re: #1 JeffFX

They really don’t understand that being bigoted scum isn’t acceptable anymore outside of the backward conservative subculture, and isn’t even acceptable to the brighter and younger conservatives.

They can reform, or stay as they are, and be totally unelectable outside of our more regressive states. Fine by me either way.

They are desperately trying to find someway to be bigoted but yet still be “nice enough” that their views come off as less extreme than they actually are.

This is the same “kobayashi maru” problem I wrote about just after last year’s election: The GOP can’t afford to lose the Tea Party voters, but they know those people alone aren’t enough to win them an election, so they try to find ways to appeal to a more general electorate while not alienating the TPers and (as we’ve seen MANY times) end up failing spectacularly.

Why? It can’t be done. There’s no way to soften up general Tea Party positions enough that the general public will endorse them.