Ghiz: All things in moderation

The endorsement of Leslie Ghiz for another term on Cincinnati City Council by the Republican Leadership Council (RLC) may be one of the more interesting endorsements of the council campaign season, especially given the fact that the RLC has had no real presence in Ohio up to this point.

The RLC is a Washington-based organization formed to counter-balance the influence of the religious right and the social conservatives in the Republican Party - an attempt to bring the party back toward the center. Just like the centrist Democrats did back in the late 1980s and early 1990s when the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) was formed to do the same thing for the Democratic party - only in the DLC's case, the idea was to halt the party's drift toward the left. Back then, they had a pretty good national spokesman - a young governor from Arkansas named Bill Clinton.

The RLC is headed by former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, whose own presidential and/or vice presidential ambitions were thwarted by opposition from the right wing of her party; former Missouri Sen. John Danforth, an Episcopal priest who has waged a running battle with the Christian conservative movement; and Michael Steele, the Maryland lieutenant governor, who has argued for a "big tent" GOP.

Combine the fact that the RLC is backing her bid for re-election and her very public support for the presidential candidacy of Rudy Giuliani and it becomes clear where Ghiz falls in the spectrum of American Republicanism.

In other words, we don't look for Citizens for Community Values or Family First PAC to be endorsing her any time soon.