Why A GOP Blowout Might Be A Good Thing

The blogosphere is chatting about former McCain and now former Huntsman advisor John Weaver's fears a 2012 GOP Blowout if the party's guiding lights are Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin and Dick Cheney.

There is a lot of talk that if the party doesn't start appealing to moderates soon, 2012 is going to be bloody.

That prospect used to bother me, but I'm beginning to wonder if that's not a bad thing. Let me explain.

As Ross Douthat explained a few weeks ago in his case that Dick Cheney should have ran in 2008, I am beginning to think that maybe we should let the Limbaugh wing have its way for a few years.

That wing of the party has spent the last few years blaming others for the Republican Party's problems. In 2006 and 2008, it was that George Bush was not a true conservative because of his big spending. Or it was that the Republican-controlled Congress was seduced by the tempting ways of Washington. In 2008, they said McCain was a moderate. They look at the losses in the past elections and think the problem was that the party was "too liberal."

They refuse to listen to the data which says the GOP is losing support. They brand anyone that thinks it's okay to have civil unions or thinks the environment might be an issue, a Republican in Name Only or RINO. The brush off concerns that the party must be allowed to run more moderate candidates in blue states and pick off the moderates that are in office.

This far right wing has wanted to run the show in the party and I am sorely tempted to say, "It's all yours." Let them select candidates for Congress that will go down to defeat. Let them select a Mike Huckabee or Sarah Palin, candidates who have no chance in hell in winning in 2012.

The thing is, after such a devastating loss, ala Mondale and the Democrats in 1984, the far right will have no one else to blame. They could no longer live in denial that they only need to be "more conservative." Maybe, just maybe, they would finally know that they need help and that the party needs to change.

Maybe. We will see in 3 years. Hopefully, it won't be too late.