(h/t Heather) David Gregory asked Michael Steele for an example of the GOP being as inclusive a party as the Democrats since Kaine is pro-life. Steele uses Christie Todd Whitman as his example to show America how "Big Tent" they really are.
Gregory: Is the Republican Party open to pro-abortion right candidates in the way that Gov. Kaine has survived in the Democratic Party?
Steele: We've had wonderful pro-choice candidates. Gov. Christie Todd Whitman for example was a very successful republican Governor...
She was so happy with the GOP that she quit the Republicans in 2003 after she was picked to lead the EPA in 2001 by Bush and then refused to do their bidding.
Wikipedia: Whitman was appointed by President George W. Bush as Administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency, taking office on January 31, 2001.
She refused to go along with Bush and Cheney over their pollution quest and resigned from the EPA:
On June 27, 2003, after having several public conflicts with the Bush administration, Whitman resigned from her position to spend more time with her family.[31][32]
In a 2007 interview, Whitman stated that Vice President Dick Cheney's insistence on easing air pollution controls, not the personal reasons she cited at the time, led to her resignation.[33] At the time, he pushed the EPA to institute a new rule allowing large polluting plants to make major alterations without installing costly new pollution controls.[33] Refusing to sign off on the new rule, Whitman announced her resignation.[33] Whitman decided that President Bush should have an EPA administrator willing to defend the new rule in court, which she could not bring herself to do.[33] Federal judges later overturned the new rule, saying it violated the Clean Air Act.[33]
She then wrote a book bashing the GOP after she left.
In early 2005, Whitman released a book entitled It's My Party, Too: Taking Back the Republican Party... And Bringing the Country Together Again in which she criticizes the policies of the George W. Bush administration and its electoral strategy, which she views as divisive.
She's the only pro-choice republican Steele could think of and she bashed Steele's party. Sean Hannity had her on his show to try and defend BushCo. and he attacked her because of her book back in 2005.
Plus, she's a former Bush cabinet member and governor of New Jersey. So why is this ex-insider taking on some members of her own Republican party in her new book "It's My Party, Too: The Battle for the Heart of the GOP and the Future of America"? Ex-Gov. Christine Todd Whitman joins us tonight!
This actually was his answer to David Gregory's question. Steele's one "big tent" politician quit his party. Tim Kaine and David Gregory had nothing to add to his statement. I'm not kidding you.
