It’s a question that doesn’t have an easy answer. Social and evangelical conservatives have gained more and more power within the state party for years, slowly building their influence both in Iowa politics and nationally due to the first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses.

The Republican Party of Iowa used to be defined by its moderates and pragmatists, said former Lt. Gov. Joy Corning. Republican Govs. Robert Ray and Terry Branstad helped the party hold on to Terrace Hill for nearly 30 years, she said, but now many who consider themselves centrist Republicans feel abandoned.

“I hear it all the time,” said Corning, who runs the Iowa chapter of the centrist Republican Leadership Council. “I have had so many people say to me personally, ‘I did not leave the party, the party left me.’ What has happened is some moderates have opted out instead of staying and trying to be part of the party structure and make a difference. This started years ago.”

During his four terms as governor, few would have considered Branstad a moderate. But in today’s party, the former governor would certainly fall into that category, showing how far to the right the GOP has drifted, Corning said.

Social and evangelical conservatives have a powerful voice in the Republican Party of Iowa because they participate, said Steve Roberts, a former chair of the Republican Party of Iowa who for many years represented the Iowa GOP on the Republican National Committee.

“The Republican Party, like the Democratic Party, is dictated by who shows up and participates,” Roberts said. “Frankly, the more conservative Republicans, the social evangelical conservatives, not only show up but they are organized. The more moderate folks are frustrated and don’t want to spend the time that it takes to make a difference.”

Roberts has seen the evolution of his party first hand. At last year’s state party convention, Roberts, a relatively moderate Republican, was replaced as a male representative to the Republican National Committee by Steve Scheffler of the Iowa Christian Alliance. The female representative position was won by Kim Lehman, director of Iowa Right to Life. Many saw these moves as the evangelical base asserting its authority within the party.

“There is no question the party has gotten more conservative,” Roberts said. “But that’s because they’ve been the ones showing up and working.”

The problem many within the party point out is that, as the party has grown more conservative, it has seen its numbers dwindle in the statehouse. In the last three election cycles, Republicans have watched as Democrats took control of both chambers of the legislature and the governorship.

A cause for hope

Iowa Republicans have a lot going in their favor as the 2010 elections get closer, Roberts said.

“I think we are in a really good position following the legislative session,” he said. “Issues like spending, the Democratic plan to end federal deductibility on state tax returns, various pieces of labor legislation and gay marriage have put us in a good position in terms of having hope of election success in 2010.”

Republicans successfully fought off several pieces of the Democratic agenda during the legislative session, despite being in the minority, and the Iowa Supreme Court’s ruling on same-sex marriage has energized the social conservatives.

“But we need a strong gubernatorial candidate to articulate our beliefs,” Roberts said. “There have been a lot of names come up, but no one has stepped forward or chosen to pursue it.”

But while the gay marriage issue is an opportunity, it also poses a potential pit fall for the party, Roberts said, if it ends up being the main issue associated with GOP candidates. He cited the 1998 campaign for governor between Republican Jim Ross Lightfoot and Democrat Tom Vilsack. Lightfoot focused his attacks in the closing months on Vilsack’s voting record in the legislature on the issue of restricting or banning nude dancing.

“It backfired on him,” Roberts said. “People had other issues that were more important to them. I think gay marriage is something that is an important issue for a lot of people, but with the economy the way it is, focusing solely on social issues could be a mistake.”

Not holding the governor’s office for more than a decade has contributed to making the GOP more conservative, said Dennis Goldford, a professor of politics at Drake University.

“The more Republicans are a party defined by state legislative districts, which are by nature more homogeneous than the statewide population, so you can ignore people who think differently, the more conservative the party will be,” he said. “With no executive, it’s going to get more conservative.”

Searching for the moderate’s candidate

Civic Skinny, the anonymous gossip columnist for Des Moines alternative newsweekly Cityview, reported rumblings of a group of moderates, headed by Branstad, Ray, Roberts and former GOP gubernatorial candidate Doug Gross, who were trying “to settle on a moderate candidate to run against Bob Vander Plaats and Steve King and Christopher Rants and all those other very conservative Western Iowans who want to be governor.”

Roberts denied being part of a secret plan to choose a gubernatorial candidate.

