JHM, the national leadership can and should be blamed because they threw money at Scozzafava instead of telling the idiots at the state level that their choice was unacceptable. Just because it’s not top-down doesn’t mean the top level has to rubber-stamp whatever the state and local branches approve. If they pick someone who’s not in line with the platform, that candidate should get not one thin dime of national money. Would the New York GOP be so dysfunctional if they were kept in check by the national party leaders holding a death grip on the cookie jar?
I agree that if the Republican party is replaced it’s not going to happen overnight and it’s going to throw us into chaos. We may face that choice either way. Unfortunately the cancer in this organization has metastasized. The RINOs are eating the party from the inside out and it will collapse if they are not fought. Fighting them conventionally hasn’t worked so well to date–but maybe Dede’s defeat will help. If not, remember that even the Republican party didn’t coalesce overnight after the Whigs imploded. The Democrats can do real damage until that time, but if a strong new party emerges with firm roots in fiscal responsibility, that damage might just be undoable. Much stranger things have happened in our political history. 2010 will likely see a major Republican pickup even if the ship is taking on a lot of water, but the base’s anger won’t disappear and the party is already ridiculously unprepared to field a presidential candidate in 2012. We don’t have one year for the Tea Party to become a reality; realistically we have three.
