A New Pitchman -- and a New Pitch

"That lady from California, can you tell her to stop gallivanting around the world trying to be president?" City Council member Larry O'Connell of Del City asked Cole after the dinner at the air base.

"Well, we're going to have to change the numbers," Cole replied with a laugh.

But the next morning, a 54-year-old wholesale car buyer named Bill Kirtley challenged Cole about the war at a town hall meeting in Pauls Valley. Kirtley, a Chickasaw, said he talked to a 20-year-old soldier who said he believes that it doesn't matter whether the United States withdraws tomorrow or a decade from tomorrow. He called Iraq a quagmire, a Vietnam War in the sand.

"I've been a registered Republican for 20 years, but I'm so ashamed of the party," he told Cole. "What are we doing in Iraq? Anyone with any sense can see this is crazy."

Cole spent the next 20 minutes debating with Kirtley, conceding that mistakes have been made, insisting that not all is lost, warning that Americans will pay the price if the Middle East is not transformed. "We can't go around the world stomping people," Kirtley said. Cole replied: "That's why you're seeing a different approach to Iran and North Korea."

In the end, the two agreed to disagree. "Tom's a good man," Kirtley said later. "But he's a Republican congressman, and they've just lost their way."

Many Republicans in Congress agree; their debate is over how to find their way. The 2006 election wiped out many moderate Republicans, leaving the caucus smaller but even more conservative. Now conservatives such as Republican Study Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (Tex.), House Republican Conference Chairman Adam H. Putnam (Fla.) and Chief Deputy Whip Eric Cantor (Va.) want Republicans to return to their austerity principles, while avoiding the corruption scandals that dogged them last year.

"An indispensable ingredient for us to reclaim the majority is to convince the American people we're serious about accountability and fiscal responsibility," Hensarling said.

But moderate Republicans such as Rep. Mark Steven Kirk (Ill.) think that conservatives have driven the GOP caucus too far right on contentious social policy as well as corporate-friendly economic and environmental policy. Kirk will need independent voters to help him win a rematch with Dan Seals, who received 47 percent of his district's vote last year, and he and other moderates have sketched out a "suburban agenda" aimed at winning over independents by focusing on issues such as health care and education.

"When I hear my colleagues debating on the floor, I think, 'Some of this rhetoric is so20th-century,' " Kirk said.

It is Cole's job to accommodate both wings of the party, and he thinks it can be done by attacking Democrats -- as tax-and-spenders and blame-America-first defeatists. Cole says Pelosi was smart to begin with her "Six for '06" agenda of popular issues such as ethics reforms, the minimum wage and low-interest student loans -- even he voted for the student loan package -- but now he thinks she's showing her true liberal colors, and dragging her caucus along. "We need the Democrats to be Democrats, and thank God, they are," he said.

Still, Cole knows that if the situation in Iraq deteriorates, Republican prospects probably will, too. His biggest fear is not poor NRCC recruiting or anemic NRCC fundraising but a collapse of the Iraqi government. He says he once had high hopes for Ayad Allawi, who served as prime minister of the interim government until the spring of 2005. "A great pol," Cole recalled.

But no Karzai. When Cole was asked whether he would have loved to run Allawi, too, he had to acknowledge that even his political skills have their limits.

"I don't know about that," he said.