For the past several years, Republican elites have treated the moderates, upon whom their majority depended, as the deformed cousins of their movement. ~David Brooks, The New York Times

There are a few problems with Brooks’ column that I’ll get to momentarily, but I definitely agree with Ramesh Ponnuru when he writes:

He doesn’t really make the case that this lack of appreciation has actually shrunk the party: If Chris Shays loses, it won’t be because conservatives deserted him. And nobody yet has come up with an example where the Club for Growth has cost Republicans a seat.

But the loopiest part of the column is Brooks’s description of Rep. Deborah Pryce as “bright and effective.” 0 for 2, I’d say, and her colleagues are likely to boot her out of the House Republican leadership even if she holds her seat.

It is also the case that Rep. Pryce is being dragged down by a combination of the Foley effect and the general Ohio loathing of the GOP at the moment.  DeWine suffers from the same taint of being a Republican in a state where that is equivalent to being considered corrupt; personally, he is well-liked, but is taking the heat for general discontent about the state of the local economy and a backlash against the state party.  For a good example of official party attitudes towards moderates and, indeed, liberal Republicans, we need only remember the prominent support given to Specter and Chafee over Toomey and Laffey respectively (admittedly as part of a routine defense of all incumbents against challengers) and consider how the NRCC actively meddled in the contest for the Republican nomination in the open AZ-8 against the restrictionist Randy Graf (they have since pulled all money out from AZ-8 because they deemed Graf “unelectable,” but clearly they never had any intention of supporting him after he won the primary).  Whether or not these were possibly wise or defensible moves, they were very clearly also moves favourable to the “moderates” in the party and hardly represent a party bent on driving them into the wilderness.  If anything, conservatives have reason to feel much more aggrieved in each instance (and it is partly because of such grievances that Santorum is set to lose in Pennsylvania).

It is true that disparaging RINOs has been good fun among conservatives and talk show hosts, but this label has usually gone to those Northeastern Republicans, such as Chafee or Jeffords before he went independent, who are frequently voting with the other party on any number of issues unrelated to the agenda of social conservatives.  Many “moderates” are what you would call “fiscal conservatives, but social liberals,” and they have quite a few representatives in the party, but with someone such as Chafee you have a senator who doesn’t even always share the others’ fiscal conservatism necessarily.     

On a tangential note, if there is any danger of Club for Growth at least significantly weakening a Republican candidate, the best example would probably be NE-3 where his association with the Club and the Club’s anti-subsidy position has hurt Adrian Smith and provided a narrow opening for his more-than-competent novice challenger Scott Kleeb.  Republican advantages are so strong in this district that it will probably not flip to the other side, but the Club’s message does not resonate terribly well in Nebraska and could bring down a Republican candidate in a less secure rural district.