"Those criticizing him imagine a scenario in which Republicans return to electoral dominance by making the party smaller, more right-wing, and more rigid and uncompromising. The True Believers will thrive, the argument goes, just as soon as the heretics are driven away."

I believe that is the Rush Limbaugh dittohead party line in all its glory. Rush Limbaugh is an effective and popular communicator, but his political strategist instincts rival Karl Rove's.

Whatever happens with the crazies and a Republican majority or not, if there are no strong national progressive voices, especially among the Democrats (maybe Grayson will start a trend), the net effect will be to drive political discourse even farther right.

Sounds like the Taliban. Is that why they are buying up all the guns. Do they see armed revolution in their future plans?

There's a very good wrap-up of the NY-23 race -- and the imbeciles running the Republican asylum -- at the Running Scared blog of the Village Voice.

I heartily recommend it.

It is weird, and worse. Do you think that a minority being goaded into a frenzy is the path to a successful political movement? I'd think not,... and hope not.

it is difficult to build a reasonable political organization among a census of folks filled with hate and fear...who have no reason at all except reasons to hate and fear.

good luck with that, moran...historically, you and yours probably deserve it.

"Do you think that a minority being goaded into a frenzy is the path to a successful political movement?"

Hey, it worked for Hitler. Don't underestimate the power of hatred to motivate true believers and dissuade the opposition.

Now we have the purge in NY 23rd district, before it was Jon Henke's outing of WorldNetDaily & the NRC. It is apparent that the divide in the party know as the GOP between pragmatists and purists is growing.
Rush Limbaugh, in my opinion, is the main driving force in this split. His confrontational style & lust for covert power has driven the purists. I say covert because he is too cowardly to actually run for office (unlike, say, Sen. Al Franken), but he still wants to frame every debate in his own terms. I hope that Rush suceeds because it will diminish the GOP to a political cult, down from a national party. Hannity, Beck, O'Reilly and the rest are wanna-bees. No other figure in America demands to have is ass kissed like Rush.
Godwin be damned:
Hitler had his Brownshirts, Rush has his Brown Nosers, whih includes almost every national GOP politician.

MattF- A "minority being goaded into a frenzy" proved to be an effective political movement in Russia and in Germany.

Just saying.

While I don't agree with their logic, these teabaggers see the current GOP as almost-as-liberal, if not AS-liberal, as the Democratic Party (tis' what they claim to believe, anyway). When the sh*tstorm comes, voters will need to know which side is truly amongst the blessed and saved, and they foolishly think they'll be that side. For those that read the novella or saw the movie version of Stephen King's The Mist, they're held in sway by their Mrs. Carmody, and thus far their expiation has been MOSTLY symbolic, killing off the careers of the moderates in the party. That is, if you want to avoid the guns at town hall meetings a progressive churches getting shot up.

after wandering thru the websites and comment threads at the various links steve provides, i need to wash my hands....

it was worth it, though, to see pam geller declare grover norquist [!!!] a rino in need of purging....she's shrinking the party down to fit in the bathtub....

"That kind of alchemy hasn't been seen since Nostradamus tried to turn lead into gold."--Moran

I don't think Nostradamus practiced alchemy? I can see how people might think that.

Anyway. One of Moran's right-wing critics writes: "Shorter Moran: passion = bad." Not only is this a poor summation of Moran, but it doesn't reflect the guy's criticism of Moran either. So why type it?

The same guy thinks: "Newt needs to sweat a bit. He needs to be taken to the edge and shown the seriousness of the people." Heh. What does seriousness mean here? Gingrich is unserious, but compared to the Tea Partiers, he's a paragon. Is "passion" evidence of seriousness about understanding policy, or our history?

I guess when Moran understands that a bunch of ill-informed, screaming wingnuts really, really MEAN IT... their world-view(s) will coalesce into something he can understand and get behind? More to his point, coalesce into a winning majority?

