Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and a good friend of Senator John McCain, has expressed great concern at the marginalization of the GOP that is evident with the switch of Senator Arlen Specter to the Democratic Party.
Unlike his fellow Senator Jim DeMint from the same state, and Senators Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn, and also the talk show host Rush Limbaugh, as well as other talk show hosts, Graham is a realist who worries that the Republican party is doomed to become more weakened if it continues to eliminate or discourage moderate Republicans such as Specter.
Graham is wise in his warnings, and some can wonder if the Republican party might not be doomed to go the way of the Whig Party in the 1850s. It could indeed become irrelevant, and the conservatives might be seen as the cause of the downfall of the GOP, which is historically a party that has had great leaders and principles but now seems a skeleton of its old self.