I voted for a Republican. Once.

Sen. Edward Brooke (R-Mass.)

Newt Gingrich's latest campaign ad ends with a scathing epithet: "MITT ROMNEY, MASSACHUSETTS MODERATE," spoken in a tone of voice you would ordinarily reserve for saying "TRAITOROUS SCUMBAG."

The delicious ironies here are too  abundant to mention, so I won't, but it did remind me of the first, last and only time I voted for a Republican candidate, another Massachusetts moderate, Edward Brooke. Brooke was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1966, the first African-American to serve there since the 19th century.

The term "moderate" is always relative to the extremes. On racial matters Brooke proclaimed himself to stand between Stokely Carmichael at one end of the spectrum and George Wallace at the other. I voted for him the only chance I got, in 1978 when he ran for a third term, losing to Paul Tsongas.

The only other time a moderate Republican earned my approval, it was 1966. We lived in Maryland  but I was too young to vote. A politician then called Ted Agnew ran for governor and had the good luck to be running against George Mahoney, a segregationist who did not bother to conceal his racist views. Mahoney's slogan was "A man's home is his castle -- Protect it!" This did not sit well with the black population of Baltimore or the liberal whites in Montgomery County, so Agnew won. His later career showed that he was no moderate. In 1972, I hitched a ride from college in Connecticut back to Maryland for the express purpose of voting against the Nixon-Agnew ticket, and in 1973 had the pleasure of hearing he had resigned after bribery charges.

Weinstock Predicts: The Republican hatred of moderation will reelect Obama in 2012.

Weinstock Wonders: Ed Brooke is still alive. I wonder who he'll vote for.