GOP called "nearly deranged"

There was a great op-ed by Neal Gabler in the Boston Globe yesterday about how singularly out-of-step the Republicans have become:

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/09/12/the_extreme_republican_party

This piece says the Republicans - despite having once been a credible party - have become "nearly deranged" and "just plain nuts."

According to the article, that's the real danger. Since November, it's been my belief that the Republicans have become so extreme that they'll just keep losing support until they become a third party. But Gabler says the GOP will remain a major party, simply because its history makes it a major party by default.

So, by this theory, the Republicans will keep winning some elections - and the GOP's increasingly extreme ideas will be taken seriously.

That's possible, I suppose. Before 1994, I never would have thought some of the right-wing ideas that are now considered mainstream would ever be taken seriously, but here we are. Since the center of debate has moved to the right over the years, who knows where it'll stop?