Vice President Al Gore says the Republican Party is becoming an inhospitable place for moderates who get reined in when they try to tug their party back toward the center.
Despite the GOP sweep in the November elections, Gore predicted the Clinton administration would be able to block "the more extreme portions of the agenda that House Republicans are pushing."Gore, in an interview with reporters from his home state of Tennessee, cited GOP proposals to replace the federal school lunch program with block grants to the states, and to reduce federal spending for child immunizations as ideas being advanced by "extremist ideologues."
He said doubts are rising within the Republican Party itself.
"Some of them are getting pretty nervous about it, but as soon as they talk about moderating the more extreme parts of the agenda, some of the ideologues yank them up short and say, `No you don't. You've got to walk the plank here,' " Gore said.
He predicted Democrats and Republicans alike would resist criticism of Dr. Henry Foster and approve the nomination of the Tennessee obstetrician-gynecologist to be surgeon general.
"Some ideological extremists want to make him a symbol of their effort to criminalize a woman's right to choose and make him a victim as part of that battle," Gore said. "But the majority of Republicans, as well as Democrats, disagree with them and do like Hank Foster."
Gore also drew distinctions between his "reinventing government" effort and the budget cuts being pushed by Republicans.
"We don't want to kill it and stuff it and hang it on the wall as a trophy," he said. "We want to fix it, and the American people know there's a big difference between killing government and fixing it to create a government that works better and costs less."
Gore said GOP-proposed budget cuts could serve to improve Democrats' election prospects, offering his home state as an example.
With Republicans now controlling the governor's office, both Senate seats and five House seats, Gore predicted that Democrats would regain their footing in time and with "a few more proposals from the Republicans to cut school lunches and other proposals that are rejected by 80 percent of the American people."
"And those are forthcoming nearly every day," he added.