The Limbaugh Test
Rush Limbaugh is telling his listeners, with some urgency, that 2 of the candidates for the Republican nomination - McCain and Huckabee - are simply unacceptable to his version of the conservative movement:

“I’m here to tell you, if either of these two guys get the nomination, it’s going to destroy the Republican Party, it’s going to change it forever, be the end of it.”

He can't be too thrilled then with the latest national primary polls that show those 2 battling for the lead. Take, for instance, the last CBS poll (pdf) of "Republican primary voters" taken Jan. 9-12.

McCain 33
Huckabee 18
Giuliani 10
Romney 8
Thompson 8
Paul 6

As you can see, those 2 unacceptable Republican candidates are polling at 51% -- if we include Ron Paul, who presumably also fails the Limbaugh test, that makes 57% of GOP voters actively choosing candidates who would "destroy the Republican Party." Only 26% are choosing one of the others he would find acceptable. Given the dwindling Republican Party identifiers these days, that's quite the marginalization of Limbaugh-style wingnuttia. What is 30% of 30%, anyway? Whatever it is, that would seem to be the remaining size of the pro-torture, anti-immigration, anti-environment contingent in America today. Better yet, that low number represents the odds today that Rush has of avoiding his GOP doomsday.

Just thought you might like that bit of good news on a Wednesday. Democrats have a tough choice these days, but the Republicans are cracking at the seams. Since they will likely eventually pull themselves together one way or another, we should enjoy this meltdown while it lasts.