There are some who believe that the Democrats may be able to win Senate elections in Florida and Illinois because so-called moderate Republicans such as Charles Crist and Mark Kirk may not get past primary challenges from far-right opponents.
I felt much the same way in 1976, when I hoped that Ronald Reagan would wrest the GOP presidential nomination from Gerald Ford. Surely, I thought, no one that far to the right could ever win a general election.
For several decades now, I've known better.
We can't trust that voters will reject the worst the Republicans have to offer. Alan Keyes can only be on so many ballots at once.
Massachusetts -- the only state to have gone for George McGovern in 1972, the state that gave us Michael Dukakis -- has just elected a Senator whose public positions would be hard to distinguish from the "great right hopes" in Florida and Illinois.
Here are two words for those who hope that the Republicans will nominate the feeble-minded, or transparently craven: Bush/Cheney