Impressed with former New Jersey governor Christine Todd Whitman? I never thought I'd answer that question affirmatively.

 

But after listening to her speak last night in front of the World Affairs Council Executive Forum Event at the Hartford Club on Prospect Street in Hartford, I understood that while we disagreed on so many levels, we agreed on some basic precepts. Common ground is important to have to move forward.

 

Whitman is a socially liberal Republican who headed the Environmental Protection Agency from 2001 to 2003 under George W. Bush. In response to a question about cabinet level ministers having too much power, she suggested that some agencies, like the EPA, needed to become a Cabinet-level post.

 

This question has been floating around since Nixon created the EPA in 1970, and after the Exxon Valdez oil spill, it gained traction, but failed to go anywhere under Bush I. With the BP mess in Louisiana, it makes sense to bring it up again.

 

This wasn't the only place I agreed with Whitman. She resigned from the Bush Administration because she could not defend Cheney's thrust to ease air pollution laws which violated the Clean Air Act (first passed by a Republican - Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1955).

 

Nothing so progressive could have come out of the Bush White House, and indeed, it is unlikely we will see anything so progressive from the Obama administration. Oddly enough, again in 1972, Nixon appeased the tree huggers by signing the Clean Water Act.

 

Attorney Peter Kelly, founder of Hartford law firm Updike, Kelley & Spellacy, and the powerhouse lobbying firm Black Manafort, sounded a question to Whitman about the demise of collegiality within the political world. The Republicans have no moderates, he said.

 

Whitman agreed. She told the small crowd about how when she was thinking of running for governor again in 1997, there was a chance that she could run for U.S. Senate instead. Whitman visited DC to explore the option. She ditched the idea after meeting with members of the Republican Senate Campaign Committee, who told her "mention a word about campaign finance reform, and you'll never get a dime from us."

 

The extremism in politics creates a divide that prevents anything from happening, Whitman said. I agree, and I'll add that the categorization of views as extreme or moderate is a shifting sand that inhibits the dialogue.

 

For example, when I posit on WNPR's "Where We Live" that college tuition should be free for students who stay in state for five years after they graduate, I am labeled extreme.

 

Considering that 50 years ago, public universities charged token tuition, and the goal of everyone who wants to go to college is to get a scholarship, why shouldn't it be so? Not only that, state legislatures in Georgia and Maryland have passed laws that grant free tuition to students earning honors level grades. So I am not out of left field.

 

I feel that that my fiscally conservative, socially liberal views make me moderate. It is the political spectrum around me which has shifted, and in the framing of the current political conversation, if the idea doesn't originate from within the corporate dominated spectrum, then it is extreme.

 

Whitman understands this, as she helped found the Republican Leadership Counsel, modeled in part on the Democratic Leadership Counsel (which Peter Kelly helped found in 1984). The DLC was to pull the Democratic party to the center. Whitman wants to pull the Republican party to the center.

 

To me, the center is far to the right of where it was 50 years ago. I would prefer to hear Whitman say she is trying to pull the Republican Party left, instead of euphemistically to the center.

 

Whitman wants to run five moderate Republicans for Senate this year. If both parties are running out their moderates, those Republicans who do get elected in the fall with be there only "to blunt Obama."

 

Yet Whitman suggested that the Tea Party was not a monolith of Republicans. "The Tea Party does not have a cohesive philosophy," Whitman said, noting that their disgust for Democrats and Republicans alike unites them.

 

Her characterization of the Tea Party as activists of all stripe does not account for the polling about the Tea Party being overwhelmingly white, wealthy, older and most likely racist. And though Whitman discourages the idea of a unicameral legislature, the kind in Nebraska, or that which former Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gary Lebeau proposed for Connecticut, Whitman likes the idea of proportional representation.

 

Her ideas were refreshing, despite the fact that we do not see eye to eye on many things, I found myself agreeing with her that the American citizen shoulders the blame of this failure of politics. Whitman has been an international election observer, and she said that in countries she has visited, that despite the threat of death, people wear the indelible ink from voting for 10 days (because it doesn't come off any quicker, even with hot water and soap).

 

Despite the fact that standing in line to vote, and expressing their preference in self-government makes them an easy target for attack, people in some countries will vote. Here in America, if it is raining, people don't vote.

 

"Democracy demands our participation," Whitman said.

 

One of the unintended consequences of No Child Left Behind has been the demise of civics education. When the floor opened up for questions, I asked Whitman that NCLB had it as an intended consequence - that NCLB, by setting goals for 100 percent systemwide compliance, set itself up to fail. The destruction of public education has long been a goal of the conservative movement.

 

Of course, Whitman disagreed, and said NCLB was about accountability. But, she said that she liked the idea of charter schools and vouchers, which is the start of the privatization scheme that so many on the right side of the aisle have dreamed of.

 

Listening to her, I thought that I would so much prefer her as a governor over our current governor. In fact, Whitman, perhaps without knowing it, criticized Governor Rell's "One Thing" energy efficiency campaign.

 

"Americans love to be told they can do one thing" to fix the environment, Whitman said. "We love to say do one thing like turn off the lights," and the energy crisis will be fixed. "One thing doesn't work," Whitman said.

 

We have to do many things, including finding ways to compromise with people we disagree with. Linda Greenhouse, the New York Times Supreme Court correspondent who gave the commencement address at UConn Law this past week, suggested that compromise is not a dirty word.

 

Trying to figure out how Whitman and I meet on the question of wealth distribution will vex me for some time. Whitman spoke against executive salary caps, but I think it vital that we should tax billionaires at 50 percent rates or higher. If they leave the state after one year, who cares? We got $2 billion. That is enough to run the city of Hartford for four years.

 

In tough economic times, Whitman said that we may have to cut government programs that are genuinely beneficial, that are not "harebrained" pork. "You may lose your favorite programs," she said, even though these programs have helped many people. "We have to decide what are the programs that represent the core programs of government, the ones that do the greatest good for the greatest number of people," she said.

 

After the talk, I encountered a Republican woman. We disagreed on so much, so in the spirit of the conversation, we tried to find common ground. We agreed that education, food and health care were human rights. If Thomas Jefferson said that governments are instituted among mankind to protect and insure these rights, what are the parameters of these rights?

 

And can fiscal conservatives like Whitman agree that the wars overseas are a waste of money that do not achieve the policy aims they allegedly have?

 

I don't know. But I had to get this off my chest. It's been an interesting, but long, week. Happy Memorial Day. Stop the wars.

Link: rJo help us stop the wars...