logically we should be on the verge of a 3 party system: the democrats, the radical crazed wingnut tea party republicans, and the moderate to semi-crazed republicans. DINO's like nelson, reid and Bayh should jump to the moderate/semi-crazed republican party - its where they belong, along with LIEberman and Specter.

whether or not logic holds sway remains to be seen. But when you're dealing with the insane republican/conservative axis of violent lunacy, logic is never present. Most likely the moderate republicans will continue to STFU and continue to lose influence until they're all ruining the democratic party (perhaps that's the plan).

The current strategy of circling the wagons will not permit the Republican party to lead anytime soon!

Doubling down on confused ideals and hollow policy proposals is not viable electoral strategy unless a threshold of fear and anxiety finds itself injected into the upcoming election cycle. For this, we must meet the fear-mongers and turn their divisiveness upon themselves.

It is one thing to sit and watch the Republicans eat themselves, but it is another to stay vigilant so that Republican narratives of doom and fear don't get traction in the 2010 election campaigns. -Kevo

Minorities already lean democratic, and as they grow as evidenced by census reports, the wingnut crowd will then be the minority. They clearly want the divided states of America as evidenced with calls of secession and the Constitution card being played repeatedly. The south will rise again.

I despise the Radical Right and its attendant factions, such as the Teabaggers, but it seems to me that this type of primary challenge is exactly what both parties need more of and should not be condemned. The teabaggers do not like the candidate that the big-money, big-politics controllers of their party have put forth, and if they can convince Republican voters in that district to reject the party candidate and select the popular candidate I see nothing wrong with that.

Cranky

The New GOP functions best as an opposition party since it apparently has no real interest in government or governance. That's why these developments are so disturbing. A real political party pulls to the center in order to maximize consensus. A party that rejects consensus reality is also rejecting politics, and by extension, the entire democratic process.

What do they really want? I shudder to think but it's not comforting.

"refusing to let an anti-abortion dissident, Gov. Robert Casey of Pennsylvania, speak at the 1992 Clinton convention"

Um, he didn't speak because he REFUSED TO ENDORSE CLINTON. Other anti-abortion speakers appeared at the convention.

What is wrong with the GOP is that it no longer exists. It is time people said so. Parties build coalitions by assimilating movements. But the GOP has been consumed by a Conservative Movement it once tried to exploit and control.

Pundits keep going around in circles on this, but it is really very simple. Asking whether the GOP can halt its slide and make itself more acceptable to moderates and independents is the wrong question. The real question is: can you envision a set of circumstances in which the hard core, right wing faction of the GOP -- which is now the largest component of the GOP -- is likely to change its character and views to the extent that it is willing to sacrifice doctinal purity for election victories.

The answer to that question is: NO! And that means the GOP as we knew it is dead, as dramatic as that sounds, because you cannot build a coalition (which is what a political party is) on a popular base that defines itself as the ENEMY of coalitions. That is why conservatives are licking their chops to purge regular (ie moderate and electable) Republicans now, just like NY 23.

We now have a Radical Right Party that owns the naming-rights to a national Republican Party but doesn't act like one, and we have Republican Party regulars for whom it is beginning to dawn on them that they face the daunting task of re-building a conservative party from scratch without their tea-party, or religious right, hard-core base.

The political environment can always change and become more hospitable to extremist parties like the Radical Right, and that is obviously what the Right hopes for and why all of their activities (and those of FOX and Rush) are designed to intraveneously inject hysteria and paranoia into the political environment in order to radicalize and polarize it.

But that really plays with a very limited base and tends to exhaust and irritate the larger public. But it still leaves the regular Republican Party with what amounts to the chore of building a new party from scratch, and without its most engaged and activist far right wing.

This is why I expect further Democratic gains in 2010, if Democrats push the Republicans harder to 'play to their base.' Democratic candidates, local organizations and even us should be thinking about running ads in districts challenging Republican incumbents to either embrace or denounce the most recent comments from Beck, Limbaugh, Palin, Steele, Bachmann, etc.

Either they'll have to 'come out' as wingnuts -- and I'm sure many of their constituents wouldn't have known of their positions and would be horrified -- or they'll face a vicious primary attack from the right.

I think we'll wind up picking up another two dozen seats in the house, and maybe a Senator or two.

