Charlie Dent: I’m voting for Joe Biden
This is the Pennsylvania Republican Party, in which I proudly and very comfortably grew up. Label these great public servants however you choose — center-right, pragmatic, common sense conservative, moderate or centrist — it really doesn’t matter. What these men represented, most assuredly, was the governing wing of the Republican Party. They were all thoughtful, measured and steady leaders who came from the tradition of former Pennsylvania Gov. William Scranton, Sr., who unsuccessfully challenged Barry Goldwater for the 1964 Republican Presidential nomination.
All of them, like myself, would have no doubt called themselves Abraham Lincoln Republicans. From that noble heritage came Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and the Bushes, all of whom we hailed as decent, honorable and impactful leaders. The same would be said of GOP Presidential candidates Bob Dole, John McCain and Mitt Romney.
So here we are, with President Donald Trump, who has never been part of this great tradition. In fact, he speaks disparagingly and disrespectfully of his predecessors. What’s worse, he has spent the better part of his presidency undermining the international order — methodically and carefully built, defended and repurposed on a bipartisan basis after World War II and again after the Cold War.