So...the Republicans want to purify their party?

I'd say that it looks more as though they're marginalizing themselves...

Right into a regional party instead of a national one.

:shrug:

but the repubs used to be smarter than the dems in that area - no more...

We know realize that to be a truly national party, you need to have the big tent. Purity does not work.

It doesn't build coalitions.

Too small doesn't work.

Neither does too big.

The key, and what the Democratic Party is still trying to sort out of itself, is that you need a party that strikes the right balance between agreement in essentials and freedom in nonessentials. The democratic party hasn't figured out what that right balance is yet, in fact they haven't even defined any essentials - which makes the party as a whole directionless and aimless.

What you want is the right-sized tent. A tend large-enough to build consensus among groups that share your core essentials but may disagree on what you've determined to be non-essentials.

Tents are great. But they don't stay up in a storm without tent-poles and stakes. Every party needs a core foundation, and those who can't agree in those core ideas should find another party.

This is just common sense.

That claim rests on an assumption of a binary pairing - Republicans on one "side" of linear single-axis political line and "Democrats" on the other. It assumes that public reaction to both is identical, among other assumptions.

The trouble with this idea is that, when political names are left out, polls consistently show that the public favors many so-called "liberal" ideas by large margins. They do not favor the ideas that the Republican party is no running toward. They do favor the ideas that liberals want to see the Democratic party more fully embrace.

Why don't they they? Quite simply because the Democratic party is constrained by massive, powerful lobbying interests - namely corporate interests, but also the interests of some foreign countries. Similarly the Republican party, is constrained by corporate interests - but it has a more dangerous contraint that increases its rapid marginalization - its ultra-conservative masssive fundraising block.

Comparison between the ultra rights wildly unpopular views (they only win when those views are masked and subtley woven into some larger more publicly acceptable narrative) and Liberals far more popular views is really not a fair comparison at all.

Additionally, there are varying degrees of the size of one's "tent." Right now the republicans are making the mistake of wanting a party so tiny, that only a fraction of the public will have any interest in it. By contrast, the Democratic party's mistake is exactly the opposite. By its race to expand the tent to a size where virtually everyone is "welcome" regardless of their positions on anything, Democrats become meaningless. They also sacrifice their ability to get things done.

Just because the republicans are going "too small" doesn't mean that the Democratic party hasn't been going "too big." What's needed is to strike the right balance between agreement on party essentials and freedom in party non-essentials. But of course the Democrats have never defined any set of essentials and thus they wander around like a disjointed directionless mass and the wonder why they have so much more trouble getting things done than their Republican counterparts did when they were functioning like a well-oiled machine.

I think they should go as far as demanding that everybody that wants to vote for them be baptized into some fundie church... Let's say along with the wacko John Hagee, that will do nicely. Unless you tithe 10% of your pre-tax earnings directly to one of Johns Rolls Royce Silver Shadows you can't vote Republican.

This is so nice to see, it's about time they had this little civil war. I've frankly always been amazed how they've been able to hold together the fundies, Ayn Rand cultists and wanna be militia boys without imploding.

Exactly!

I'm really happy to see them coming unglued!

:rofl:

:scared: