quote:I don’t think it’s good for the health of our party. Any party that just tries to purge members that might have any sort of independent thinking, I think, eventually will run itself to very much of a minority status.
And then, from an ABC news article about the House vote on health care reform
quote:MoveOn.org is launching a round of TV ads this week targeting Democratic House members who voted against the health care bill over the weekend.
quote:On Monday, the Charleston County Republican Party’s executive committee “took the unusual step” of officially censuring Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC). The local GOP committee admonished Graham for stepping across party lines to work with Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) on a bipartisan clean energy bill and other pieces of legislation. The censure stated that Graham’s “bipartisanship continues to weaken the Republican brand and tarnish the ideals of freedom.”
I love republican party leadership right now.
The party's been hijacked by the nuts it used to exploit.
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The Charleston County Republican Party's executive committee == Republican Party Leadership?
Not that local attitudes are immaterial, but I haven't heard any condemnation of Graham from national party leadership (quite the contrary, in fact). Certainly nothing resembling the treatment of Lieberman over his healthcare stance.
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Senoj, I think you're drawing an equivalence that isn't justified by what you presented.
The Republicans have a serious problem represented by the Club for Growth and similar efforts that are pushing the party towards running ideologically pure - in the narrow band described by the Club for Growth - candidates that are doomed to fail because their ideology is 1) not shared by anything approaching a majority of voters in most areas and 2) scary to moderates (aka obviously insane) or other people that might otherwise be inclined to vote Republican.
What you are presenting on the other hand is a group applying pressure on representatives who voted against an issue that it is very important to many people and supported by a majority of voters. This doesn't seem to be to be one of full ideological purity, but rather attaching a lot of importance to an issue. This is hardly an unprecedented action taken by groups that have a strong interest in a particular issue and I don't think it comes anywhere near the self-destructive push for purity that you brought up for the first part.
edit: Which is not to say that there is a lot of "my team" politics on the Democratic side, just the they haven't elevated to the truly spectacular cutting off their face to spite their nose that parts of the Republicans seem to be aspiring towards.
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