D'Amato Rips GOP Conservatives Again

WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, May 7) -- Sen. Alfonse D'Amato (R-N.Y.), who appears to be on a one-man crusade to soften the GOP's hard-edged conservative image before the November elections, said today the party doesn't need "philosophical ayatollahs" telling people what to think.

D'Amato, who traded barbs with House Speaker Newt Gingrich last week, mentioned conservative commentator Pat Buchanan by name in saying the party needs to send a message of tolerance, not intolerance.

"We should not march to some philosophical ayatollah...an ayatollah like Pat Buchanan," D'Amato said during an appearance on ABC-TV.

"We do a great disservice to ourselves if we think that people want a Republican Party that is perceived as exclusionary, and that's what Pat Buchanan did to us -- the party that's uncaring for working, middle-class families," D'Amato added.

D'Amato described his cutting remarks as "an initiative I've taken." It could also be shrewd politics for New York's junior senator, who recent polls suggest could face a tough re-election fight in 1998. Just in case of a big Republican defeat this fall, he may want to increase the distance between himself and the GOP's hard core.

D'Amato noted the Republican leadership's opposition to a minimum wage increase, and said he favors an increase.

"Do you mean to tell me that I have to be read out of the party, or have conservatives say that Al D'Amato is a liberal for doing it?" he asked.

"We don't need these philosophical ayatollahs telling people you have to believe my way or we have no room for you in our party," D'Amato said.

With Republicans trailing in the polls and sniping at each other, House Speaker Gingrich turned today to a familiar target -- the news media -- as one source of the party's difficulties.

Gingrich said President Bill Clinton has systematically misled the American people, and he has been aided by a liberal, unquestioning media. "You've had this passive conspiracy of telling us how clever Bill Clinton is," Gingrich said at a breakfast meeting of Republican women.

Although polls suggest women voters favor Clinton over Sen. Robert Dole (R-Dole) by a sizable margin, Gingrich promised an aggressive effort to tell the Republicans' story. Young women have been victimized by a welfare state that Republicans want to change, he said.

"What we are about is replacing that welfare state with an opportunity society," he said.

D'Amato Rips GOP Conservatives Again

Related Stories: