TRAVIS JOHNSON OP-ED: “Your Papers, Please…”

The moderate Republican blogger argues that the Republican Party is becoming too conservative, which will hurt its electoral chances: "Over the past decade, a disturbing shift has happened. After two major losses in a row, the Republican Party, rather than take a more moderate shift, is doubling down on the more extremely conservative direction of the last decade. As was discussed on this blog last week, there is a movement afoot to create a litmus test by which one can be considered a Republican. They think a Republican Party with a more ideologically pure direction will be a stronger party. This, not to put too fine a point on it, is dumb. What these Republicans are advocating is like nothing that has ever existed outside the fringe of American politics. They are advocating a party that resembles the Libertarians or the Green Party, or the type of narrowly defined Parties that exist in most other democracies. They want a Canadian, or Mexican, or European-style political system."

More: "Purity and litmus tests are nothing short of unilateral disarmament for the Republican Party. Rather than being a Center-Right Coalition, we will be a Right-Wing Party. We will be ceding the wide-open middle ground to the Democrats. Indeed, there are factions within the Democratic Party who are demanding boycotts against elected officials who haven’t followed the more extreme left agenda. But, they’re a fraction of the voices I’ve heard on the right who want to purge the GOP of its impure members. If Republicans are ever to return to power, we must first end all this ridiculous talks about ideological purity and litmus tests and begin the work of healing the rifts between the various factions of the GOP."