HONOLULU -- Republican National Committee Chairman Michael S. Steele said Wednesday that he opposes a controversial "purity" resolution that would keep party money from candidates deemed to be too moderate, all but ensuring the defeat of a proposal that divided GOP leaders as they opened their four-day winter meeting here Wednesday.
The proposal, introduced by some of the RNC's more conservative members, would require that candidates publicly state their agreement with at least eight of 10 listed conservative positions -- ranging from taxes and immigration to same-sex marriage and gun control -- or lose party funding and support. Although Steele has not seen the final text of the resolution, named after the late president Ronald Reagan, he is siding with some two dozen state party chairmen who voted unanimously Wednesday to oppose it.
"Litmus tests don't work," Steele told reporters. "They don't build parties, they don't build relationships, they can be divisive." He went on to call the proposal a "slippery slope."
"This is not the business of the RNC," Steele said. "Ronald Reagan would be ashamed if the party moved in that direction."
Hoping to create political momentum after Republican Scott Brown's upset Senate victory in Massachusetts last week, party leaders said they believe they can seize Democratic-held congressional seats and governor's offices in November's midterm elections. But undermining that confidence is an ideological split that has come into focus with the proposed purity resolution. The committee's more moderate members -- and even some conservatives -- oppose it out of fear that it would alienate independent voters at a time when they appear to be abandoning the Democratic Party in droves.
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