Nausea

I've written many times here about the Christian right and the effect they have had on the republican party. Today in the Washington Post, Jack Danforth, a former republican Senator from Missouri, makes a lot of the same points I've made, albeit in a much less shrill tone than I'm prone to use. From The Washington Post:

"The Republican Party has been taken over by something that it's not," Danforth says over a suitably austere lunch of steamed vegetables in a well-appointed 40th-floor St. Louis club overlooking the Mississippi. "How do traditional Republicans put up with this? They put up with this because it's a winning combination, for now. It won't last."

Why won't it last?

"It won't stand the light of day," Danforth says in one of several conversations. "The more people think about it, the more people will resist it. People do not want a sectarian political party, including a lot of people who are traditional Republicans."

Danforth has enough Christian credibility to back up his claims, he was dubbed Saint Jack during his time in the Senate where he was known as the most pious man in Washington.

I don't think most republicans want anything to do with the Christian right. They do however use them to get elected. It's just simply the in vogue approach to republican election tactics that is now preferred. It will pass, and when it does, republicans will send these people off to whatever rock they climbed out from under. Hopefully though, they will keep using the same formula for a few cycles after it runs out of gas.

When asked how it will come to pass, Danforth replied, "I'm counting on nausea."