As long as teabaggers continue to be the amazing, can't-do-wrong media darlings they are now, they won't be marginalized in any practical, political way. People vote for who they're told to vote for, especially "independents" and all they're going to be told to vote for are the real 'murkans that teabaggers unquestionably are. We need to change the media's narrative on these empty-headed thugs by pointing out, again and again, how destructive and vacuous their position really is.

The Republican Party Split ??? Not likely.

There aren't enough of them remaining to split into anything larger than a boyscout hunting party.

No --- It's the Dems who will split if anyone does.
With any luck a viable Grayson style Dem-Prog party may evolve with chutzpah and the support of ~275 congress critters. They may get something good done before becoming re-corrupted.
The rest of the dems will join with whatever independents & Repubz remain who wretch at the thought of being led around by Beck, Hagee, et al. They will form a sort of Dem-Biz party that will team up with the worst of the corporatists

The becksters will rant for a while with their hooded friends then go away for another generation or 2.

Of course --- this all depends upon how many humans survive the inevitable Revenge of the Planet.

Um, he didn't speak because he REFUSED TO ENDORSE CLINTON. Other anti-abortion speakers appeared at the convention.

Exactly. Just because the right is intent on spreading this commonly assumed lie about the 1992 convention, it doesn't mean we have to help them.

A number of pro-life Democrats -- including Mayor Daley, Senators Heflin and Breaux, and five other pro-life governors -- did address the delegates, regardless of what the Republicans say.

Remember all of the conservative pundits who piously informed us that liberal blogs were dragging the party off of a cliff and if Dems ever wanted to get back into power, they needed to abandon every position that they ever held and join the Republican Party?

Good times, man. Good times.

"It's also safe to say the national Republican Party...has a problem for which there is no obvious solution."

Solution: Death panel.

i hate to be all Godwin and 'concerned'... but i sincerely hope we aren't all chortling over a republican suicide which merely masks a growing right wing extremism in this country that could play out in destructive ways we can't even imagine...

If the Dims caint even pass health care reform -- so needed, so obviously god damned begging to be accomplished in this sick country -- who is to say that any and every right wing extremist who wins a district isn't a victory for a coming Reich wing dominance in this country?

right now the Repugnants are capable of anything - anything-- and to give them further 'victories' in such an unstable time is not a happy thing for any reason -- brilliant, genius, tenured philosophers of Framing not withstanding.

I think it dangerous to assume that just because the Republicans are going through a challenging period that the party's future is at stake. These cycles are typical. Look at the Goldwater rebellion in 1964 -- it may has flopped that year but ultimately resulted in a the Reagan era.

Goldwater Republicans were laughed at because they were viewed as too far to the right for the electorate. At the time that was true, but look at the ideological shift we've seen over the last half century.

Complacency and arrogance on the part of Democrats could help the Republicans turn a lemon into lemonade.

The Republican party will embrace this with open arms. After all, look who's getting voted in - another rich white guy who wants tax cuts and less regulation.

Problems is, if people like Scozzafava cross and join the Democratic party we're stuck with more people that want tax cuts and less regulation too.

Democrats face the same danger from a "progressive" left.

While it is great fun to watch the Republicans self-destruct we should stay mindful of the fact that there are those on our side who would be just as happy to toss out those who don't follow their own set of extremes.

Right now that wing of our party is relatively quiet -- Nader / 2000 taught us a valuable lesson there -- but people generally do not remember the lessons of the past forever.

There's nothing new about extremists rejecting Gingrich - he was booted out before for supposedly not being hard-line enough during the Clinton adminstration. Actually it may have more to do with personal rivalries within the party.

Word Neil. The new GOP is truly fascist and to minimize the danger these folks pose is irresponsible. They already have 24 hour Mein Kampf-supporting media coverage. Godwin's law presupposed the world was not in danger or recycling lunatic movements. Sparko's law is that anger, impotence and ignorance are easily exploited by authoritarians. Thanks to Murdoch, we must be vary wary. They wear tea bags instead of arm bands right now. . .

three parties:
taliban right

corporatist middle composed of "centrists"

progressive left

I am very afraid the corporate party would have all the money and power it needed to control us forever!