“That conversation is happening, but is not limited to me, Gov. Branstad, Gov. Ray and Doug Gross,” he said. “There are a lot of people discussing it. Ray, Branstad, Gross and I have no official position in the party, so none of us are out there picking candidates. I find that many places I go the question does come up ‘Who are we going to get for a candidate?’”

However, Gross announced Thursday that he will speak to the press about a recent poll he helped commission that shows “that the Iowa Republican electoral base is large enough and cohesive enough to form the foundation for a winning electoral collation in Iowa in the 2010 election.” He will also lay out a plan for his party to emerge from the political wilderness.

Since last November’s elections, which saw Democrats expand their majorities in both legislative chambers, Gross has been calling on his party to be more inclusive and focus less on social issues that are turning off a younger generation of voters.

“Our party needs to enunciate a message that’s attractive to them,” Gross said during a taping of Iowa Public Television’s “Iowa Press” just after the election. “But when our party has litmus tests associated with abortion and homosexual rights or issues such as this we drive the young people away.”

Gross is both anti-abortion and against same-sex marriage but said he believes a person’s stance on those issues alone should not disqualify them from the party. It’s a position that has won him no friends in the social conservative community, as many in the conservative blogosphere have labeled him a a “RINO,” or “Republican in Name Only,” and conservative talk radio host Steve Deace saying he “doesn’t think about [evangelical voters] any differently than the Democrats do.”

“We all know what Mr. Gross’ poll is going to say — that the Republican Party needs to free itself of Christian influence if it wants to win elections,” Deace said Thursday on his drive-time program on Iowa’s largest radio station, later adding that many are going to believe the polling is simply a way for Gross and his cohorts to regain control of the party apparatus “that they lost a long time ago.”

Deace went on to predict that because of the same-sex marriage issue ,the 2010 GOP gubernatorial primary would be one of the ugliest in memory.

But with the right candidate at the top of the ticket, the GOP can overcome any differences and be in a good position to win in 2010, Corning said.

“We need a gubernatorial candidate who embraces the big tent and is not focused on the divisive issues but on the main issues Iowans care about,” she said. “Iowans care about education, the economy, the environment and fiscal responsibility. I think a Republican candidate who runs on those issues could be elected.”

The party can’t win without social conservatives, she said. “But it can’t win without moderates either.”

The key, Roberts said, is to find someone who can bridge the gap.

“We used to say the conservatives in the Republican Party and the radicals in the Democratic Party don’t have anywhere else to go,” he said. “You can’t lose them cause they aren’t going to go vote for the other side. But they do have a place to go. They can stay home and not work to get out the vote. We saw that in 2000 when Bush and Gore virtually tied versus 2004 when Bush got out the conservative vote and won. “

While it would appear a strong social conservative candidate would easily win in the GOP primary, which is dominated by those voters, it all depends on who exactly enters the race, Roberts said.

“That’s how Bob Ray got in 40 years ago,” he said. “He was running against two conservatives, and either one of those two individuals would have won the nomination if they both hadn’t been running. They split the vote and Governor Ray went on to win.”

Steve Roberts

Steve Roberts, a man who was elected to represent Iowa Republicans for years on the Republican National Committee, believes that a state GOP official’s affiliation with an independent anti-abortion group that does not toe the party line presents a clear conflict of interest.

The conflict, which has left an already divided Iowa Republican Party even more splintered, stems from an article in an Iowa Right to Life Coalition newsletter that attacked Dr. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, the Republican nominee for Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District.

Kim Lehman, director of Iowa Right to Life, ousted Iowa Rep. Sandy Greiner during an extremely spirited Republican State Convention this summer to serve on the Republican State Central Committee as Iowa’s female Republican National Committee member.

“I think it’s a problem on several fronts,” said Roberts, who was also ousted this year from his role representing Iowa on the RNC by a prominent social conservative. “[Lehman] was asked on Iowa Public Television what she would do if there was a race that had a pro-choice Republican running against a pro-life Democrat. She gave the right answer at that time. She said that, as a national committeewoman, that she would support all of the Republicans who won the nomination.”

But Lehman’s organization published a newsletter article that strayed from that message.  The newsletter blasted Miller-Meeks by referring to her as a “great pretender” who is trying to pass herself off as being against abortion when she is not.

“She is certainly pro-life,” said Eric Woolson, communications director for the Miller-Meeks campaign. “She was on the Jan Mickelson program talking about it. Pure and simple, she is a pro-life candidate.”

