Ezra Klein on the State of the GOP

Ezra Klein nails the current state of the Republican Party in his Washington Post Wonkblog.

If you imagine a policy spectrum that goes from 1-10 in which 1 is the most liberal policy, 10 is the most conservative policy, and 5 is that middle zone that used to hold both moderate Democrats and Republicans, the basic shape of American politics today is that the Obama administration can and will get Democrats to agree to anything ranging from 1 to 7.5 and Republicans will reject anything that’s not an 8, 9, or 10. The result, as I’ve written before, is that President Obama’s record makes him look like a moderate Republicans from the late-90s.

The choices for Republican policy wonks are stark. You can take the approach of Reihan Salam and Ross Douthat and Ramesh Ponnuru and evince a continual disappointment that the Republican Party doesn’t embrace more new ideas and be constantly on the lookout for glimmers of hope that never quite seem to herald the coming of dawn. Or you can take the approach of (Josh) Barro, or David Frum, and hammer the Republican Party for ceding so much important ground. Either way, the underlying problem is that today’s Republican Party, from a policy perspective, occupies a much narrower space than even 2005′s Republican Party. The change has been quick and severe.

Andrew Sullivan comments.

The actual Ronald Reagan would not stand a chance in today’s GOP...The truth is that the GOP is the most extreme, nihilist pseudo-conservative party I have seen in my lifetime in any developed country.

There are many reasons for the GOP's movement toward the extreme right during the Obama administration.  Main amoing them is the fact that GOP politicians' biggest current fear is a primary challenge from their right driven by the right-wing media influenced Republican base. So, Republican politicians are singing that tune from the musical 1776:

"To the right, ever to the right, no never to the left, ever to the right."