by Christine Todd Whitman

Christine Whitman went from the governorship of New Jersey to the high-profile female in the cabinet of President George W. Bush during his first term. Then she quit her post as head of the Environmental Protection Agency. In this position paper, she exhorts fellow Republicans to resist the movement to the right and to reassert the values they have held for decades, including smaller government. Failure to do so will result in the alienation of mainstream America. Whitman's position places her in the tradition of liberal Republicanism exemplified, decades earlier, by Nelson Rockefeller of neighboring New York State, and recalls a time when the Republican party (and the Democrats, too) had a creative tension between its right, left, and center factions.