Woolson added that average voters are more concerned about flood relief, protection of their retirement accounts and corruption in Washington.

“That’s what the voters of the district are focused on and that’s what Dr. Miller-Meeks is focused on,” he said.

In an earlier interview with Iowa Independent Miller-Meeks said that she condoned abortion only in cases of rape, incest or if the mother’s life is in danger.

“I think Kim’s statement was that she didn’t catch it or that it wasn’t her article,” Roberts said. “If you’re going to have a position in the party like she does, however, you have to make sure that your other activities don’t conflict — particularly when it comes to candidates. It may be that she will need to decide if she wants to be head of the pro-life movement in Iowa and not a party leader or vice versa.”

When current members of the Republican State Central Committee have phoned him to discuss the issue, Roberts said he has advised them that they first need to talk to Lehman and hear her side of the story. The second order of business, he said, depends on what Lehman has to say.

Republicans in Muscatine County, one of 12 counties that make up the 2nd Congressional District, didn’t wait. Reeling from both the recent newsletter article and a radio interview from the primary season in which Lehman referred to Miller-Meeks as a “wolf in sheep’s clothing,” the group penned a letter to the Republican State Central Committee and other interested parties that was signed by local party officials, Iowa Sen. Jim Hahn of Muscatine and Iowa Rep. Jeff Kaufmann of Wilton asking for Lehman to either apologize to Miller-Meeks or be removed from her official party roles.

“Addressing this issue has taken time away from campaigns in the 2nd District that we can not afford to lose,” the letter charged. “Kim Lehman should be representing ALL IOWA Republicans as National Committeewoman. Her personal stance as IRLC President is in direct conflict with her RPI role – she is actively working against our Republican candidates.”

Lehman has publicly stated that she had nothing to do with writing the specific article in question, but that she did see it before it was placed in the newsletter and distributed.

“I had a false humility thinking that people could understand that Kim Lehman is not Right to Life,” Lehman told O. Kay Henderson of Radio Iowa. “Iowa Right to Life is its separate bylaws. Its purpose is one issue. It’s focused on its issue and nowhere in the bylaws does it talk about elections or candidates or anything. … I realize people are connecting me as personally responsible because I head the organization. My responsibility to the organization is to make sure that the organization contains and does its bylaws. The integrity of the bylaws is what I’m responsible for to the board.”

Roberts believes that Lehman’s two positions present an inesecapable conflict of interests.

2nd Congressional District GOP hopeful Mariannette Miller-Meeks receives the Great Pretender Award in Iowa Right To Life newsletter.

“This is not a case of just staying quiet” on the 2nd district race, he said. “Iowa Right to Life came out and … well, they trashed Miller-Meeks. The standard I’ve always used is that the candidates who won the Republican primary — whether they are conservatives or liberals or moderates — deserved the support of party leadership including myself unless they were guilty of some crime, such as taking bribes or something like that. Short of that, you supported them on one hand and, on the other hand, you certainly didn’t trash them publicly.”

Roberts continued: “Suppose you have a Democratic candidate that is strongly pro-life and a Republican candidate that is strongly pro-choice. If you are a member of the Iowa Right to Life board of directors, you may be saying that you want staff to work to elect that pro-life person. So, it can work both ways and it may end up that [Lehman] is going to have to make a decision as to which group she wants to support. In effect, she’s trying to serve two masters, and it’s already running into a problem.”

Roberts, a relatively moderate Republican, was replaced as Iowa’s male representative to the RNC by Steve Scheffler of the Iowa Christian Alliance, another third-party issue advocacy group.

Roberts said this controversy is indicative of a wider, ongoing conflict within the Republican Party. “After the election, depending on how bad the Republican defeat is, I think you’re going to have further debate about the direction of the party in Iowa.”

“You’ve got people who say that if we didn’t have the RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) or people that are not strong on social issues then Republicans would stand a better chance of winning. There are other people who are saying the party needs the Evangelicals, but that group is not the sole base of the party,” Roberts said. “You’ve got people who have been disaffected who have become independents and who are no longer enthusiastic.”

The Republican State Central Committee had intended to raise the controversy at their October meeting, but the meeting was canceled because of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s visit to Des Moines. GOP officials are expected to discuss the matter at their next meeting in December.