Well, this is no surprise:

A Quinnipiac University poll found Specter would defeat a conservative Republican who is in the race, Pat Toomey, if the election were held today by 53 percent to 33 percent.

But the picture was much closer if a popular former governor of Pennsylvania, Republican Tom Ridge, were to jump into the race.

The poll found Specter leading Ridge by only a margin of 46 percent to 43 percent.

So why is Ridge more competitive? He is, of course, a moderate Republican (see here for one example). One of those stinking RINOs the far right always growls about.

It is quite clear to everyone that the far right is out of favor with the electorate. The ‘true conservatives’ (as Sean Hannity calls himself, I did not make up the moniker) think the country is just waiting for their return to power. They could not be more wrong – from what I can see no one is shedding a single tear at their demise.

If conservatism is to arise from the ashes of the far right, it will have to be in the form of a more centrist conservative movement. It will be in the form of someone fresh and new who is a moderate reformer. Someone like Sarah Palin or Rudy Giuliani.

Update: Only fools on the right would take swipes at Governor Palin, who drew record crowds and owns the title of most watch Presidential-Vice Presidential debate in all history. She was the only person who could compete with Obama, and still the tired old GOP just cannot accept her as the new face of the party:

In the latest instance of a high-profile GOP member taking a passing swipe at the party’s 2008 vice-presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Governor and GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney jokingly dismissed Sarah Palin’s inclusion on Time’s list of influential people in an interview broadcast Sunday. 

He asked, was “the issue on the most beautiful people or the most influential people?”

Romney could not hold a candle to Palin on the stump, but there he goes with a demeaning comment insinuating she is all looks and no substance. How will this make inroads with the women’s vote? 

Palin, to her credit was much more classy:

“I think there are 100 influential Republicans alone who have tremendous ideas and I hope that we can all work together to accomplish what we believe is best for America,” Palin said through a spokeswoman.

Who better reflects the proud American family? No contest. The GOP is making a huge mistake by not embracing Palin, instead they are cowering in front of the viscious liberal media:

Romney’s comments were striking because such grumbling is rarely expressed in public by high-ranking Republicans. Instead, GOP officials typically strive to ignore Palin, routinely leaving her off lists of the party’s rising stars even though she still retains a significant following among grassroots conservatives and may run for president in 2012. 

The euphemistic mantra is that the party has to rebuild based on policy solutions – not the “personalities” the media insists on focusing their attention on.

Backstabbing Palin like this is why moderates and centrist bolted the conservative movement.

Update: The word is getting out – the purity wars are killing conservatism:

What makes no sense at all is the even more prevalent view in the party that fence-sitters such as Mr Specter should have been purged already – that the path back to power lies in ideological purity and a re-energised conservative base.

One thinks of the British Labour party’s reaction to Margaret Thatcher’s victory in 1979. Labour lost because it had not been socialist enough, was the party’s diagnosis: it needed to be truer to itself. Having forgotten how you win elections – namely, by occupying the middle ground – the party then lost its desire to win them. Better to be true to your principles and out of power than to compromise. True to its principles, it was out of power for nearly 20 years, and the Thatcher revolution transformed the country.

…

The party needs to frame practical, coherent, and above all centrist alternatives to what Mr Obama and his congressional allies are doing. Instead, it wants to shore up its base, chant its slogans and purge its moderates. You have to laugh. Yet this gleeful suicidal tendency is sad as well as funny. There is plenty of scope for calm, centrist criticism of Mr Obama’s bold progressive agenda. The country needs exactly this.

How long will it take the right to wake up to reality? Can they get their act together in a few months in order to stop the damage of the left, or will they screw around for 20 years avoiding reality?

Tags: 2010 election, Specter, Toomey