of the time, on issues from environmental safety to gun control, the former Wyoming congressman was marching in lock-step with President Reagan, if not always with fellow Republicans.

The House Ethics Committee on Thursday opened an investigation into the scandal surrounding the congressional page system, a furor that has ended the political career of one lawmaker and jeopardized the leadership position of Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.). Hastert, at a news conference in his home district, rejected calls that he resign as speaker in the face of criticism that his office reacted too slowly to the problem.

Some of the major Republicans vying to become California's next governor or U.S. senator have more money than others. Some are better known. Some are more in sync with their party's traditional views. But what all five have in common as they look toward the June 8 primary is a determination to tap what they see as public fury over the failures of government. "Our government is out of control and out of touch, and so we will take it back and we will make it work," U.S. Senate hopeful Carly Fiorina told hundreds of delegates at a weekend convention of Republicans in the Silicon Valley.

Republicans running for their party's nomination for California governor and the U.S. Senate brawled over conservative purity Saturday as they vied to inspire the party's wary rank and file. A national climate that portends trouble for Democrats lent a hopeful mood to a weekend convention of nearly 1,000 Republicans at a Silicon Valley hotel. Candidates took turns pummeling Democrats Jerry Brown, who hopes to recapture the governorship that he first won in 1974, and Barbara Boxer, the perennially vulnerable U.S. senator whom Republicans have failed three times to defeat.

The Republican candidates for governor sniped at each other in dueling news conferences Friday at the opening of the state GOP convention here in Silicon Valley, as each sought advantage for the three-month sprint to the June 8 election. In a surprise hourlong gathering with reporters whose questions she has assiduously dodged for months, billionaire Meg Whitman portrayed Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner as an untrustworthy liberal. "Steve Poizner has changed his mind on virtually every major issue since he ran for the Assembly in 2004," she said, citing Poizner's rightward shifts on taxes, abortion and offshore oil drilling since he first sought public office in a moderate Bay Area district.

The Republican candidates for U.S. Senate traded foreign policy insults in a tense first debate Friday, with businesswoman Carly Fiorina hitting former Rep. Tom Campbell for associating with supporters of terrorism and Campbell accusing Fiorina's campaign of smearing him as anti-Semitic. "That whispering campaign, that silent slander stops today," Campbell said, his hands and voice shaking in the first minutes of the hourlong debate on "The Capitol Hour" on KTKZ-AM (1380). Campbell called for the debate after earlier Fiorina attacks on his congressional record on Israel, including two efforts to trim economic aid to the nation, and for connections with men who later pleaded guilty to or were charged with crimes associated with terrorism.

Republican candidate for governor Steve Poizner, who is running as a conservative, took liberal positions on a range of issues related to abortion when he ran for state Assembly in 2004, according to a document obtained by The Times. A questionnaire that Poizner completed for Planned Parenthood Mar Monte, in San Jose, earned him a 100% rating on abortion rights from the group when he ran, unsuccessfully, against Democrat Ira Ruskin in the 21st Assembly District. On the form, Poizner, who is now California's insurance commissioner, said he supported sex education that includes discussion of contraception.

With healthcare legislation mired in partisanship, "tea party" activists on the march and GOP leadership dominated by conservatives, Capitol Hill looks like a parched landscape for the withered moderate wing of the Republican Party. But green shoots are sprouting in Washington and on the campaign trail. A small band of Republican moderates in the Senate broke a logjam on jobs legislation. They added to their ranks with the arrival of another New England Republican, Scott Brown. And several moderate Republicans are in a good position to win Senate seats in November.

Meg Whitman is campaigning for governor as a political outsider, but behind the scenes she is playing classic political hardball in her quest for the Republican nomination. She tried to push her chief GOP opponent, Steve Poizner, out of the primary contest with a consultant's threat to wage a negative ad campaign that would destroy his career. Her advisors have worked, with some success, to siphon away Poizner supporters, orchestrating calls by former Gov. Pete Wilson and others for the party to unite -- four months before the primary election -- behind her candidacy.

President Obama's new healthcare overhaul plan would give the federal government greater authority to stop rate increases imposed by health insurers, an administration official said late Sunday. The proposal, to be posted on the White House website Monday, would give the Health and Human Services secretary power to block premium increases that were deemed excessive. It also would set up a panel of experts charged with evaluating the healthcare market each year and determining what would constitute a reasonable rate increase.

Talk show host Glenn Beck poked and prodded the Republican hierarchy Saturday night in a raucous address to fellow conservatives, comparing the party to an alcoholic who hasn't hit bottom and to golfer Tiger Woods before his public repentance. Calling himself a recovering alcoholic in that context, Beck said he believes in the concept of redemption but that he doesn't think the GOP has taken the first step toward achieving it. "I have not yet heard people in the Republican Party admit they have a problem," Beck told a packed ballroom in Washington.

As voters lose patience with political gridlock, the Obama administration is embarking on a strategy aimed at putting Republicans on the spot: Either participate in bipartisan exchanges initiated by the president, or be portrayed as the party of obstruction. The new approach is part of a series of adjustments the White House is making as it deals with the aftermath of Republican Scott Brown's victory in Massachusetts, which cost Democrats their filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.