This one is my fault...

I'm not placing the burden of "spreading the tent canvas" to make sure that the tent is big enough on the Tea Party... that was not my point, nor was it Card's. That is the primary responsibility of Mr. Steele and the GOP.

If it is only the Tea Party activists that are calling for a renewed conservative movement, then they will be seen by those outside the movement as angry, fringe elements. To suggest that the Tea Party needs to "moderate itself" is silly... it is, fundamentally, a grass-root movement inspired by those that feel abandoned by the GOP. The onus is on the GOP, and specifically on its chosen leadership, to embrace the movement's call to renew and refocus or doom itself to another cycle of nothing more than opposition politics as the minority party in all aspects of our government.

I guess my point is that, when this same effort was coming from the minority Democratic fringe in the form of "Meetup.com" and the campaign of Howard Dean, it was embraced by the whole party (not something I'm happy about, but it worked, obviously). Prior to that, most incumbent Democrats supported the effort in Iraq and the broader war on terror (barring Wellstone and a very few others). Since then, it is the exception to find a Democrat supporting either... not the norm.

I mean, let's face it... it wasn't all that long ago that what was holding our attention and discussions when we had our "driveway" meetings was the far more traditional questions of taxes, spending, and social issues facing the political scene. I can't even blame the change from then to now on 9-11 (not all of it, anyway). It REALLY changed sometime in the late '90s, and I think it was the manner by which the DNC "adopted" the Meetup.com-crowd into the fold that propelled the Democrats into the fringe.

Now, that is the unfortunate example... but it is an example of the kind of fundamental change that a party can (and sometimes SHOULD) undergo in order to make their position more apparent and understandable to the public. It took the DNC nearly 8 years to go from minority opposition party to complete control, and in that time they have moved further and further left in their professed ideology with each passing year. What even I would have thought of as "too far left" for rational discussion from the DNC just 10 years ago is now platform-position and the firmly established status quo.

Do we have the time to wait for the RNC to do the same thing? It doesn't need to be this all-or-nothing transformation of the party, but rather a renewed focus on what has been the fundamental planks of the party platform since 1979... but the longer the rest of America has to watch the Tea Party try and defend what USED TO BE mainstream conservatism while being portrayed as "right-wing extremists", the harder it is going to be to find a candidate that appeals to both conservatives AND mainstream America.

Anyway... I agree with Ryan, I just think I was too vague in my last couple of posts and Ryan misunderstood. My beef is with the GOP for NOT embracing the bulk of what the Tea Party is calling for, rather than wanting the TPers to "tone it down".