Christine Todd Whitman Speaks Her Mind

Posted on January 3, 2005

The Washington Post reports that former New Jersey governor and EPA head Christine Todd Whitman is going to ruffle some Republican feathers in Washington with her new book, It's My Party Too: The Battle for the Heart of the GOP and the Future of America (Penguin). "The numbers show that while the president certainly did energize his political base, the red state/blue state map changed barely at all -- suggesting that he had missed an opportunity to significantly broaden his support in the most populous areas of the country," Whitman writes. "The Karl Rove strategy to focus so rigorously on the narrow conservative base won the day, but we must ask at what price to governing and at what risk to the future of the party." As a Bush Cabinet member, Whitman never quite fit in with the neocons and feels that the Republican party should move more to center, in the style of Governor Schwarzenegger. Governor Whitman describes her meeting with president-elect Bush in 2000 and having no doubt that Bush "wanted a strong environmental record to be part of both his agenda and his legacy." "The belief was reinforced when Karl Rove told me after that meeting that I would be one of just three cabinet officers who would help determine whether the president would be reelected," she writes. "I took Rove to mean that the work I would do in building a strong record on the environment would help the president build on his base by attracting moderate swing voters. As it turned out, I don't seem to have understood Karl correctly." Whitman later resigned over what she describes as conflicts with lobbyist groups and forces within the Republican party which oppose most environmental regulations. The book hits stores on January 31st, 2005. Governor Whitman will be launching a national tour to support the book and speculation is rife that she has further political ambitions.