About That Purity

We have had pointed out to us just how important purity is to the tea party wing of the Republican Party. We have been told that those seeking purity would destroy the party, would paint the party as extreme, and would lead to yet another defeat of the party of McCain come election day.

Well, here we are, at least a year after those initial claims of tea party intolerance, and the tea party wing has no candidate even close to "pure" remaining. The closest candidate to pure in my opinion at the start of this campaign was Michelle Bachmann. She is gone after having made little more than a blip. The second closest was probably Herman Cain, a man whose political experience was close to nil but who tempered that with a quest for freedom and individual responsibility. (He was too dangerous to the Democrats however and had to be stopped with trumped up accusations of infidelity, a badge of honor had it only been applied to the chest of a Democrat.) After that it was probably the dropped-out Rick Perry who remained the least unpure.

Today we are left with four candidates who do not even vaguely resemble what a "purist" would demand. The GOP candidate-darlings left standing are a country club collection of Cap and Traders, of TARP enthusiasts, of earmarkers, of tax raisers, of single payer health care lovers, of NCLB supporters, of minimum wage hikers and of comprehensive immigration reformers. This is not a purist field. Once again the tea party has been marginalized as the country drifts ever father off the cliff.

There is little doubt in this tea partier's mind that the reelection of Barack Obama will make it almost impossible to ever steer this once great republic back on course. We are farther in debt per capita than Greece has ever dreamed of being, and our current overlords plan on adding trillions more in debt over the coming years.

No remaining member of the GOP field has shown the mettle to make the exceedingly tough changes necessary to alter the course away from bankruptcy. Their political histories speak for themselves regardless of who might score a point or two at this or that debate.

Purity is dead and the Republican establishment breathes a sigh of relief. Hopefully the nation can survive.