Former Monsanto CEO Personifies GOP's Stem Cell Rift in Swing State

"I just couldn't do it," he said.

I asked Mahoney if he'd be willing to chat some more about the issue. He agreed, and the next day, we went to lunch at the Hyannis Yacht Club, where he is a member. Over Bloody Mary's (we each had only one, thank you), he told me that while the stem cell research issue had not reached critical political mass in Missouri, it threatened to become a signature wedge issue in years to come.

Even though he despises the characterization, Mahoney, who retired from Monsanto a decade ago, epitomizes the old-school, country club, Rockefeller Republican. His type long dominated the party. They were wealthier than average, conservative economically but often quite moderate on social issues.

But the party has increasingly come to be dominated by low- and middle-class, religious voters. After helping the party rise to dominance in recent years, these groups have expected their party to repay them in kind by focusing on their issues. Too often, the party's elite courted their votes, and then forgot their issues once they came to power, focusing almost exclusively on taxation and regulation issues.

In a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll, one third of the respondents said they supported President Bush's handling of the stem cell research, while 55 percent opposed it.

Over lunch, Mahoney, a practicing Catholic, spoke excitedly of the potential for stem cell research. No, there was no guarantee it would lead to curing a vast array of diseases and debilitating diseases, but we'll never know without an extensive commitment to research, he argued.

Mahoney tried to be humble. He's far less politically active today than when he was running Monsanto, he said. But he says when Bush campaign folks came seeking a contribution last year, he told them no. He said he won't help people who oppose stem cell research on the state level either.

He didn't want to talk details, but he said he's working with a group of business and academic leaders to get an initiative on the ballot in Missouri next year to explicitly allow public and private funding of stem cell research.

And he warned me not to interpret this as a sign that he was through with his party.

"What was I supposed to do last year, vote for Kerry?" said Mahoney, joking that he might have been the only person in his native Massachusetts to vote for Richard Nixon. "I don't think so. ... No, I'm a Republican. But I don't have to work hard for them or give them my money, either."

Staff writer Mary Specht contributed to this report.