By all rights we should have had a major realignment of political parties, and probably formed three as cwolf describes. If Perot had not been so unstable it might have happened in 1992 or 1996. Certainly conditions were ripe at that time. Perot did get almost 20% of the vote in '92, and that's why Clinton won. The Rethugs learned that lesson and formed their three-way coalition between the Kristianists, the corporatists, and the libertarians. That worked for a while, but is now, fortunately, on the rocks. It was an unstable coalition from the start, as most are, but now that the radical-right has decided it's been had and has assumed control, the coalition is humpty-dumpty.

A few more realists like Florida's Grayson, and the left-wing of the Democrats might finally find a spine. The problem with a far-right and moderate-left split from the middle is what remains: a majority of more-of-the-same: big money corporate and special interest control of corrupt business-as-usual Dems and Rethugs.

A three party system only works if it takes two of the parties to form a governing coalition. The nihilists right-wing crowd isn't interested in coalitions, and only wants to rule in some sort of inchoate totalitarian way. They will be marginalized indefinitely if they continue their march over the cliff.

The progressive wing of the Dems is far more attractive to minorities and the educated, and could become a governing coalition with Independents if it could win elections without money. But the influence of money in our election process is paramount. The corporate and special interests aren't going away and will need to find a home (for its money). Wherever they go their influence will be malign and corrupting. So the possibilities for having a truer form of democracy are decidedly limited.

In any case, until the corporate media is reigned in, and the noise machine of the right is shut down, the bewildered average citizen will continue to live in a climate of fear and loathing. One could of course argue the psychology of effective governing is based on fear and loathing, but that's another discussion.

So admittedly Lieberman had one big thing that liberal Democrats in Connecticut were unhappy about -- the Iraq war -- and he seemed unheeding and out of touch with his constituents. And it does feel like that was more driven by people in Connecticut than outside it, whereas this feels a bit the other way around. Still lots of people outside Connecticut piled on to help his opponent and a lot of calumny was heaped upon him nationally. And since that all happened he has clearly moved to the right on many issues, and supported Republicans over Democrats in many cases. I wish he were a bit more emotionally mature, but the rejection clearly still stings him and motivates him in negative ways.

And this is not to say that his opponent in the Democratic primary (whatever his name was) was like the right-winger in upstate NY. And it does matter that he ran as a Democrat rather than as something else.

That said, we haven't been innocent of the analogous circular firing squad from the left.

I don't think it's exactly right that Gingrich was "booted out before for supposedly not being hard-line enough during the Clinton adminstration."

As I recall, he was mostly thrown out for being ineffective -- after getting control of the House for the first time in forty years, the Republican majority had all but disappeared in just four. Gingrich was clearly failing as a personal representative of the GOP vs. Clinton. He did stuff like complain that Clinton hadn't treated him with sufficient respect as a passenger on Air Force One, which the White House promptly refuted with pictures of the two of them together on the flight -- if you're going to try to personify a political movement with lots of followers, you can't make too many mistakes like that.

Gingrich makes 'em twice a week.

Neill @1:00pm
"...but i sincerely hope we aren't all chortling over a republican suicide which merely masks a growing right wing extremism in this country that could play out in destructive ways we can't even imagine..."

Neill thanks for putting into words how I feel right now.

A split in the GOP worries me both because of the extremists getting even more dangerous and because the 'conventional wisdom' in DC will suggest that, in order to attract the now-orphaned sane Republicans, the Democratic agenda should move right, instead of left. Powerful forces have been peddling that myth of our need to "moderate" the party and 'move toward the center' for years, and now they'll be back for another round, using (paradoxically) the split in the GOP as a reason for cutting off progressive ideas at the knees.

What Democrats need to do is stand tall as the party of reality-based progressive solutions to existing problems, and deliver, and not worry about trimming any sails to attract the new orphans. Sanity and results will speak for themselves to those disaffected from the theocrats and nutjobs.

Good Governance?
The current decline in the Republican party had it's start with Reagan attacking government. It was not a call to good governance, but very much was an attack on government, any government, itself. This is much different than attacking a given administration or the sins of Washington. The logical conclusion was the last Bush presidency. As Walt said above, "The New GOP functions best as an opposition party since it apparently has no real interest in government or governance".

