Loyal reader Mack is still waiting for an answer to his question below about the possibility of an impending metal shortage.
Meanwhile he sends along this news. The ultra conservative and ultra-rolling in it PAC, The Club for Growth has a bold new plan for putting the Democrats back in control of Congress.
Stephen Moore, president of the Club for Growth, says his organization's goal is to punish moderate Republicans and make them an endangered species.
"The problem with the moderates in Congress is that they basically water down the Republican message and what you get is something that infuriates the Republican base," Moore says.
"They will learn to conform to our agenda or they will be driven from our party," he says simply.
I like this idea.
Drive as many moderates out of the Republican Party as you can, sir. They'll have a place to go. Sen. Jim Jeffords' door is wide open. A sizeable contingent of Independents would become the Obi wan Kenobis of Congress. "If you strike me down, Darth, I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine."
Both the Republicans and the Democrats would crawl on their knees through the snow for their votes. And you can bet the Democrats, as the new majority party, would come bearing the better gifts, like committee chairmanships that didn't require groveling, cringing, and a total abandonment of principle and every last ounce of self-respect. The Independents would have so much more clout that I can't believe the moderates haven't all defected already. I read the papers every morning expecting to find that they've climbed over the wall en masse in the night.
Presumably, Moore means that the moderates will be driven from office, by Club-financed right wingers challenging them in party primary races.
This would also be good for the Democrats. It would save us the trouble of having to defeat a bunch of incumbants. Somebody will probably point out to Moore that a lot of these moderates he wants to see gone are from Blue States and he'll tone it down before the moderates' Kerry-voting constituents get wind of what he's planning.
The Congressional district that surrounds Ithaca, New York, home of Cornell University, is represented by Sherwood Boehlert, who is what passes for a moderate Republican these days. If Boehlert goes down in a primary, what are the odds that those granola-eating, Volvo-driving, yoga-practicing, gay marriage supporting Ithacans are going to send the right winger to represent them in Washington?
The only reason Pennsylvania is still represented by two Republican senators is that Arlen Specter managed to beat back a right wing challenger in a primary. Pennsylvanians who voted for John Kerry and Specter and are now watching Specter's humiliation at the hands of the radical right are probably wondering why they bothered. They can't take back their votes but they can take out their anger on Rick Santorum when he comes up for re-election in 2006.
Boehlert, by the way, knows out how to grovel with the best of them. He supports the DeLay Rule. He wasn't there to vote for it, but he woulda if he coulda, so please don't hurt him, Mr DeLay, sir. Another supposed moderate from upstate New York, my former congressman, Jim Walsh, stepped right up to to drop right down to kiss Tom DeLay's ring. Walsh hasn't really been a moderate since 1994 when he handed over his integrity and his manhood to Newt Gingrich in exchange for some supposed clout that has never materialized. I don't understand why the people in his district, who went for Clinton, Gore, and Kerry, keep sending him back to Washington, since he clearly no longer represents them. He is like far too many of the moderates, no longer R-Your District Here. They are R-DeLay. Habit and a lack of a strong Democratic challenger, I guess. Boehlert benefits from the same inertia.
Perhaps Moore has the right idea. It's time for the moderates to be driven from office. The Democratic Party should join with the Club for Growth to get rid of them. The trouble with them, though, is the opposite of what Moore thinks it is. It's not that they water down the Republican message. It's that they don't do anything at all anymore to dilute it.
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