The Commercial Appeal has collected comments from various Tennessee Republicans on the split within party ranks between establishment and tea party types. Some excerpts:
So what is the future of this apparently schizophrenic party?
“The bottom line is Republicans should never compromise on what we believe, never waver on our principles, but understand the huge task we have to better communicate with all Americans, not just a select few, our vision for the future generations of this country,” state GOP chairman Chris Devaney wrote a week after the Nov. 6 elections.
Many Tennessee Republicans enlisted to discuss the future of their party rejected the notion that the party is divided between extremist social conservatives and fiscal conservatives who hold moderate social views. It’s a big tent, they say.
“I don’t think it’s going to be a far-right party; I think it’s going to be a mainstream conservative party, which is somewhere between the two,” said East Shelby Republican Club president Arnold Weiner.
…University of Memphis College Republican Club vice president Kristoffer Adams, 30, agrees there are two factions in the Tennessee Republican Party but sees the benefit of such creative friction. “When you argue among yourselves, you make new points. You come up with new ideas.”
A somewhat contrary view is expressed by former governor Winfield Dunn, the first Republican elected to the executive mansion in half a century when he took office in 1971.
“I don’t think we have a divided party or a party separated into factions,” he said. “We have different opinions. We have people from a wide variety of pursuits, all of whom embrace a more conservative approach to government than we witness at the national level …”It behooves every one of us … to be absolutely certain that we avoid, to the degree we can, disagreements that lead to schisms that lead to more ambitious political factions,” Dunn, 85, advised.