Kuttner: Will the Right Sink GOP’s Election Hopes?
Columnist Robert Kuttner writes in the Boston Globe on the various ways in which the far right may be letting the victory in Iraq go to its head: Far right greases skids for GOP fall. Personally, I think it’s kind of early to start celebrating, but it’s a nice thought. Kuttner talks about Newt’s attack on Colin Powell, invokes the shade of Jim Jeffords in discussing the pressure the administration is putting on moderate Republicans over the tax cut, and then mentions Santorum’s anti-gay crusade. He concludes:
To win elections, you need swing voters. The hard-core, partisan Republican vote is around 40 percent of the electorate; and the government-bashing, Bible-thumping, nuke-’em far-right electorate is substantially less than that.
In the past, moderate Republicans saved this radical administration from itself – on tax and budget issues, on military adventures, and on tolerance issues. Now, the radicals want nothing less than total victory. They are inviting electoral defeat.
