Broder's Alternate Reality

This year, Broder's vacationing in New Hampshire rather than Michigan. But it's still the same old crap.

I'll skip over the usual 'I talked to real people who see things just the same as I do' nonsense, and go directly to this gem:

Sununu, Norm Coleman in Minnesota and Gordon Smith in Oregon are three relatively young senators the GOP hopes can survive this difficult year and provide a base for the future. All three stress their independent credentials, while their opponents try to categorize them as Bush clones.

But somehow, even a veteran political reporter such as Broder is incapable of marshaling any evidence to indicate which story is closer to the truth. With a job that consists of writing two op-ed columns a week, you'd think he could look up some cloture votes on the Internet or something. I guess when you're as old as Broder, that's just too much work. (I'll try to do that later.)

But only in Broderland are these three "a base for the [GOP's] future." Even though these three only occasionally deviate from the party line, that's still too much deviation for them to be regarded as trustworthy. They're still the outliers who are tolerated because they're holding off the Democratic deluge - at least for now. But nobody in the GOP leadership sees these guys as the core of the party's future.

The Beltway pundits are in love with the idea of centrism, so they drool over the least evidence of moderate Republicans.

There aren't any. Get over it.