Bucks County Herald – August 24, 2006

Greenwood, Howard, Fitzpatrick

Dear Friends,

Good morning. The past can be as fascinating as the present. Several weeks ago, I met Alan Laws, a retired history professor from Boston College. As you faithful readers know, I love history. Alan gave me a Mark Twain thought about the subject. “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme,” Twain once said.

That said, last week, former State Senator Ed Howard called me out of the blue. Ed became a State Senator during my county commissioner days and served in the state senate from 1971 through 1986. A maverick Republican, the GOP leadership in Harrisburg disliked him intensely because Ed was an independent thinker. That’s not good for the political system…business as usual…and that’s precisely why I liked him.

Ed reminded me of William Proxmire, the Wisconsin Democrat who succeeded a real villain in the U.S. Senate, Joseph McCarthy. The Democratic Party hated Proxmire because he founded the “Golden Fleece Award” which identified notorious cases of political pork barreling. His fellow Democrats said this of Proxmire: “Bill [Proxmire] has all the qualities of a dog except loyalty.”

Like Proxmire, neither the state GOP nor the Bucks County Republican Committee could stand Ed Howard. And they were just as unhappy with his successor, former congressman Jim Greenwood.

Retired from politics, Ed teaches at Delaware Valley College near Doylestown. He asked me to give a talk to his class in October. Bucks County elections and politics will be the topic. Of course I will.

As you remember, Ed Howard was Jim Greenwood’s champion…first in the state senate and second when he upset former Congressman Peter Kostmayer. Jim Greenwood’s brand of Republicanism was a perfect fit for Bucks County. Fiscally conservative but liberal on social issues, Greenwood was a strident supporter of women’s reproductive rights and, while in the congress, pushed hard for embryonic stem cell research. Most Bucks voters support those two views, which may explain why they rejected George W. Bush in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections.

When Greenwood announced that he was leaving congress to preside over a national biotechnology organization (B.I.O.), most thought that he was making a sound career move. He told me that there are more than 1,100 small, medium, and huge companies in BIO.

Curiously, two years ago, Greenwood became the campaign chairman for Mike Fitzpatrick, the popular Republican county commissioner. I say curious because Fitzpatrick is unlike Greenwood in two critically important, hot button issues: women’s reproductive rights and embryonic stem cell research.

I remember asking Fitzpatrick about those two topics when he first ran in 2004. Would Bucks voters support him if he opposed embryonic stem cell research and women’s reproductive rights? I knew that Fitzpatrick was of the pro life persuasion. But he told me that he was uncertain about whether he would be against embryonic stem cell research? Fitzpatrick easily won his first term in 2004 because he is a tireless campaigner, had a weak Democratic opponent, and voters may not have realized how conservative he turned out to be.

Today, that uncertainty is gone. By supporting the president’s refusal to relax his opposition to embryonic stem cell research, Fitzpatrick is now seen as a congressman with the same philosophy as Senator Rick Santorum. Are those views too extreme for Bucks County? Stay tuned.

Greenwood could be unpopular with the GOP national committee because he was quoted in various newspapers saying that he was disappointed with Fitzpatrick’s votes against embryonic stem cell research. That criticism may make things harder for Greenwood as he lobbies for federal funds to reduce disease in the developing world. If I were Greenwood, I’d be cautious about infuriating the Republican leadership which decides who gets tax money.

In the meantime, Ed Howard believes that Fitzpatrick will be defeated in November.

If Greenwood is lucky, the Bucks County Republican party won’t ask him to support Fitzpatrick. That’s a choice, which would be most disquieting for Greenwood. Philosophically, he and Fitzpatrick are in opposite camps. Greenwood may be unwilling to put his organization in the cross hairs of an angry Republican congressional majority…unless the November election changes the present makeup in Washington.

Sincerely,

Charles Meredith

You can reach him at MeredithIII@comcast.net

His past columns are at www.charlesmeredith.com