With Enemies Like This, Who Needs Friends?

I love the Republican Party. Who could do more for building long-term progressive success? No one.

Next week, the Republican National Committee is going to approve a resolution renaming the Democratic Party, the "Democratic Socialist Party." Awesome. Considering that almost as many people under the age of 30 identify with socialism as with capitalism, this sounds great.

What Republicans don't get is that for a lot of people today socialism means Sweden and Norway and Denmark. It does not mean North Korea, the Soviet Union, and East Germany. But stuck in a Cold War mindset and bereft of ideas, they are destroying their own body in a desperate attempt to make themselves relevant. As Harold Meyerson says, "Rush and his boys are doing what Gene Debs and his comrades never really could. In tandem with Wall Street, they are building socialism in America."

Meanwhile, the conservative base is going ballistic that the NRSC under John Cornyn is supporting Charlie Crist's candidacy for the Florida Senate seat. You see, Crist could actually win the seat. But he is a responsible governor who wanted stimulus money. And for conservatives, responsible governance takes a back seat to ideological purity. So they are supporting Marco Rubio for the seat instead, a young, attractive, and extremist candidate who could only win a general election against a completely inept candidate (which given the state of the Democratic field in Florida is actually possible).