If the GOP dumps the Tea Party they consign themselves to permanent minority status for decades to come.

If they actually did dump the Tea Party, I would expect a de facto reunification within a few years, possibly under the official title of a new political party oh-so-coincidentally standing for the exact same things as today's Republicans.

Demographics may force the GOP to moderate a bit over the next few decades, but I doubt they would accelerate their own problems by deliberately abandoning a third of their base.

The Tea-Party is dominating the primaries, and with the changing demographics, that is where the insensitivity towards minorities is coming from. The real agenda of the Tea-Party is to punish the people that they view as not worthy. The espoused ideology is phoney. When the Republicans in the state houses gerry-mandered the districts to the extent that they did after the 2010 elections, they created a Frankenstein's monster.

The baggers if you ask me have always been there in the republican party. They were called the extreme religious right wing of the republican party. Then they were called the ring wing of the party. Then they were just conservative. Once the baggers started calling them selves baggers the so called republicans stared letting their racism and hate show more and more each year.

Nobody gives you a membership card. Nobody can kick anyone out of the R or D party. Nobody. Somebody on the internet can scream someone is a DINO or RINO but that is meaningless. They are who they say they are.

They will send their pennies, and they will pass along the wild email propaganda that is seeded on discussion boards...

will result in never winning an election again.

There is no difference.

Their numbers are shrinking.

And really I think the Tea Party is kind of the id of the Republican Party. They don't go that far but they're into it on some level.

The Tea party has jumped from Rubio to Cruz. This new branded, supposedly more inclusive Republican Party needs more Latinos and women to be competitive. Still they trot out the same characters as leaders and now they are attacking Cruz. For good reason, but still they are isolating him.

The Dixiecrats need GOP money....and the GOP needs their votes. So they have an alliance of circumstances, the GOP adopts their "conservative morals" and the Dixiecrats adopt the GOP business principals. Big business was fine with Washington not getting anything done as it meant Washington would not be interfering with them (their biggest fear after the financial meltdown).

The GOP has needed to moderate its stance for years and slowly wean off of the Dixiecrats...but they never did because they always voted Republican no matter what they did, proving themselves through thick and thin.

Now they attempted a coup on the GOP. If the GOP wants to survive, they have to sideline people like Crud...I mean Cruz and slowly start shoving them out the door when possible. At the same time, go after "Conservative Democrats". That means they will have to resign themselves to not winning major elections in the near future until they are completely rebuilt or Democrats get complacent...which ever comes first.

The Dixiecrats, need to find a way to take the party, they need to get huge donors on their side and massage their fears they wont do anything this stupid again and continue to let big business to be left alone (after they nearly derailed them with ideological purity). That remains to be seen, remember, these are bunker building, gun toting, apocalyptic wishers, etc. who have no fear of a world wide collapse and erroneously think they won't be affected because "they are prepared for it".

What's that Chinese curse? "May you live in interesting times".

Someone did course me with that.

But yeah baggers are this millennium's version of the good old Raygun Democrats/Dixiecrats which were just last millennium's version of the KKK.

The 1850's really needs to call the GOP and demand their Ideology back.