February 07, 2013 08:16 AM UTC

Republican Party Purge Underway--But Not In Colorado, Folks

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• by: Colorado Pols

Politico reports today:

Republicans and Fox News are moving to purge the controversial political creatures they created.

Both were damaged badly in 2012 by loud, partisan voices that stoked the base — but that scared the hell out of many voters. Now, the GOP, with its dismal image, and Fox News, with its depressed ratings in January, are scrambling to dim those voices. To wit:

Fox ousted contributors Sarah Palin and Dick Morris, two of the most obnoxiously partisan figures on the network’s air.

Karl Rove, himself sidelined by Fox after the election, has helped start a new super PAC, the Conservative Victory Fund, designed to keep controversial conservatives like Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) from winning Senate primaries.

Senate GOP leaders created what amounts to a buddy system with their caucus’s most popular tea party members, Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Ted Cruz of Texas, to get their help in taming anti-establishment conservatives.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal has been running around the country warning anyone who will listen that Republicans must quit being the “stupid party” that nominates nutty candidates.

This is reportedly more aftereffects of the Republican Party's many defeats in 2012, and further acknowledgement of something we've been warning Republicans in this state for many years: the extremists in the Republican party have become the face of the party, and as a result the GOP has entered a phase of what could be terminal decline as they continue to alienate the broad American center. Candidates like Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock in 2012, who lost otherwise entirely winnable U.S. Senate races after exposing themselves as horrifying throwbacks on the issues of rape and abortion, are symptoms of the same problem that resulted in the nomination of Weld County DA Ken Buck in 2010–who went on to narrowly lose his Senate race after being exposed as a throwback.

The bottom line is, even the most obstinate conservative ideologue should realize by this time that more than window dressing is needed to prevent an increasingly out-of-touch and radicalized GOP from becoming a permanent minority. Obviously, getting rid of wholesale embarrassments like Dick Morris and Sarah Palin is a place to start. But that's not enough–and even advocates of "change" in the GOP like Gov. Bobby Jindal disappointingly say that the party needs change, "not in principles, but in the way we talk and act."

We don't think the principles behind Akin's, Mourdock's, and Buck's self-inflicted defeats were miscommunicated. In fact, many Tea Party folks know exactly what they want from their candidates. Any attempt by the establishment GOP will be met with, well, anger. Or as conservative pundit Michelle Malkin says, "This is war."

Here in Colorado, the situation is even bleaker for those who hope to see Republicans modernize and regain competitiveness. After the fifth consecutive general election defeat in Colorado since 2004, a defeat brought on directly by GOP intransigence and treachery on the popular issue of civil unions, what are they doing this year, folks? What is making the headlines for Colorado Republicans? Creationism in schools. Total abortion bans. Even less GOP support for civil unions than existed last year. In response to yet another defeat at the polls, despite all the calls for moderation from Josh Penry and Rob Witwer, the Colorado GOP has lurched right yet again.

And if that makes you wonder how they can possibly fare any better in 2014, well, so do we.