Who is the Republican Party now?

Who is the Republican Party now? That is a very real question. Some would say it has been completely captured by the extreme right wing, best exemplified by the Tea Party Crowd.

Campaigning in Arizona with John McCain for his tough senatorial reelection, Sarah Palin commented that his crowd were all Tea Partiers. He seemed happy for her to bestow that on him.

Mitt Romney, in order to stay relevant as a GOP candidate, has had to denounce the health care reform bill as "government takeover" that must be repealed, even though it bears striking resemblance to the bill he defended and signed into law in 2006 as governor of Massachusetts.

New Gingrich, always quick to jump in front of a parade and pretend to be leading it, has tried to capture the outrage factor by declaring that the health care bill is "the biggest threat to the American way of life since the 1850s."

Newt used to be a history professor, so he must know. But whose "American way of life" was threatened in 1850? Slaves? or Slave-owning plantation owners? I presume in 2010 the slaves and the uninsured are the insurance companies are the slave owners. Still want to stick with that analogy, Newt?

And then there was House Minority Leader John Boehner, in his final comments before voting against the bill, shouting "Hell, NO!!" and calling it "Armageddon."

There literally seems to be no one even remotely on the scene who might become a standard bearer for the more moderate Republicans that we used to disagree with, but still respect. They are either silent, out of politics altogether, or they have sold their souls.

Look what happened to David Frum when he criticized the Republican Party. Fired by the American Enterprise Institute, denounced and demeanded by his former colleagues.

They seem to be putting all their energy on continuing to mislead the American people into thinking this is a very bad thing for them. They keep citing polls that show "the American people don't want this." But they mistake what the "this" is. The "this" that no one wants is the lies that they have told us of what the bill actually says.

As Obama keeps saying, he wouldn't want it either if all he know about it was what the Republicans say about it. But when people are polled about the actual parts of the package, they do favor it.

Of course, in politics, it's all in how you spin it and who controls the spin. And Republicans know how to do spin. Our only hope is that truth trumps spin. So we have to make sure the truth doesn't get shouted down by the very loud opposition spin machine.

Ralph