Minn. GOP brings out the knives for moderates

Arne Carlson, Al Quie and David Durenberger are among those banished from the party. | AP Photo

By JAMES HOHMANN | 12/11/10
Politico.com

In a dramatic display of the new Republican order, Minnesota’s state GOP banished 18 prominent party members—including two former governors and a retired U.S. senator—as punishment for supporting a third-party candidate for governor.

The stunning purge, narrowly passed by the state Republican central committee last weekend, suggests more than just a fit of pique: by banning some of the state’s leading moderates, the Minnesota GOP moved toward extinguishing a dying species of Republican in one of its last habitats.

Those exiled warned that the measure, which bans the 18 from participating in party activities for two years and bars them from attending the 2012 Republican National Convention, may provoke a backlash that undercuts the party’s competitiveness in a state that’s voted for the GOP presidential nominee just once in the last half-century.

“The Republican Party is trying to become…you would call it introverted totalitarianism,” said former Congressman and Gov. Al Quie, a one-time vice-presidential prospect who plans to stick with the party despite the penalty. “It’s just plain dumb on their part…In the long run, if the party persists with this, they’re going to just become smaller and smaller and eventually something else would come in its place.

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