The Land That Republicans Forgot

By CHARLES M. BLOW
NYT

Colin Powell, one of the few Republicans with enough fire in his belly to stand up to his party’s extremists, said earlier this week in Boston: “Rush Limbaugh says, ‘Get out of the Republican Party.’ Dick Cheney says, ‘He’s already out.’ I may be out of their version of the Republican Party, but there’s another version of the Republican Party waiting to emerge once again.” Give ’em hell, Powell!

It was apropos that Powell delivered this rebuke in the Northeast since that’s where “their version” of the party is facing its most daunting challenges.

In 1984, Ronald Reagan won every Northeastern state. Since then, the leadership of the G.O.P. has systematically shed its idealists in favor of ideologues, reducing itself to the current Cheney-Limbaugh illusionati whose strategy is to exploit faith and ignorance by fanning fear and hatred.

But, Northeasterners are not so easily duped. Voters there tend to be wealthier, better educated, less religious and more progressive than those in other regions.

(More here.)