It looks as if Republicans are ready to purify their party by pushing out anyone who is perceived as moderate.
There is already a movement by FreedomWorks, the radical right movement led by Dick Armey, former House Majority Leader during the 1990s and early 2000s, to create challenges in 2010 for moderate Republicans, with Florida Governor Charlie Crist, running for the Senate, as one of their main targets in his race for the nomination against Marco Rubio, the former Florida House Speaker.
Governor Tim Pawlenty, trying to outdo Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney, his potential rivals for the Presidency, has questioned the loyalty to Republican principles of Maine Senator Olympia Snowe, who immediately responded that she has been a Republican all her life and had no intention of leaving the party.
It looks as if there will be civil war in the Republican party in 2010 to excise the “cancer” of moderation. How this will affect the 2010 election is unknown, but the possibility of a far right takeover of the party and its implication for 2012 is alarming and scary.
Hopefully, there will be enough economic progress in the next year so that the Democrats will retain most of their seats and overcome the extremist movement going on in the GOP.