What does it mean to have one of our major parties the exclusive domain of loonies and scumbags?

"[T]he larger question is whether the country is ready to deliver a majority to a Republican Party that now holds problem-solvers like [Delaware GOP Rep. Mike] Castle in contempt; is scared to death of a well-financed right wing that parades under a false populist banner; and, in primary after primary, has aligned itself with Sarah Palin, who anointed O'Donnell one of her Grizzlies."

-- E. J. Dionne Jr. in his Washington Post column today,

"Mike Castle's defeat -- and the end of moderate Republicanism"

by Ken

As if the endless campaign seasons and the elections themselves weren't bad enough, am I the only one who dreads almost more all the post-election blather from our anointed professional natterers? With those elections, at least there's a chance that some good may have come out , whereas with the natterers, well . . . you know. And primaries can be even worse, since these are elections that are by definition part of the ongoing campaign-and-election cycle.

It's an alarming spectacle, all those Village oracles (in their own minds, at least) either spewing conventional wisdom, or trying to figure out what the conventional wisdom should be, or offering their "correctives" to the conventional wisdom, which is to say their versions of you-know-what. And when I take aim at Village oracles, I don't mean just people who hunker down inside that sleepy village on the Potomac. Just as you don't have to be physically in the Village to be of it (it's more a matter of state of mind, or often who signs your paycheck), it's actually possible to be a geographical villager without being, you know, a Villager. Obvious case in point: the Washington Post's tirelessly gentle and sane E. J. Dionne Jr.

In the column today from which I've already quoted, Dionne explains that he paid a visit Monday night, the evening before the election, to the campaign headquarters of Delaware Rep. Mike Castle for what had once seemed a shoe-in run to the Republican nomination for the special election to fill the Senate seat vacated by Vice President Biden. The next day, as we all know, Castle, now 71, would have his political career brought to an abrupt end by professional crazyperson Christine O'Donnell, one of this electoral season's beneficiaries of the right-wing media craziness that has taken hold in the land.

I certainly wasn't looking forward to Castle taking his place in the Senate, which everyone seems pretty certain would have been the case if he had won the Republican nomination -- just as certain as most everyone is that the unspeakable O'Donnell person almost certainly doesn't have a ghost of a chance now of defeating the Democratic nominee, Chris Coons. Even the less crazed crazies of the Republican Far Right have recoiled in horror from the O'Donnell candidacy.

(Of course crazies are crazies, and Steve Benen tells the tragicomic tale of "news commentator" Karl Rove, after talking trash about O'Donnell on the air Tuesday night, now claiming that he not only supports her but in fact endorsed her Tuesday night. He's lying, of course, but Karl Rove lying isn't exactly breaking news. What's interesting is that he has chosen to tell this set of lies.)

At the same time, traditional corporatist Republican that Castle may be, the tradition of Republicans to which he belongs is a different species from today's, and is now apparently more or less officially extinct. Castle was and is a serious political person, committed to actually making government work. And Monday night, as E. J. Dionne reports, he seemed to see the handwriting on the wall.

Representative Castle conceding defeat Tuesday night

He seemed calm and confident, yet almost everything he said sounded valedictory as he offered a prescient analysis that explained in advance a defeat that echoed across the nation.

A genial and courtly man in the manner of the elder President Bush (who held a fundraiser for him in Kennebunkport, Maine), the nine-term member of Congress was mourning the decline of both the conciliatory style of politics that animated his career and the moderate Republican disposition that the Tea Party is determined to destroy.

"There are issues on which, as Republicans and Democrats, we should sit down and work out our differences," Castle said Monday night as we sat outside at Kelly's Logan House, a watering hole where he has gathered his closest supporters the night before every election since his first victory, for the neighborhood's state legislative seat, in 1966.

Republicans who might be inclined toward the middle of the road, he said, are petrified of "quick attacks by columnists and the Sean Hannitys of the world. People are very afraid of crossing the line and being called Republicans in Name Only -- or worse." As a result, "not too many members are willing to stand up."

One of the things Republicans who don't wholly embrace the craziness fear is just the sort of primary challenge Castle found himself up against in his Senate bid. "This election," he told Dionne, "has shown the power of very conservative groups."

Castle's defeat at the hands of Christine O'Donnell, a perennial candidate who may be the least qualified Senate nominee anywhere in the country, does indeed mark the collapse of the Republican Party not only of Nelson Rockefeller and Tom Dewey but also of Bob Dole and Howard Baker.

After two decades in which moderates fled a party increasingly dominated by its right wing, the Republican primary electorate has been reduced to nothing but its right wing. O'Donnell, boosted by a last minute anti-Castle spending spree from the California-based Tea Party Express, pulled off her revolution with a little more than 30,000 votes. That's all it took to seize control of a once Grand Old Party in which the center no longer has the troops.

Dionne wants us to understand the significance of what happened Tuesday in Delaware.

Castle's defeat at the hands of Christine O'Donnell, a perennial candidate who may be the least qualified Senate nominee anywhere in the country, does indeed mark the collapse of the Republican Party not only of Nelson Rockefeller and Tom Dewey but also of Bob Dole and Howard Baker.

After two decades in which moderates fled a party increasingly dominated by its right wing, the Republican primary electorate has been reduced to nothing but its right wing. O'Donnell, boosted by a last minute anti-Castle spending spree from the California-based Tea Party Express, pulled off her revolution with a little more than 30,000 votes. That's all it took to seize control of a once Grand Old Party in which the center no longer has the troops. . . .

The conventional Washington talking point holds that as Republicans have moved right, the Democrats have moved left. But this is patently false -- just count the number of moderate Democratic House members. And one politician who sees no equivalence is Castle. The domination of a party by its most ideological wing, he said, "is a more extensive problem right now in the Republican Party than in the Democratic Party."

He also offered a prediction: "I'd be willing to bet dollars to doughnuts that my opponent could not win a general election in this state for this seat -- or any other seat."

DWT readers are only too familiar with the O'Donnell-equivalent candidates all over the country who have won Republican nominations through similar electoral processes. Delaware would seem less fertile ground for the ultra-crazies than many of the other states staring at similar contests in the general election, but the question with which Dionne concludes applies to all of them:

Will moderate voters take a chance on the preposterous proposition that this Republican Party will turn around and work in a calm, bipartisan way with President Obama? Or will they use their ballots to wake up the Republicans and tell them that they need more Mike Castles, and fewer extremists?

#