If the Republicans are smart...

...they will treat Doug Hoffman's loss in New York's 23rd Congressional District Tuesday as a wake-up call. The leaders of the party really have to step up and wrest control back from the wingnuts or the party will shrink further. But wait! The leaders of the party are the wingnuts. Quick! Who runs the GOP these days? Michael Steele, John Cornyn, John McCain? Or Dick Armey, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Sarah Palin? I would argue that it's the latter.

In today's New York Times, Mike Huckabee, who declined to endorse a candidate in NY-23, is quoted as saying that:

Republicans [should not] support third-party candidates, warning that doing so was a recipe for defeat. “There is potential danger if people believe the way to get the attention of Washington is through third-party candidates,” he said. “Typically what a third-party candidate does is ensure the election of the one you like the least.”

(You know it's a bad sign when the voice of reason in your party is the guy who doesn't believe in evolution.)

Huckabee, who is also the front-runner for the 2012 nomination in some polls, goes on to say in the very next paragraph that:

...Eager not to alienate conservatives, [he] made clear that he would support primary challenges to Republican candidates who he thought strayed from the party’s values. As one example, he said he was supporting a conservative challenger to Gov. Charlie Crist of Florida, who is seeking the nomination for a Senate seat in a primary that is shaping up as the next big showdown between Republicans.

Oh well, so much for the voice of reason.

(Tim Pawlenty, who endorsed Hoffman after Sarah Palin and the rest, told reporters that he would not get involved in an intraparty battle again. I guess this political stuff is harder than it looks! Welcome to the NFL, TPaw.)

So the GOP is determined to shoot itself in the foot. Repeatedly. I used to think there were a lot of parallels between Obama and Reagan, and that the Republicans would run a Walter Mondale-type in 2012. Now I think it may be more analogous to 1964, when the Republicans ran Barry Goldwater. In both cases the opposition got crushed. I think it may take some kind of epic blow-out to convince the Republicans to abandon the wingnuts and move to the center. If not, they really are headed the way of the Whigs.