re: #5 _RememberTonyC

the mainstream GOP is killing itself with independent voters who might be inclined to vote republican when it fails to marginalize the paulians and their creepy friends.

Exactly correct. This is precisely what happened to the Dems in 2002 and 2004 - elections that they almost certainly should have done better in, or even won, but managed to lose thanks to hordes of Leftard Fringers grabbing the spotlights and microphones across the country.

It wasn’t until 2006 and Howard Dean’s brilliant idea to shove this trash in the closet and not let them see the light of day that the Dems started winning again. And again, you are right: those wins were entirely due to the huge middle of the electorate coming back to a party they had been driven away from by unsavory kooks.

Ronulans running the Tea Parties is no different - and in fact, seems to have been organized in exactly the same fashion - as International ANSWER grabbing control of the San Francisco anti-war protests and dozens of other events around the country. It’s a colossal potential disaster for the GOP, once again just before an election that they at least have the potential to make gains in.

It doesn’t look as though they’ll be able to keep the kooks at bay, though. No one is even trying.