General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: In Steve Scalise's defense ... [View all]karynnj
(59,503 posts)not 2014 - that likely would not happen.
There is something to be said for politicians to speak to groups outside their own part of the party -- and you know that he is pretty far to the right as his recent comment that he spoke to all groups that asked him to -- even the League of Women Voters, which he characterized as a pretty liberal group.
I think this will blow over if there is nothing more than what has come out. What it may have done is to expose how much to the right the Republican party has floated -- but that has been obvious for some time. (In fact, the loss in the primary by Cantor, for being not right enough alone should have signaled that. )
On things like this, I have often tried to think of what I would think of a Democratic equivalent action -- here I can't. There is NO left wing group that I can think of that is clearly a hate group. The closest equivalent is then an extreme group that is demonized that is so extreme that a high level Democrat would worry about his/her reputation appearing before them to advocate for legislation that they are working on.