Republicans=Democrats(circa 1980's)?

TW: I posted on this theme shortly after last year's elections. The Dems lost their coalition post 1964 and fought mainly amongst themselves for the next 25 years before tacking decisively towards the center with Bill Clinton et al. In the mean time but for the Watergate imbroglio bringing in Carter the party would have been out of the White House for that entire time. These shifts take time, the incumbents want to return to the good old days and the ideologues do what ideologues always do push for even more ideological purity.

The Republicans may benefit electorally over the next few years from temporary exogenous events (severe economic recessions, terror attacks etc.) but will have to re-define a more moderate positioning in order to re-gain broad power.

The kerfuffle in the upstate NY 23rd district special election is a great metaphor. The district is solid red but the Republicans have split between a centrist and an ideologue (running as a 3rd party candidate) such that the Dem may win (understanding if the Dem does win next month, the Dem will likely lose next year in the next general election when he likely faces only one Republican).

From Josh Marshall at TPM:
"Michael Smerconish, the Philly-based radio talk show host, has a column in the Inquirer today arguing that the GOP needs to seriously restructure its primary system in order to have any hope of nominating a potentially winning candidate in 2012 as opposed to one that will appeal to the party's base and ideological purists. His suggestions include regional primaries, moving up the dates of some high-population swing states, giving more of a stay to New England or key Western states, even giving more power to party bosses who have an institutional/professional interest in winning in addition to ideological aspirations.

On its face, it all makes a decent amount of sense if your angle is getting more electable Republicans. What struck me more though is how the arguments could have been lifted almost verbatim from the same conversation going on among Democrats through the 1970s and 1980s. Almost word for word, with the exception of the West and Northeast possibly playing the role of the South for the Dems in decades past. That strikes me as the most revealing thing about it.