Does there need to be a third party? Most definitely. Fiscally conservative, small government, pro-business party would be welcome. Note, "pro-business" is not "pro-CEO". Small government should mean efficient and effective, not bloated and absent. Pro-business means establishing conditions to let business grow and prosper--not conditions that let CEO's cook the books, run scams, suck the money out, then bail with a golden parachute.

Government can't be the solution to everything, but it certainly is not the enemy. It has to be part of the solution to our problems. For business, it's the referee. Everyone may hate the ump, but you can't play a game without one.
(oops, digressing into nature of government)...

Anyway, an effective coherent (in the sense that what they say is somewhere in the realm of reality and logic--not just a bunch of people who stick together) "opposition" party would be useful. Big ideas need to be thoroughly vetted and a good debate is needed. Death panel rants are just nonsense and are ravings from an intellectually bereft opposition. As Ted said above, "the GOP no longer exists". And without an intellectually strong opposition posing real alternatives to the problems facing us, our country suffers

I am not sure I know what the "extreme" position on the left would be. Support for a public option in health care? A single payor system like Canada? Getting out of Afghanistan? Charging corporations for the privilege of polluting our air? Those hardly seem way outside the mainstream or on par with the extreme far right position of replacing man's law with God's law, proclaiming America to be a Christian Nation, urging Texas to secceed from the Union, calling a conservative Senator like Lindsey Graham a "RINO traitor" for even working with Democrats, or calling the President a fascist for no good reason whatsoever.

The media has gotten awfully lazy talking about the "extremes in both parties" -- which has the effect of minimizing just how extreme the far right really is -- without spelling out exactly what the positions of the "Far Left" and "Far Right" really are so that the public can see that maybe the two aren't equally fringe.

"'When it comes to being part of our party, you need not apply.'"

I think this might be more accurate if stated like this "'When it comes to being part of our COUNTRY, you need not apply"

What scares me most about the third party thing is that the MSM will treat them as perfectly sane and normal and it will then be "he said" vs. "he said" vs. "he said".

neill - I think you are exactly right. the current level of anger and irrationality will likely lead to a bloody outburst. the least-worst scenario I'm envisioning is a deadly attack that leads to a national revulsion and reconsideration of how far we've come as a nation. I honestly don't know what will happen, but the rhetoric makes me fear the worst. You can't call a president illegitimate, you can't believe that he is subverting your country towards socialism and terrorists, you can't completely dehumanize your opposition as animals without lowering your barrier towards violent action. There have already been individual outbursts -- the dead census worker, the armed invasion at the DC museum -- and they point to a particular outlook towards government.

This is America, where guns are freely available to anyone seeking them. High explosives are tightly controlled, but fuel-Oil bombs are easy to make. I really fear the worst.

Why are we so happy that the Repub revolution appears to be eating its own?

The crazies appear more than able to field winning candidates.

Yes, it's good that a district that's been Repub since Lincoln may actually elect a Dem.

Then again, the far-right Hoffman may just grind out a victory against Democrat Owens.

If the far-right can win in upstate NY, that's not necessarily a good omen for the Dems.

Mainstream Repubs may be disappearing without Dems managing to benefit.

The GeeOhPee: Keeping Poli-Sci majors busy for the next century.

I just feel sorry for all of the profs who'll have to read hundreds of papers on the Palinization of the Republican Party.

The Teabaggerers - at least based on the videos from various rallies and town meetings - skew old. If they nominate one of their crazies for a general, any dem campaign manager worth a tenth of the consultant fees he gets will find a video, somewhere, of the wingnut candidate railing against social security and/or medicare, and play it over and over and over and... until every voter in the district knows it by heart.

Ditto alleged "moderate" repubs, although there really isn't any such thing anymore.

There is no candidate anywhere anymore who hasn't left a video trail. Dede's campaign just didn't sense the danger early enough.

Hoffman as a political implant doesn't bode well for anyone, regardless of the outcome of the election. If voters are stupid enough to overlook a candidate's not even residing in the district and completely out of touch with the local issues then the democratic process is shown again for what it is; Corporate owned and operated. Either way the crazies are being activated and it won't be long till we have a national tragedy on hand (not that both of our wars aren't already). So much for Darwin!

