The New Republican Revolution Leads From Dede Scozzafava To Virginia Foxx?

Will Foxx's extremism lead to the same fate as Robespierre's

For whatever it's worth, the healthcare reform bill wouldn't have passed the House unless the Democrats-- who had to first deliver a majority to get Cao to vote yes-- had managed to elect Bill Owens in a district (NY-23) that hadn't elected a Democrat since Abraham Lincoln's time. Even when their neighbor, Franklin Roosevelt, was sweeping the country and reduced the once-mightly GOP majority to an obstructionist-- albeit completely impotent-- rump of 88 congressmen and 17 senators, northeast New York was still electing Republicans. This year, it didn't look likely to change that ingrained pattern when longtime incumbent John McHugh retired and the local party nominated a popular local legislator, Dede Scozzafava while the Democrats came up with someone no one had ever heard of and whose campaign was mostly about being noncommittal on the most important bills.

But then along came Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Jim DeMint, Sarah Palin, their barely potty-trained teabaggers and a rash of Republican politicians petrified of being on the wrong side of the rising tide of the party's Know Nothing ascendant wing. And they did it-- in the name of political purity they managed to destroy the mainstream GOP candidate-- a guaranteed vote against the healthcare reform bill-- in favor of a colorless third-party wingnut, Doug Hoffman-- who lost the election, let Owens slip in, and saved the day for the healthcare reform bill.

And what did this teach the Republican Party? Clearly to double down on the crazy. They are now in the process of enacting a purity pledge (aka- the Republican Party suicide pact) that will leave dozens of mainstream Republican office-holders on the outside of the pup tent looking in-- or, perhaps, looking somewhere else. The litmus test will instantly exclude, for example, mainstream conservative candidates favored by the NRSC in Florida, New Hampshire, Delaware, Kentucky, Illinois and California and boost the chances of fringe extremists who could well win Republican primaries but would have less chance of winning general elections than Doug Hoffman did.

Yesterday's NY Times pegged South Carolina-- the secessionist state that started the American Civil War-- as the state where the Republican civil war is raging most fiercely. They skip over the long-festering troubles mainstream conservative congressmen like Bob Inglis, Henry Brown, and Gresham Barrett are having with the racist, Know Nothing, Beck/Limbaugh worshipping base and go right to the dichotomy that separates mainstream conservative-- albeit a gay one-- Lindsey Graham and far right extremist Jim DeMint (a very dour one). The relatively moderate Charleston County Republican Party censured Graham, who won their county, while extolling DeMint, who lost Charleston County when he ran for the Senate.

[T]heir contrasting strategies have brought home to South Carolina the struggle over the future of the Republican Party and have put them on opposite sides of important Senate primaries in states like Florida, where Mr. DeMint supports a vocal conservative, Marco Rubio, and Mr. Graham supports Gov. Charlie Crist.

In California, Mr. DeMint supports Chuck DeVore, in defiance of the national party leadership and Mr. Graham, who said he would campaign for Carly Fiorina...

...[the county GOP's] grievance list was long: it cited the senator for calling opponents of immigration law change “bigots,” holding the Republican Party “hostage” by participating in bipartisan maneuvers, voting for the Wall Street bailout and tarnishing the ideals of freedom.

It even criticized Mr. Graham, a Republican and the state’s senior senator, as having “stated on many occasions that his primary concern is to ‘be relevant.'"

It's unlikely that Bob Inglis' war on Glenn Beck is going to help him get re-nominated next year and poor old Henry Brown will also probably lose his primary battle, possibly even to Katherine Jenerette, the "Sarah Palin of the South." And across the country the teabaggers are celebrating their "victory" in NY-23 by challenging mainstream conservatives who they feel are little more than liberals. Even right-wing ideologues like Pete Sessions (R-TX) and, believe it or not, wild-eyed hellion Virginia Foxx (R-NC) are being primaried by teabaggers! There is no list existent of the half dozen most lunatic fringe members of Congress that doesn't include homophobic sociopath Virginia Foxx. I have literally been in strategy sessions where Democrats have said that her bizarre and extremist presence in Congress does them more good than harm and that there's no reason to run any candidates against her since she is probably the single least effect member of Congress and a warning signal to moderates across party lines that, at its core, the Republican Party offers nothing but extremism, fanaticism and a world turned upside down by ignorance, hatred and fear. But she's not crazy and radical enough for the teabaggers. A 49-year old teabagger, Brad Smith, a lifelong Republican, is running a Doug Hoffman type campaign against her! He cites Glenn Beck as his inspiration.

Smith said his primary concerns are excessive federal spending and the lack of jobs in the 5th District, which includes Wilkes, Alexander, Alleghany, Ashe, Davie, Stokes, Surry, Watauga and Yadkin counties and parts of Forsyth, Iredell, and Rockingham counties.

He said excessive federal spending has already essentially bankrupted the financial future of his children and was well on its way to doing the same with their children.

Smith's cards say he is pro-small business, pro-job creation, pro-life and pro-military and gun-rights and that he favors term limits, free and fair trade and smaller, leaner government.

Robespierre and Saint-Just must be smiling... or, more likely, rolling on the floor laughing their asses off.