Say Anything Blog

And of course that’s what they want you to believe.  They also want you to believe that the tea party movement and the town hall protests and Arlen Specter becoming a Democrat are all signs that the GOP is becoming more extreme.  That’s also the narrative the media wants to promote, because being liberals themselves the idea of a vibrant, resurgent conservative movement is anathema.

  White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that the rise of a Conservative Party challenger in a closely watched upstate New York House election shows that the Republican Party leadership is “becoming more and more extreme, and more and more marginalized.”

  “It’s rather telling when the Republican Party forces out a moderate Republican and it says, I think, a great deal about where the Republican Party leadership is right now,” Jarrett said when asked about the GOP candidates’ decision to suspend her campaign, making it more likely the Conservative will win Tuesday’s special election.

So if Hoffman ends up winning that election, or even just makes it a close race with the Democrat candidate does that mean the voters in New York’s 23rd district have become more extreme?  If Pat Toomey ends up beating out Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania, does that mean Pennsylvania voters are becoming more extreme?

Or what if Marco Rubio beats out Charlie Crist to run as a Republican for the open Senate seat in Florida?  Is that yet another sign of an increasingly extremist GOP?

Here’s reality: Liberals have loved the GOP’s move toward the center/left in recent years.  Bush’s “compassionate conservatism” was very, very good to them not just because it opened the door to a lot of the government expansion they wanted with the tacit blessing of Republicans but also because it split the conservative base.  It created the angst toward Republicans over the last two elections that resulted in GOP defeats, and that led to liberal victories.

So of course they don’t want the GOP becoming a conservative party again.  Because conservatism, when articulated correctly and practiced faithfully by those who espouse it, wins elections.