But before he jumped he was pushed hard by Pat Toomey, a conservative challenger from within the party, and by an increasingly powerful conservative faction known as the Club for Growth that Mr Toomey helped to found.

Another article that seems to portray the most vigorous faction of the Republican Party as being the fiscal wing, this time specifically mentioning the Club for Growth in its role of Specter’s switch. While I don’t disagree with the article where it describes the Republicans as being in “disarray”, I just don’t see the fiscal wing as being the cause for the party’s “flirtation with irrelevancy.” I have a hard time describing the previous administration and (modest) majority Republican congress as being “sufficiently committed to the goals of lower taxes and smaller, more efficient government.” Are the social conservatives now moderates and the capitalists are now extremists?