Actually, I think that the teabaggers may have a bit of a point. In an off-year election with low turnout, I think that a passionately committed, organized fringe may be able to beat a wishy-washy, discouraged majority. If Democrats respond to Republican victories today by going blue dog, we are setting ourselves up to have 2010 look like 1994, with massive losses in the House as Democrats stay home.

Democrats have to give their base something to get excited about.

Just remember, the more counterfactual the belief, the more energy that's required to maintain it.

i agree in part with Joe Buck. the Wifegeist and I were just having this discussion yesterday: after the 06 and 08 elections, the R's were a totally demoralized bunch. Turnout in 08 reflected a severe "enthusiasm gap." It was hard to see what incentive the R's would have to get off the canvas rather than let Obama run them over.

one can certainly blame the Dems for letting them off the mat, but one should also give credit where due if for no other reason than to plan a better counter in the future: the sheer crazy energy, the permission to be angry and about their lot in life, and the eventual successes however small in delaying or modifying Democratic initiatives pumped life back into the right wing. the internals on all of the polls in the closely watched races today show that the key feature is not some huge realignment of the views of the underlying populations -- rather, it is all on who is saying they will show up. the enthusiasm is all on the part of the far-right at the moment.

in that regard, sheer craziness on the right is much like the McCain choice of Palin for VP: if it goes bust, there isn't much to lose because you were toast anyway. But a high-risk, high-energy strategy is really the only thing you've got. and frankly it has allowed the right to recover much better and much faster than I ever would have predicted in January. i continue to believe it is a very short term boost with very adverse long-term consequences for the Republicans, but still (call it the "Tea Party for Algernon" effect).

@danimal, BuzzMon:

Limbaugh's incentives are poorly aligned with the Republican party's. Getting 10% of the population riled up at the cost of convincing 70% that you're crazy isn't a good way to win elections. But it's a wonderful way to maintain audience for a radio show.

So Rusky gets punked because he does not fact check (Not the first time)? Wow, what a surprised.

Oh, and when contronted that he was punked, he defended himself by saying “we stand by the fabricated quote because we know Obama thinks it anyway” (Yeah good try to save face, what a loser)

After so many years of mis-labeling and mis-characterizing others he gets smacked down by the NFL “Not For Limbaugh”. Way to go NFL, great job!

They'll be in the majority once the Rapture strikes. I'm pretty sure I won't be here.

Oops, actually I had that backwards.

We're entering a time period where homogeneity or "purity" preoccupies people. Hopefully, this will be the downfall of the arch-conservatives, but don't entirely bet on it. Sometimes, in such times, a persuasive leader, combined with fanatical devotion to the cause, can have a shameful impact on politics.

I've written a book about the cyclical aspect of these things --- see http://www.PredictingHistory.com or my blogs on DailyKos (keyword: paradigm) for more.

This is eerily familiar.

Supporters of Jesse Jackson made similar arguments about expanding the base in the 1980s. Jim Hightower said, "There's nothing in the middle of the road but yellow stripes and dead armadillos“".

But that was a minority position, although one that couldn't simply be ignored by Democratic pragmatists. In today's Republican Party, the True Believers seem to have the upper hand.

Why? I suspect that moderate Republicans lack a clear program today, while Blue Dogs and centrists during the 1980s had a clearer idea of what they wanted to do.

Cynic--I agree that Rush is leading the GOP down the tubes to his profit. I don't think too much of Karl Rove, either. His decision to send Bush to blue states on the last weekend prior to the 2000 election lost Bush the election (if all Florida votes were counted as the voters intended). Overconfidence is almost always the GOP's weak spot.

danimal wrote: "Rush Limbaugh is an effective and popular communicator, but his political strategist instincts rival Karl Rove's."

Rove understood math, specifically the equation 50% plus one. Rush seems to think that 20% will do - and I wish him every success at getting to that level.

Did Nostradamus try to turn lead into gold ? I didn't know that.
I'm ambivalent about the current direction by the GOP. On the one hand, I find them such thoroughly reprehensible subhumans, that I hope they completely destroy their party and any chances of ever attaining a majority. On the other hand, as bad as our system is currently, I think we do need two parties (three or more would be better).