I wrote most of the following as a comment in this diary.
I pay attention to politics, and I live in Central Ohio, which has been a part of political ground zero in the last 25 or so presidential elections. Columbus is a swing area in a crucial swing state. I talk with people and do quite a bit of observing. I also look at politics in a historical context. Within this context, I have observed that when a political party or power center undergoes transformation or a purge, the purge does not stop until the radicals who take over have COMPLETELY purged the party and have consolidated their power.
As everyone can see, the Republican Party is going through a takeover by radicalized right wingers who are in the process to purge their party, and in my view, they need to completely purge the Republican Party of old thinkers, and those who see politics as "the art of the possible" in favor of a take no prisoners, and decapicate the leadership, and get rid of all the old influences.
I also believe that in order for the purge to be COMPLETE, the part of the Tea Party Republicans that may still think in the old way in large numbers are those Republicans who may have in the past been considered to be moderate, and that is probably about 10 to 15 per cent of center-right voters who used to be the majority of Republican voters. Many of these folks have already left the Republican Party and are now independents and a few have taken the leap and become Democrats. I know a few of these people, and some of them have become very good Democrats.
I believe the Democratic Party and Democratic candidates at all levels should directly make an appeal to these purged Republicans to vote for us because we can show that even in the face of concerted and obvious Republican attempts to block legitimate efforts to solve our nation's problems, we are at least trying, and that their former party seeks only power at the expense of the economy and the people that they are elected to represent, and have failed to do so. The remainder of this diary consists of my comment, which I will block quote, and a poll.
Has anyone considered that the interest among self-described Republicans is high because the formerly moderate part of the Republican Party has been castigated as having views too left-wing for the "true believer" Tea Party Republicans, and that they will signal their disgust with what remains of the party they grew up with by voting against the radicallized right wing of their own party?
The Tea Party Republicans, in their zeal to cleanse the Republican Party have aligned themselves with radicals who seek power for power's sake and appear to have no interest in solving the nation's problems, be they jobs, economic recovery, national defense and security (the TPR's seem to welcome the thought of another terrorist attack, which they see only as a vector to power), and a myraid of other problems.
I happen to believe that what used to be described as moderate Republicans have been purged from the party leadership, and this will be reflected in the rank and file of the Republican Party, and the remaining moderates will choose to exile themselves from what remains of their former party. I can see the few remaining moderate Republicans, probably 10 to 15 per cent of the Republican Party either sitting on the sidelines or choosing to finsih the job of purging the party and choosing to vote Democratic.
The center of the Republican Party has not held, and Democratic candidates should offer these exiled Republicans a place to go with their vote. There are no Rockefeller Republicans left. There are no Everett Dirksens left. There are no Eisenhowers or even occasionally moderates like Voinovich and Graham left. The entire Tea Party Republican Party has become a radicalized party of Know-nothings characterized by Sarah Palin, Sharron Angle, Christine McDonnell and Michelle Bachman, or a radicalized group of Do-Nothings characterized by John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, Newt Gingrich and Cantor.
What rational voter would want to vote for this crowd, who have demonstrated time and again they are willing to subordinate the nation's needs in exchange for power? What rational voter would want ot put the power to declare war in the hands of these people? I think there is an opportunity to ask for, and receive the votes of these remaining center-right Republican voters, whose party has left them at the station.