Gerson on GOP Reality

Former Bush staffer Michael Gerson lays out the reality of his party in The Washington Post.

Tea party candidates — recall Sharron Angle, Christine O’Donnell, Richard Mourdock and Todd Akin — often lose winnable races. Tea party primary challenges, and the fear of them, encourage a harsher ideological tone among sitting Republican legislators, undermining their general-election appeal to independents, minorities and young people. And maximal tea party legislative strategies, as we’ve just seen, can be ruinous. Yet within an ideological bubble, success is defined differently — in purity, combativeness and the acclaim of the faithful. As the public standing of the GOP recently reached its lowest point ever, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) told a cheering tea party audience, “Look, the Democrats are feeling the heat.” It is one thing to engage in Pickett’s Charge; another to describe it as a victory.