By way more than a mile:

The voter revolt ought to be a lesson to the GOP’s backroom boys, especially in New York state, where the old Al D’Amato insider club has led the party to irrelevance. GOP state chairman Joe Mondello, now thankfully retired, and Beltway bigs misjudged public dismay against the Democratic agenda in Washington. Nominating a candidate who “can win” in the Northeast does not have to mean someone whose voting record is more liberal on taxes and unions than that of most Blue Dog Democrats.

But that lesson will be for naught if conservatives conclude that their victory is reason to challenge any candidate who doesn’t agree with them on every issue. The truth is that some conservatives are as bloody-minded and intolerant of all dissent as the hard left is at the Daily Kos. A majority political party requires a far more diverse coalition than the audience for your average right-wing blogger or talk show host. Some of those voices prefer having Democrats in power because it drives up their own ratings.

Democrats did themselves no favors by driving Joe Lieberman out of their party, and conservatives will do their cause no good by forcing GOP candidates in Illinois, California and Connecticut to sound like Tom DeLay. If conservatives now revolt against every GOP candidate who disagrees with them on trade, immigration or abortion, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid will keep their majorities for a very long time.

Dems “did themselves no favors” by dumping Liebs, eh? Yeah, you can see that they’re really hurting, what with that whole controlling the entire government and driving us over the socialist cliff thing and all. To adopt a favorite phrase of we-must-out-Democrat-the-Democrats handwringers, it was political suicide!

Um. Not.

Joe is an honest, respectable opponent, a man whose singular integrity glittered like a jewel in the rancid Democrat Socialist sewer he hauled himself out of, but his departure quite clearly hasn’t hindered them any more than Zell Miller’s did. And as for the whole “big tent” argument, Limbaugh knows what that really ought to mean:

WALLACE: So do you think that the Republican Party — do you see it as a big-tent party or small-tent party?

RUSH: Big tent.

WALLACE: But — but you sound like you’re kind of saying to the moderates, the — particularly on social issues, “If we lose you, too bad.”

RUSH: Well, I look at — when I say big tent, I look at the United States of America, so I — I — I’m an American. I love this country. I want everybody in it to do well.

The conservative message is not, “OK, Hispanics, we have this plan for you. Women, we have this plan for you.” That’s what the Republican Party’s trying to do, and emulate group politics. And the history is that — you know, why be Democrat lite? Let them handle that.

Let’s go after the big tent that is the country, and let’s go get every person in this country — I don’t care what their race is, what their gender is, what their sexual orientation.

If they are told that there is somebody that’s going to lead this country or party that is actually going to strengthen them, give them the tools, get out of their way and let them make this country work, the Republican Party can attract a majority like they haven’t seen since the ’80s.

Egg-fucking-zackly. Instead of the divide, conquer, and rule strategy employed by the Dems, the Repubs ought to look away from separating Americans into various victim-beseecher-parasite classes of Wards O’ The State and say upfront what real Americans of every political persuasion already know: that “fair” for one means fair for all; that the yard markers on any truly level playing field are uniform and applicable to every player in the game, rather than being set up as obstacles to some and advantages to others; and that a government that properly respects individual rights and liberty should not and must not promote any one of those artificially-alienated groups at the expense of another.

The federal government is a malfunctioning juggernaut that is rapidly spinning out of control. To the extent that certain sectors of the GOP have enabled that, they need to be called to account for the coming disastrous crash. At the very least, their Dem-Lite depredations shouldn’t be encouraged one single step further by the party whose sole raison d’etre is supposed to be limited government and fiscal responsibility. Leave promoting socialism to the socialist party. An opposition that appeases instead of opposes has no reason to exist, and no right to expect support from those who still hew to the principles it has betrayed. Period.

Don’t worry about excluding or “purging” anyone; just enunciate those principles, stand by them, fight for them vigorously. If our founding principles are your principles, well, welcome aboard; if not, a party already exists that disdains, despises, and decries them, and you ought to feel right at home there. One such party is surely enough; there’s absolutely no need for a weak-tea version of the same shabby thing. Let the GOP show some integrity, show some backbone, show some honest commitment, and see how big that tent gets. I’d bet any money that the rapid expansion brought about by becoming a party that truly stands for something other than grubby, pandering, contra-Constitutional politics as usual would be stunning even to the RINO/DIABLO handwringers.

Update! The New Majority — ain’t.