Bonfire Of The Moderates

The pushback of the GOP's remaining moderates against the Teabagger crowd begins today.

The morning after Republicans lost an upstate New York House seat, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) warned that conservative activists will bring destruction to the Republican Party if they drive out moderate candidates across the country.

“To those people who are pursuing purity, you’ll become a club not a party,” Graham told POLITICO in the Capitol Wednesday. “Those people who are trying to embrace conservatism in a thoughtful way that fits the region and the state and the district are going to do well. Conservativism is an asset. Blind ideology is not.”

Graham, who has sparred with his party’s right wing on issues ranging from climate change to Guantanamo Bay to Sonia Sotomayor’s Supreme Court nomination, warned that those concerned about the state of the GOP should help find candidates who are electable — not ones who adhere to a particular type of ideology. And he said that both the GOP nominee, Dede Scozzafava and the conservative party candidate Doug Hoffman were both out of the mainstream of the upstate New York district – which lead to the victory of Democrat Bill Owens Tuesday night.

“If your goal is to make everybody just like you in terms of ideology, that’s a self-centered approach to politics,” Graham said.

Now, Huckleberry here has just come off of re-election last year, so he's got until after 2012 before he has to worry about getting his ass purified by the Teabaggers. But you'd better believe he just made a whole lot of enemies with this one.

Best Winger reaction, Hot Air's Allahpundit:

If you believe your ideology is the best course for America, why wouldn’t you want everyone to be just like you? Does this guy think Obama sits around the White House at night, musing, “Gee, it’d be terrible if everybody thought just like I did”? Compromise when you must but win when you can. Sometimes I think Graham has it the other way around.

"Yes, why wouldn't you want to purge all differing thought from the party or the country for that matter if given a preference?" he says. I can understand that's a natural Wingnut reaction to, well, thoughts in general. They're dangerous, you know.

But the Democrats are supposed to be the Thought Police here. Nice.