This is a scary trend even if it does lead to a bigger Dem majority.

Having a significant minority of the populace, and worse of their elected representatives, who have an extremists view of the world and a willingness to embrace absurd falsehoods if they support that view is a bad thing.

Even though they will undoubtedly remain a minority, they can easily poison the entire political and social discourse in the country.

P.S. I also agree with both Trollopoly and biggerbox.

@Ted F

"Extreme" left is typified by those who would rather lose a fight because their right than take a partial win and live to fight again.

There's bunches of 'em, mostly calling themselves "progressives".

they're

The media has gotten awfully lazy talking about the "extremes in both parties" -- which has the effect of minimizing just how extreme the far right really is -- without spelling out exactly what the positions of the "Far Left" and "Far Right" really are so that the public can see that maybe the two aren't equally fringe.
---------------------------

We condemn without reservation the extremists on both sides -- those on the right who want to burn the public schools to the ground, and those on the left, who want to keep them open and educate children.

"So much for Darwin!"

I didn't know he was running.

Ted F - There are extremists on both sides, but hardly in both parties. Can you remember the last time Earth First or the Animal Rights League elected even a state rep? Or had a powerful political candidate. The extremists on the left don't exist within the confines of the Democratic party; whereas, obviously, the radical right is fully in charge of its own party.

I'm slightly encourage by the participation in this thread -- there is a lot of response to other people's comments, more so than in other threads on WM. I think it shows we're all really concerned about what is going on with the Republican party and our country.

". . .night-wing nihilists. . ."

is a beautiful image.

Everything contains potential long-term dangers, and in politics everything cycles through opposites that can seem unthinkable at contrary points in the cycle. Nonetheless, either the wingnut wins and stimulates the rightwing base to even more offputting levels of crazy or the democrat wins and the pundits will end up discussing whether the republican party is dead, or looking even more ludicrous than usual as they try to spin this as good news for the republicans. So for now the only tragedy here is that I don't particularly enjoy popcorn.

"Democrats face the same danger from a "progressive" left."
converse

I have to respectfully disagree. You seem to take the point that the left and right mirror each other with the "center" acting as a fulcrum.

This is clearly not the case. You may not agree with progressives but they can hardly be compared to the far right. By and large the progressives are policy oriented, trying to manage the common areas of our lives through rational policy. The new right, the tea baggers, is more like a mob that has been whipped into a fearful frenzy by the demagoguery of Rush, Fox, Weiner, Levin, et al. If these guys ever speak the truth it is an accident of the moment that suited the purpose of their rhetoric.

To me this is a big puzzle. Why are is the right so divorced from reality and from rational thought? What is it about human personality that lets politics devolve into a sport where we choose sides and my "side" has to win at any cost?

The very idea that the progressives are far left is an invention of the right. We have not had a far left political movement for a long time, if ever. Read some of the speeches of Eisenhower and Nixon. Today they would be castigated as belonging to the radical left though they were moderate Republicans in their day.

Anybody besides me thinking of "The Sorcerer's Apprentice?" Of course, the classical radio station played it yesterday, what with its being Halloween and all, and out of nostalgia I watched the classic old Mickey Mouse animated cartoon on YouTube. The apprentice resents having to work hard while the wizard seems to get things done effortlessly, so when the wizard is away, he enchants a broom and tells it to do his chores, which consist of fetching water for the cauldron. Unfortunately, he finds this works just fine until he wants to tell the broom to stop, which is when things start getting seriously out of hand. Finally, in desperation he whacks the broom with an axe -- only to find that all the pieces get up and start fetching water too. Now, I wonder if Newt Gingrich, and maybe even the likes of Karl Rove are starting to feel like that frantic apprentice as he watches all these mindless brooms like Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin sloshing more and more water into the cauldron, even as the wizard's house floods?

Quoting Frank Rich is the act of a fool. Quoting him extensively is the mark of a lazy fool.

It is so sweet of high ranking Democrats to be worried enough about the Republican Party to offer advice to the Republican rank and file.

