The GOP is imploding

[ProSense]

TAKING THE MODEL ON THE ROAD....

In New York's 23rd, it was the Republican Party vs. the Republican Party's base. The party wanted a moderate candidate with a history of serving the community; the base wanted a right-wing newbie who didn't actually live in the district. The base won; the GOP candidate was forced out of the race; and the far-right Beck acolyte is poised to do very well today.

So, any chance the Tea Party crowd will feel satiated, content in knowing they proved their point? Fat chance.

In what could be a nightmare scenario for Republican Party officials, conservative activists are gearing up to challenge leading GOP candidates in more than a dozen key House and Senate races in 2010.

Conservatives and tea party activists had already set their sights on some of the GOP's top Senate recruits -- a list that includes Gov. Charlie Crist in Florida, former Rep. Rob Simmons in Connecticut and Rep. Mark Kirk in Illinois, among others.

But their success in Tuesday's upstate New York special election, where grass-roots efforts pushed GOP nominee Dede Scozzafava to drop out of the race and helped Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman surge into the lead on the eve of Election Day, has generated more money and enthusiasm than organizers ever imagined.

Activists predict a wave that could roll from California to Kentucky to New Hampshire and that could leave even some GOP incumbents -- Utah Sen. Bob Bennett is one -- facing unexpectedly fierce challenges from their right flank.

"I would say it's the tip of the spear," said Dick Armey, the former GOP House majority leader who now serves as chairman of FreedomWorks, an organization that has been closely aligned with the tea party movement. "We are the biggest source of energy in American politics today."

"What you're going to see," said Armey, "is moderates and conservatives across the country in primaries."

And there's not much party leaders can do about it.

After spectacular failures in 2006 and 2008, Republican officials resisted calls to move the party towards the middle, but they nevertheless recruited candidates intended to have fairly broad appeal. Now they've finding an enraged, uncompromising, right-wing base that will settle for nothing short of everything. If that means losing elections and driving moderates from the ranks, so be it.

For more moderate candidates, that means moving sharply to the right. For targeted GOP incumbents, it means less compromising, less constructive lawmaking, and more fealty to right-wing demands.

It's not enough to run a scorched-earth campaign against the governing majority -- Republican officials are now expected to salt the earth, too.

Let The Civil War Begin

Group Of Psychos:

[LynnTheDem]

1. The American Talibornagain...eating their own.

Love that.


I'dlove it even more if they'd just leave and go make their own authoritarian dictatorship state elsewhere.

[uponit7771]

10. nice

[ingac70]

2. I can't wait for Snowe and Collins....

to get their wingnut challenge.

[Xipe Totec]

3. Teabaggers are the Hamas of the Republican Party

They have a gun pointed at their own foot, and are threatening to use it.

[tblue]

4. Unlike the Democrats, Republicans never turn their back on their base.

Or they at least manipulate them so they (the base) believe they're listened to.

Democrats tend to bitch slap the left wing of the party or ignore it altogether.

[Xipe Totec]

5. How is that working out for them? n/t

[tblue]

15. It's winning NY-23 and Virginia, but I'm not saying

the Dems have to do that. Just that they never do. They get the base to work their tails off to elect them and afterward say to the base, "You were serious about that?"

[uponit7771]

9. Unnn, I think the DNC moves slowly on left wing issues but doesn't totaly ignore it

[tblue]

13. Last I checked, Halliburton and Bushco were still thriving and free.

[Ganja Ninja]

6. So now we'll be letting more former GOP politicians run as Democrats

and the Democratic party will move further to the right. We need to nip that in the bud before it becomes a trend.

[ProSense]

7. "We need to nip that in the bud before it becomes a trend." The GOP implosion?

What does the GOP imploding have to do with who Democrats vote for? Find good progressive candidates and position them against wingnuts. That's a formula for win.

[Ganja Ninja]

12. "Find good progressive candidates and position them against wingnuts."

Dream on! Do you honestly think that the Democratic Party leaders won't relabel these Republican retreads especially in conservative states? The GOP's implosion likely means we'll see more bluedogs.

[ProSense]

14. "Do you honestly think that the Democratic Party leaders won't relabel these Republican retreads..."

Are people suddenly incapable of thinking for themselves? Do you think people are going to be fooled into thinking a candidate who doesn't support a progressive agenda is progressive? Don't people run on their poisitions on the issues?

[Jennicut]

23. Not necessarily, they may go the independent route.

[tblue]

16. Oh hell no! Shrink the tent before that happens. nt

[Ganja Ninja]

21. Oh they'll shrink the tent alright.

They'll shrink it from the left and expand it to the right and they'll call anyone who complains a far left moonbat.

[tblue]

24. Pisses me off. They don't get that populist issues really do = liberal issues. nt

[uponit7771]

8. I can't see Pawlenty or Romney running for prez today, if the GOP base didn't like McCain they would

...hate those two.

[AlinPA]

11. A bit of devil's advocacy here: if they win the three elections that the media is going crazy over,

that doesn't sound like "imploding". I need to see them lose some more elections before I'd say they are in implosion.

[Arugula Latte]

22. Hopefully this will bite them in the butt in the long term

but until then, we'll have to stand some of their gloating for awhile.

[PatSeg]

17. They courted the ignorant and the extreme

to get their votes and now they're stuck with them. That cheap one night stand has turned into a long-term relationship. They are reaping what they sowed and it is fascinating to watch.

[HillWilliam]

18. May they have to chew both arms off from that coyote-ugy

experience in fear that their cheap date might wake up looking for a one-armed party.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

19. Republican primaries = spot group sanity tests

[liberal N proud]

20. You are only getting my hopes up

Only to be destroyed when they pull through.