Saturday, November 11, 2006

When Parties Fall Apart

It's a wretched business when a local party - any local party - divides into factions.

So I have some sympathy for the Republican Party Chairman for Woodbury County , Iowa who seems to have had a hell of a bad time recently. He's reported in the Sioux City Journal as saying:

Revealing the divide in the Woodbury County GOP, Salem said "real simply, we had two headquarters offices, which were doors apart from each other. The public reaction was, 'What the heck is going on?' The message that was sent is that this party is split apart."

He was also pretty blunt about one of the factions:

Salem said he coined a new phase: "You've heard of IslamaFascists -- I think we now have Christian fascists. What is the definition of a fascist? Not only do they want to beat you, but they want to destroy you in the process."

Salem said "if things keep going the way things are going locally and statewide, it is going to be more and more difficult for Republicans to recruit candidates. We have elements of the party who are moral absolutists, who take the approach that if you don't take my position every step of the way, not only will I not support you, but I will destroy you."

The comments column below the article has a fair amount of pungent debate between the two sides... Meanwhile, Woodbury Democrats are pretty happy.

Hat Tip: Andrew Sullivan

1 comment:

Roger Owen Green said...

Despite "the scream", Dean is usually a pragmatist. Expect the Dems to play to the center in order to get elected in '08.

Chris expresses his own views on this weblog.


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