Me thinks they dost come to the aid of the Republican Party just alittle too fast. Gee, from the way they go after Sarah Palin, I think they are more afraid of conservatives than they are of any other wing of the party. Maybe because conservatives care about poor people and will expose the Democratic myths ...i.e. we love you poor people, but Chicago has the highest sales taxes in the country, and no you can't have a Walmart because it upsets our union supporters even though 15,000 of you would like to apply for the 450 jobs (2006), and no ... you definitely can't have good, non-politicized public schools. How will we reward our friends, if we can't politicize the entire public education system?

I know that I should be nice to people on here, and I shouldn’t use the R word (it is no longer PC) so I will refrain from using the term that I would like to use to describe some of the post on here.

First of all, it would be nice if people would refrain from using the term “teabaggers” to describe those who attended the tea party protest. The term “teabagging” refers to a distinct homosexual act, and likewise the term “teabagger” refers to one who engages in such activities. Although I am sure that there were a number of homosexuals attending the tea party protests, I doubt that they make up the majority.

I will concede that the right wing of the Republican party can be a bit uncompromising. Even as a conservative Republican, I disagreed with all the “fence building” anti-immigration fever that swept the party in the past couple of years. And furthermore, the GOP should not be purging moderate Republicans (such as McCain or Giuliani) as such individuals are clearly Republicans, although a bit more moderate than most. However, this is not the same as refusing to support Dede Scozzafava. Scozzafava is not the “moderate” Republican that disagrees with the party on a few social issues as she is often portrayed in the media. Other than supporting the 2nd amendment, I know of no other issue in which she agrees with Republicans. Please enlighten me if I am mistaken, but she is certainly a liberal, not a moderate. The GOP needs moderates, but not liberals. Liberals have a party, it is called the Democratic party.

Most interesting thing in this article - the Democrats fear Pawlenty as the 2012 GOP nominee. That's why Van Hollen tries to link Pawlenty to the much more conservative (and in certain circles discredited) Palin and Beck. Pawlenty is twice elected governor of a purple (leaning blue) state, with broad support in the Republican Party. Very interesting.

The bad thing is, the Republican Party is looking at a sweep of the top three offices in Virginia. If they also win the NY House race, and the governor's office in NJ, they're going to call this a rebuke of Obama's policies. We know it's not... it's just that the whackos have all aligned.

I think it's really quite scary to think about. The moderates are being driven from the party, but the whackos have the support of the party and big business... Even if the Republican Party is nuts, it can win because of all the money behind its candidates.

McDonnell, in Virginia, is masquerading as a moderate -- lying through his teeth -- and everyone is buying it. Perhaps other Republican candidates will try this trick as well???

Your analysis is TOTAL BUNK. This ultra-liberal Scozzafava was hand-picked by a small group of country-club Republicans without a primary election. The Republican Party is and will be a coalition party and conservatives know this as well as anyone else. What conservatives have a problem with is, when a select elite few pick a candidate who is arguably more liberal than the Democrat on the ballot.

Clearly, NY-23 is a conservative majority as evidenced by Hoffman's surge when he was able to finally get some advertising and word out after several prominant conservatives stepped in to help him out. Scozzafava's poll numbers plummeted upon Hoffman finally getting some cash and endorsements to confirm to voters in NY-23 that he's who they likely would have supported if a primary had been held- NOT Scozzafava.

And now, trying to make lemanade with the lemons they've been given, the liberal Democrat machine and their supporting cast, the drive-by media/press, are trying to hype this as a purge? Give us a break. Nice try. The Republican Party will continue to recruit and run candidates that reflect the voter's desires in the districts they run in.

That's the bottom line of what's happened here- voters rejected the liberal hack that was hand picked by the country-club elitist Republicans in charge of her selection. Enough said.

golack: "Does there need to be a third party? Most definitely. Fiscally conservative, small government, pro-business party would be welcome. Note, "pro-business" is not "pro-CEO". Small government should mean efficient and effective, not bloated and absent. Pro-business means establishing conditions to let business grow and prosper--not conditions that let CEO's cook the books, run scams, suck the money out, then bail with a golden parachute."

Not sure how you fit in with the left wing "Progressives" in here golack, but you've pretty well described the direction the Republican party is currently taking. Of course, if any of you would actually listen to us instead of belittling us and calling us names, you'd already know that.

The broad middle is listening, however, and more and more are moving toward the party of limited government and individual liberty each day, and you'll get a good indication of that movement in Tuesday's elections.