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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: E. T. who wrote (220060)	1/19/2002 8:38:51 AM
From: John Carragher	Respond to of 769670

humor!!! imo Barrons Terrorized? What happened to the centrists? Pundits predicted they'd be running things on Capitol Hill during the Bush Administration, joining across party lines to marginalize the GOP's extreme right and the Democrats' far left. "The Republican centrists are terrorized by their own right wing," says Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, a far-left Democrat and former political-science professor. Frank says that GOP centrists in the House who don't toe the party's conservative line face primary challenges. So for the sake of self-preservation, they vote conservative in close votes. House Republicans, he says, "know they have an automatic majority whenever they need it." In part this owes to the cooperation of right-leaning Democrats such as Ralph Hall of Texas and Jim Traficant of Ohio, whom Frank calls "the most irresponsible and defamatory of individuals and one indicted for public corruption." The GOP, he says, doesn't need the help of centrist Democrats at all, and this has forced New Democrats, who are conservative on economic issues and left of center on social issues, into an alliance with old-line liberals such as Frank. What's the GOP doing with its clout? According to Frank, it is purposely creating deficits to prevent Democrats from expanding popular social programs. E-mail comments to editors@barrons.com