John Boehner "went Bullworth" on Heritage Action and the media thought something important had happened. But the story didn't resonate anywhere. If a Bullworth speech doesn't resonate, then it probably wasn't actually a Bullworth speech.
Meanwhile: The GOP Establishment can no longer make sure "You never work in this town again."
And: Just because you are so conservative you should be locked in a padded room, that doesn't mean you are conservative enough for Oklahoma.
These stories are just the latest examples of what I have labeled "Going The Way Of The Whigs". That is, the GOP is in a structurally determined death spiral where every individual candidate has a personal interest in becoming more extreme in order to get the money/votes needed to win a primary. In bright red sections of the country, these primary victories become general election victories, sending Ted Cruz and Rand Paul style bomb-throwers to Washington.
But in areas that are even slightly purple, what plays in the primary isn't quite as palatable come general election time. Only the obvious venality of Terry McAuliffe prevented people from seeing the Cooch as the unelectable escaped psychiatric inpatient that he so obviously was from the very start.
And while Virginia is already there, states like Florida, North Carolina, and Utah are all places where hatred of "the other" may not play so well as Hispanic populations continue to grow in absolute terms and in turn-out terms (that is, they are increasing in numbers and a higher percentage of them turn out to vote every year).
Here come the political scientists, seeing the reality, if not yet forecasting the death spiral, How Race and Religion Are Realigning the Electorate:
Yet despite the threat that this trend poses to the future viability of the Republican Party in national elections, the influence of the ultra-conservative, anti-immigration tea party movement makes it unlikely that the GOP will be able to successfully appeal to this growing nonwhite electorate. As a result, the racial divide between the parties’ electoral coalitions is likely to increase over the next several election cycles.
