re: #259 Athos

Charles is right. The GOP is being hijacked by the kooks because those who should be standing up and leading aren’t and the people think that the only other leaders they have to choose from are the kooks….with a huge assist by nitwits like Beck, Judge Napolitano, and others at FNC who either promote him or don’t do the proper job of identifying Paul and the others as the fringe by highlighting their fringe beliefs.

If the GOP fails to embrace a return to cogent conservatism, then it will be over as a party…..because any party that embraces Paul, the John Birch Society, Alex Jones, Lew Rockwell, Beck, creationism / intelligent design (religion) being taught as science, anti-vaccination as acceptable, and isolationism is going not going to win middle America or be good for the country.

You don’t compensate for losing elections because of crappy leadership and elected officials who forget why they were voted in by looking to the extreme fringe for the nutballs jumping up and down saying we know better. You win by going back to the basics and back to the core values…without letting the fringe anywhere off the fringe reservation….regardless of what the media does to sell advertising.

Agreed. Though I fear things will get worse before they get better. The only thing that can oush back the crazies is someone with enough clout to banish at least one of them. At present, no such non-crazy exists and such a person is unlikely to emerge before 2011-2012.