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Rachel Maddow weighs in on the fringe elements of the conservative movement taking over the Republican party and she hits the nail on the head with this statement:

MADDOW: It doesn‘t make sense anymore to talk about the relationship between the extreme fringe of the conservative movement and the modern Republican Party, because you can only discern a relationship between two things if you can tell those two things apart.

She followed up with Lincoln Chafee who believes this is going to assure they continue to lose elections since there is no room left in the Republican party for moderates.

Transcript below the fold.

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David Sirota at OpenLeft:

In light of Arlen Specter's party switch, Rachel Maddow had former Rhode Island GOP Sen. Lincoln Chafee on her show last night to discuss political moderation and contested primaries. During the interview, Chafee (perhaps inadvertently) articulated a very crass sense of entitlement that courses through our political Establishment:

"...the tremendously successful fundraising juggernaut that pours the money into these primary races against moderate Republicans in particular. I saw it happen to me in 2006, largely responsible for my loss in the general election...this is America, anybody can run for office. It's the money that pours in that really makes these primaries destructive...Primaries run-up your negatives and they cost you money."

While I'm not defending the ideology of the right-wing Club for Growth that helps raise money for conservative primary challengers, I am saying that Chafee's comments are gross. He's pretty clearly saying that incumbent lawmakers and other cornoated frontrunners shouldn't have to face primaries - and if they do have to face them, those primary challengers are doing something wrong for having the nerve to be well-financed.

Remember, Chafee is not only a guy who had his senate seat handed to him by his father,* he is actually complaining about his supposedly Big Money primary challenge in 2006, despite his having outspent that primary challenger by more than 2-to-1. So what he's really saying is that he believes what makes primaries "really destructive" is money "pouring in" specifically to challenger candidates, but supposedly, it's not "really destructive" or bad if an incumbent like him "pours in" enough D.C. cash to grossly outspend and crush all primary challengers.

That is the definition of entitlement.

Sirota has it absolutely right. The politicos talk a big game about the "evils" of entitlements and how they inexorably push a closer and closer to a *gasp* "Socialist Nation" ('cuz, you know, the Danes are just miserable about their Socialist Democracy)--Damn those Welfare Queens and Freeloading Seniors! They're dragging the country down....aren't they?

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Rachel Maddow talks to Lincoln Chafee about the Club for Growth and other conservative groups pouring money into the Republican primary process and demanding "purity" from their candidates on right wing conservative issues, and then that candidate going on to lose a general election. Rachel asks whether that strategy is going to mean the end of the Republican party or a possible formation of a third party. Chafee does not see the party changing and feels they're not going to remain a viable national party.

On FOX News Tuesday, former Rhode Island Republican Senator Lincoln Chafee made clear what many of us have been arguing for some time now: That Senator John McCain bears no resemblance to the current presumptive Republican nominee.

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Transcript via TP:

There’s one that was my colleague in the Senate that was good on the environment, that voted with me, the only other Republican to vote against the tax cuts, and had the Gang of 14. And now there’s the senator McCain that’s running for the Republican nomination. It’s almost like two people, kow-towing to the Republican base. It’s a different John McCain, hearing the rhetoric I hear now. Make the tax cuts permanent and distancing himself from his environmental record. And being a different candidate, and talking as he is now about how we need to not engage anybody on the world. …