Danforth seeking more moderate Republicans for legislature

ST. LOUIS -- Retired U.S. senator Jack Danforth will encourage like-minded moderate Republicans to run for the Missouri Legislature.

Danforth was to co-host a fundraising event Wednesday at a home in suburban St. Louis for a newly resurrected national group, The Republican Leadership Council. He's among three national co-chairs.

The group is national, but its focus will primarily be the states. "The money raised in Missouri will remain in Missouri," and will be used to "support candidates who agree with us," Danforth told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Danforth said such candidates should subscribe to "the basic Republican principles" of smaller government, low taxes, free markets and national security.

The Republican Leadership Council isn't taking positions on sensitive social issues like abortion, gay rights, guns and school prayer, said another council co-chair, Christine Todd Whitman, the former governor of New Jersey.

For the last two years, Danforth -- an ordained Episcopalian minister -- has been an outspoken critic of what he contends is the GOP's too-close embrace with religious social conservatives.

Fair or unfair, he said, the Republican Party has "gotten an image of being anti-immigration and anti-gay."

"There's no future in that," he said.

Added Whitman: "We are still presenting ourselves as a party of extremes."

Danforth's effort could put him and his allies at odds with fellow Missouri Republicans such as state House Speaker Rod Jetton, R-Marble Hill, who is building a consulting business aimed at assisting socially conservative Republicans like himself.

State Republican Party spokesman Paul Sloca dismissed any talk of internal division: "Any effort to elect Republicans to public office is a good thing."

The Leadership Council has about 600 members in the state.

Locally, its supporters include former St. Louis County Councilwoman Ellen Conant, and local businessman George H. Walker, a former ambassador who is a cousin of President Bush.

Businessman Pete Abel, 42, of Chesterfield, said he has been a Republican for decades, but "in the last three years, I've found myself increasingly disillusioned with the party. It's gotten off on the wrong track."

Abel said he wants to see more Republican candidates who are "fiscally conservative, but socially inclusive."

Abel doesn't want to see a replay of this summer's party switch by state Sen. Chris Koster, D-Harrisonville, who differed with the GOP on social issues, such as embryonic stem-cell research.