How much do the Akins, O'Donnells, Mourdochs, Angles rub off on voters?

[Oldiesfreak1854]

Ideological purity is the problem.  Republicans need to realize that half a loaf is better than no bread.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

And what I mean is, is this is what the GOP is perceived to be nationwide? Obviously democrats have put out their share of losers too, but it's embarrassing about some of these candidates and if the GOP is looking to win over young voters and minorities, these people are not the way to go. 

It potentially leaves the national image of, "I want absolutely nothing to do with the party that supports these people in the primary"

People like Akin are the reason why I switched from Republican to Independent, and ultimately from Independent to Democrat. They're terrifyingly anti-science, and terrifyingly anti-scientific progress. Nothing will destroy America faster than to reject science and green energy -- the most important industry of the 21st century by far -- wholesale.

Romney was largely able to escape the taint of these kinds of candidates, but certainly the tea party did far more harm than good for the GOP this cycle. If the tea partiers run similar candidates in 2014 that wind up embarrassing themselves and their party, then more and more voters are going to be turned off. It's absolutely killing them amongst young voters -- people who are likely to vote Democrat for the rest of their lives because of a brutally negative association with a GOP that is clearly using a 30-year-old playbook.

I'm conservative and I'm not anti-science or anti-scientific progress.  But Republicans have so alienated moderates over the past 20 years, especially with the rise of the Tea Party movement, that your story, is, unfortunately, very common.  I wish Republicans would realize that defeating Democrats is more important than ideological purity and that the victory of some of our policies is better than the defeat of all of them.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

Ideological purity is the problem.  Republicans need to realize that half a loaf is better than no bread.

The problem isn't even that the Republican base demands purity on every issue. It's that they demand extremism on every issue, and even worse, they can't even fathom the possibility that this might be turning off swing voters or motivating Democrats to turn out.

It's too bad that the don't realize that.  Even Bernie Goldberg, a conservative commentator, suggested on The O'Reilly Factor last night what a problem this is for Republicans.  He said that he doesn't really believe that America is a "center-right nation", and to be honest, I agree.  If anything, America is probably a center-left nation, but it's definitely more conservative than most of Europe.