Republicans will still have a better chance of passing things (or blocking what they want to block) by maximizing number of  people in their caucus, even if some are more liberal. Liberal Republicans still wind up voting with the Republicans more than Democrats with similar views, and the same with conservative Democrats being more likely to vote Democratic.

Part of this is because there might be more similarities in views  to the party than is apparent from the rants from people like Limbaugh. Part of this is by how the parties operate. The Republican leadership might tell liberal Republicans that it is ok to vote their conscience (or based upon what their district wants) on a certain number of bills, but in return for avoiding retaliation for this they must vote with the party on certain other votes. They rotate around who is free to vary and who must vote party line on different votes to maximize the number.

If you could get more conservative Republicans in office to replace moderate and liberal Republicans then this would be to the benefit of conservatives to maximize number of votes. The reality is that you cannot succeed in maintaining a national party with strict ideological restrictions. If only conservatives are welcome (or if Democrats only allow strong liberals) the party will be unable to win in certain areas and the number in the party’s caucus will fall, making the entire party have less of an ability to accomplish anything.

DeDe might not be a conservative, but she would wind up voting with the Republicans more than a Democrat from the district would.

That sounds pretty desperate to cherry pick a specific hypothetical situation to try to claim you are right. We need to deal with the facts we have, not hypothetical future situations. Besides, this is not about whether Hoffman’s tactics were right for him personally but whether the GOP’s overall strategy is correct.

Whether Hoffman wins next year is a totally different issue. That depends upon upon what happens in the particular district. If the Democratic winner does a poor job, or if Hoffman gets involved in the district and convinces people he understands the local issues, his chances would be much better running again. On the other hand, if the district permanently remains in Democratic hands, or flips back and forth as opposed to being strongly Republican, this would show the error in their tactics.

Next year alone is not the time to judge strategy questions. The fundamentals set up the Republicans to pick up about 25 seats next year. The bigger question is what happens long term.

We have already seen the folly of this attitude from the GOP. As they have purged their moderates they have lost virtually all seats in the northeast and have rapidly gone form a majority party to a regional minority party.

If this year’s election turns this around and over the next few election cycles the Republicans  pick up more seats while purging moderates and moving even further to the right, then it could be argued that the right wing was right in their strategy. So far it does not look like it.

You think the problem is that the GOP has been backing too many RINO’s??? The problem is the opposite. The extremists in control of the GOP have been driving everyone else, turning them into a declining minority party.

Even if your goal is to pass conservative legislation, you need to allow moderate candidates in states like New York. Such candidates won’t entirely vote the party line, but they will vote for Republican control of Congress, which would be meaningful if they get closer, and they will still vote party line on many issues. They will certainly vote the party line far more than a Democrat, even if the Democrat and Republican are equally liberal.

Typically the Republicans have handled this by allowing their more liberal members to get away with breaking from the party on some issues but have enforced party unity on them at other times to get the votes when they need them.

He hardly did it on  his own. He had the Club of Growth and others on the right financing him. He had Sarah Palin, Tim Pawlenty, and other pushing for him. He had Limbaugh and Beck giving him tons of publicity.

And the end result was to give the Democrats one more seat in Congress while further fracturing the Republican Party. Hardly a good move.

The post you link to does not have a very realistic take on the situation. Besides the problem of running a far right candidate losing in a moderate district, the other issue here was locals versus outsiders. Hoffman and his supporters were outsiders who had no knowledge of local issues. It is bad enough that Hoffman was far to the right of the local Republicans. It is even worse being an outsider who didn’t understand the district.

The Republican might retake the district if they run a local Republican who is in tune with the district. If they try running Hoffman again they will have a much more difficult time.

On the other hand, considering the GOP’s track record for self-destruction in recent years, you might be right that Hoffman has won the Republican Party nomination in that district for next year.