LIBERADIO(!)

Steve Benen at the Washington Monthly reached for his calculator and found the truth, even after the Dodd and Dorgan announcements, Republicans have more incumbents retiring than Democrats in both the House and Senate:

In the House, 14 GOP incumbents have decided not to seek re-election, while 10 Democratic incumbents have made the same announcement. It seems that the truth is that it’s the Republicans and not the Democrats who are “dropping like flies.”

In the Senate, six Republican incumbents have decided not to seek re-election, while two Democratic incumbents have made the same announcement.

But that’s not all. More Republican than Democratic Governors who could seek re-election aren’t:

Among governors, several incumbents in both parties are term-limited and prevented from running again, but only three Democrats who can seek re-election — Parkinson in Kansas, Doyle in Wisconsin, and Ritter in Colorado — have chosen not to. For Republicans, the number is four — Douglas in Vermont, Rell in Connecticut, Crist in Florida, and Pawlenty in Minnesota. (Update: the GOP number is five if we include Palin in Alaska.)

ABC/The Note should be embarrassed for being so easily led around by Republican spinmeisters.

So what’s the real story? Rational Conservatives are being forced out of their party by the extremists who, by the way, take their orders from the talk-radio wing of the party. Most recently it was the Republican Party of Florida Chairman Jim Greer who was chased out of his party by the crazy, intolerant tea-partiers:

“As you know, there is a great debate in our party on the direction, moderates vs. conservatives, whether we should have a big tent or a small tent…And while I have made it my utmost concern to try and keep those arguments and discontents out of the Republican Party of Florida, over the last six months there has been a very vocal group within our party that has become very active in seeking an effort to oust me as chairman….They have, as they say, thrown everything up against the wall as they possibly can, to either embarrass me or embarrass the Republican Party of Florida…They simply have two goals in mind, and if the first one fails, fall back to the second one…And the first one is remove me as chairman, and if that doesn’t work, burn the house down and destroy the Republican Party of Florida

Republican GOP Chairman Michael Steele has called the schism “overrated,” which is surely an admission that it’s not. And if I didn’t already know that the radical conservative tea-partiers are her people (see her many appearances on Fox News but esp. this one), I could almost believe that in this political climate Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn has been given an ultimatum – either participate in the craziness in Nashville in February or get out of the way.

By the way, did you know that Congresswoman Blackburn has a challenger?