Reverse Carpetbaggers

Commentary By Ron Beasley

New Yorker DougJ at Balloon Juice suggested it first:

What happened in NY-23 is that a bunch of confederate pukes came in and told a perfectly nice, socially moderate, Republican Albany hack (and I mean that affectionately) to go get bent.

Megan McArdle seems to agree although as usual her writing is so disjointed it's hard to tell.  What Dick Armey and the Freedom Works folks don't realize is that most Republicans north of the Mason Dixon line don't want to be Texans or Alabamans.  

But if the south wants to keep its northern Republicans--and the congressional seats that come with them--it's going to have to back off trying to make the northern party look like a miniature version of itself.

But they won't because the Confederate Republicans are just as uncompromising as the Taliban.

Update:

Armey's army won't listen but Lindsey Graham gets it.

The morning after Republicans lost an upstate New York House seat, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) warned that conservative activists will bring destruction to the Republican Party if they drive out moderate candidates across the country.

“To those people who are pursuing purity, you’ll become a club not a party,” Graham told POLITICO in the Capitol Wednesday. “Those people who are trying to embrace conservatism in a thoughtful way that fits the region and the state and the district are going to do well. Conservativism is an asset. Blind ideology is not.”

Comments

[Nikki]

Much as I don't like him, I have to admire Graham because he seems to be the only prominent Republican making any attempt to rein in his party's crazies.

[Kat]

>> To those people who are pursuing purity, you’ll become a club not a party...

No worries about becoming a club or a party -- they're a cult.