GOP defector says party is 'out of touch'

[dogday]

Voters want more than tax cuts, says Rep. Rodney Tom

OLYMPIA -- State Rep. Rodney Tom recently bailed out of the Republican Party, saying a rightward-drifting GOP has no room for progressives and moderates.

The Democrats are all too happy to agree with Tom, and see him as the poster child for Democrats making inroads in the changing battleground districts around Seattle.

But Republicans say that's all hogwash, and that today's party isn't the hard-right preserve of religious conservatives that it was a decade ago, when backers of Pat Robertson and Ellen Craswell took over. If anything, Republicans tolerate broader diversity of thought today than the Democrats do, state GOP Chairwoman Diane Tebelius said.

Still, an influential group of "raging moderates," the Mainstream Republicans of Washington, said Tom, a former board member, makes some unsettling accusations that the party must hear.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/266902_gammons17.html

[Bake]

1. No, today's "party" is WORSE than ten years ago

Hogwash, my ass.

I hope hope hope hope hope he's right, that the Pukes ARE in fact out of touch with the mainstream in America. If not, our problem is even more serious than we think.

Bake