GOPurity

Last month brought a number interesting political developments. One was the adoption by the Republican National Committee of a so-called "purity test," a by-law that essentially removes from the discretion of party pooh-bahs the way RNC backing would be deployed during congressional and national campaigns.

The aforementioned pooh-bahs, largely unknown to 99 percent of registered Republicans, are still shocked that a majority of committeemen and women would so vote on a number of such measures proposed during the RNC convention in Hawaii. These "purity tests" were dismissed in the months leading up to the convention. Their purveyors scoffed at and ridiculed.

Sounds vaguely familiar, doesn't it? Sounds a bit like the national and state leaders of a different party in the months leading up to the special election in Massachusetts. The Democrats are still in the anger\denial stage of the grief visited on them last month by the pesky polity.

Now I have been thinking about this since first hearing about it a few months ago. I remember thinking about the NY-23 campaign and the countless times the Senate and Congressional incumbent protection committees continued to back the wastrels calling themselves Republicans. I remembered the countless times I wrote to them asking why, in Heaven's name, why would they back Arlen Specter or Lincoln Chaffee.

And leading up to the 2008 primaries, I got ahead of the game and tried to convince the national Republicans from, again, backing Wayne Gilchrest. And what did I, and thousands of conservatives in Maryland, and elsewhere, get? About as much as I got in my requests for reasons, explanations of GOP votes in the MD State Senate to elect Mike Miller to anything! In this case it happens to be President of the Senate. Why would our GOP State Senators vote for anything associated with Mike Miller and the Senate Democrats? That's all I wanted to know.

So it is little wonder that Republicans around the country are finally having an impact at the national level. The only people who are shocked are those 85 or so "insiders" that the National Journal relies upon, foolishly, to take the pulse of the party. Judging from the results of their last poll, these GOP insiders do not have a clue. They would like to mute Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann and Glenn Beck? The leading voices of the GOP party base? You would mute these rock stars of conservative politics? Are you nuts? Have you been in coma for the last five years?

I don't know that much about the National Journal or the folks who publish it, assuming that it is a publication, but here is a free clue: There is a good reason why for every 1 million people who have heard of Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann and Glenn Beck, only one person has heard of you. It doesn't really matter what that reason is. It just exists. A million to one. It's a rough estimate to be sure, but I'll wager that it is far closer to reality than your "GOP insiders" are ever likely to get.

So for ignoring me, and millions like me for 10 years; for making us suffer the Specters, Chafees, Gilchrests and quite nearly the Scozzofavas; and for relying on the National Journal peanut gallery to tell you what we are really thinking, I give you the GOP Purity Test!

Now go to your room and play nice and DON'T make me come up there again!