OSPREY -- The Republican Party has lost its way by giving too much control to "social fundamentalists" and shunning moderates, former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman told supporters of congressional candidate Nancy Detert on Wednesday night.

Whitman, a Republican, said instead of using litmus test issues such as abortion rights to divide the party, the GOP has to become more accepting of moderate candidates who better represent mainstream Americans.

"We need to find candidates like Nancy Detert and support them," Whitman said.

Detert is one of seven candidates who have filed to run for the 13th Congressional District, a seat held by Longboat Key Republican Katherine Harris since 2003.

Detert, a state representative from Venice, has built a reputation of being a moderate Republican. She supports legal access to abortions and broke with her party in refusing to support the government's intervening in the Terri Schiavo case and in opposing public school vouchers.

Detert said when she first learned about Whitman years ago, she knew she had found a kindred spirit.

"I knew I wasn't crazy," Detert told the 75 people who paid $250 to attend the nearly three-hour event. "I knew there were other Republicans like me out there."

Whitman has become a standard-bearer for moderate Republicans, speaking out on talk shows, helping fund candidates for office and writing a new book, "It's My Party Too."
Whitman supports legal access to abortion and embryonic stem cell research.

In fund-raising letters for her new group, Whitman warns Republicans that "we can't allow a few extremists to hijack our party, dictate our ideology, attack our moderate candidates, and alienate centrist Republicans."

Her efforts have kept the former governor in the national spotlight, but also have brought criticism from socially conservative Republicans who say she's being too critical of the party and of President George W. Bush, who in 2000 appointed her to be the director of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Whitman said she knows there are people upset with what she has to say, on talk shows and in her book, but that they are things that need to be said.

Whitman said too many Republicans think that, because Bush won the White House, it means he has license to push the agenda of the far right. Not so, she said, pointing out that Bush narrowly won in 2000 and won re-election by just 2 percentage points over Democrat John Kerry in the general election.

"That wasn't a mandate," Whitman said.

She points to the Harriet Meiers nomination to the Supreme Court last fall. Whitman said Bush was pressured into pulling her nomination, not from Democrats, but from the far right of the party.

Whitman recognizes the tough road ahead for Detert in the coming months. Detert has raised less than $100,000 for her race, while fellow Republicans Vern Buchanan and Tramm Hudson have raised $1.1 million and $500,000, respectively.

Whitman told the audience that she knows Detert won't have the money that her opponents are likely to have in the race, but she said that doesn't mean Detert can't win.

"This is going to be a very expensive primary," Whitman said. "It's going to be tough, but you can win. You have to have enough money to be heard."