By Scott Dorfman '07
News Editor

Whitman is currently the president of The Whitman Strategy Group, a management consulting firm, and has recently authored a book about the Republican party titled It’s My Party Too.

Whitman began her speech by discussing the irony of U.Va. having a top-rated business school.

“I think it’s ironic that one of America’s finest business schools is located in Thomas Jefferson’s University,” Whitman said. “I think that many remember that Thomas Jefferson was not a big fan of business.”

Whitman said politics has changed markedly since the times when her politically oriented parents got into public service.

“I’m here to talk about the climate of politics today,” Whitman said. “It’s not as caustic as the time of the founding fathers, but it’s as poisonous as any time I’ve seen in my lifetime. My parents saw politics as a worthy and honorable calling, and a way to make a positive difference at the local, state, and national level. They saw politics as encouraging practical idealists. . .[but] that practical aspect of politics is being pushed out these days.”

Whitman said that the pragmatic center of politics is increasingly being pushed out of mainstream political discussion, even though Americans remain a largely moderate people.

“The biggest challenge in politics today is the entrenched division in our body politic,” Whitman said. “It is driving both parties further to their extremes and it insures the neglect of that great body of citizens that finds themselves in the middle. As I surveyed the political landscape last year, I saw a country that is pretty much evenly divided. We are not a red state or blue state nation; we are more a purple nation.”

Whitman accentuated this idea by saying that in a survey of over 7,000 state legislators, 50.3 percent were Republicans and 49.7 percent were Democrats.

Whitman said that a number of moderate Republicans have been targeted by members of the far right as being Republicans In Name Only, or RINOs. She said these legislators have faced increasing ostracism within the GOP.

“RINOs have been targeted, and there are litmus tests for being a RINO,” Whitman said. “If you are pro-choice, want to at least talk about stem-cell research, don’t believe that the constitution should be amended for only the second time to restrict individual rights, and if you believe in environmental protection, you are labeled a RINO. This label is attached even if you support things like tax cuts, fiscal responsibility, and a strong national defense.”

Whitman said that even strong conservatives can be targeted by the far right when they stray from the party line.

“There are others in my party where it doesn’t matter even if you’ve been a loyal and effective member in the U.S. Senate,” Whitman said. “You need only look at the words used against Majority Leader Bill Frist after he moderated his language on stem cells. The far right called him morally incoherent and unfit.”

According to Whitman, RINOs are working hard to turn the moniker on its ear.

“I don’t really mind that RINO label, because Rhinos are very thick-skinned and they are very fast once they get going,” Whitman said. “We are getting up a head of steam, and we need to keep going. I described us in my book as radical moderates. We are not simply going to continue to go along to get along.”

Whitman said the biggest reason for the current polarization is each party’s strategy of trying to energize their bases rather than appeal to the middle. She said this became a factor during her time at the EPA.

“At the EPA, even our best environmental policy decisions were defined in ways to appeal to the base, to those people who said in polls that they didn’t care about the environment,” Whitman said. “You would be surprised to know that our President actually has a better environmental record than you would know, or probably then you would believe, because everything was couched in terms that appeal to the base.”

Whitman said that she sees the 2008 election as crucial in returning both parties to the middle. She forecast Hilary Clinton as the likely Democratic nominee, and said she hoped to see Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, Tom Ridge, or Hawaii governor Linda Lingle as the Republican nominee.

“The 2008 election will mark the first time since 1952 that there is no heir apparent, meaning no incumbent or sitting vice president,” Whitman said. “Both parties have a unique opportunity to release the grip on both sides, and to assess where they see the country going…. We can turn the tide that has developed for the last 10 to 15 years for the good of the country. In this country, the wonderful world of democracy, the only people that can do that are each and every one of us. And by doing so, we can usher in a sea change in American politics.”