The way things are going, all Massa Katon has to do to wish out loud that Strom had won in 1948.

James Bopp, a Republican National Committee member who's been making loud noises about the party's need to get even more conservative to start winning again- in between representing anti-gay groups in California's courts - has set his hair on fire again, reports Ben Smith:

Dept. of guilt by association

The RNC Chair race continues to push the party organization toward it's conservative base, and the latest salvo comes from James Bopp Jr., a committeeman and conservative litigator from Indiana, who isn't committed to a candidate but doesn''t seem to be a fan of Michael Steele.

The hand-annotated, 13-page .pdf, emailed to RNC members, goes after Michael Steele for his association with two toxic parties: Former New Jersey Governor Christie Todd Whitman, who has called for a return to the center, and the Log Cabin Republicans the gay GOP group.

One of the quotes that's marked as, apparently, damning: "We have to elect moderates in our party."

The document also includes an email from one candidate, Saul Anuzis, to Bopp, noting that Steele has worked with the Log Cabin Republicans.

ALSO: Sam Stein reported another Bopp salvo yesterday.

(Wanna write all 168 members of the RNC? The pdf smith links has all their email addresses). Later today, Smith had some more:

Log Cabins at issue in RNC chair race

I noted earlier today that one of the candidates for chairman of the Republican National Committee, Saul Anuzis, had circulated news of gay support for one of his rivals, Michael Steele, to a prominent social conservative.

But soon after Anuzis used a gay Republican group's praise to tar Steele, an Anuzis aide pitched Anuzis to the group as a tolerant moderate, according to an email exchange I obtained this afternoon.

Last November Anuzis forwarded an email praising Steele from the Log Cabin Republicans, the gay GOP group, to James Bopp, Jr., a prominent social conservative and RNC member, under the heading, "You probably saw this..." Bopp then included the email in a packet of documents apparently intended to cast Steele as too "moderate" for the chairmanship.

A month later, on December 19, an Anuzis backer, Katie Packer, exchanged email with the president of the Log Cabin Republicans, Patrick Sammon.

Sammon sought a meeting with Anuzis, and Packer apologized that he was on vacation.

"I will pass your thoughts on to Saul," she wrote. "I think you will find him to be a very reasonable individual who does not seek to grow the party by dividing it."

Which is the sort of inclusive language that social conservatives have been using against Steele.

UPDATE: Anuzis emails that he "never attacked Steele over" the Log Cabin link, and forwarded the group's email to Bobb because "it came up in a general conversation, I said I had received a copy and forwarded it to Jim."

He said that Packer is not a paid consultant, though she's helping on his race.

"I have no knowledge of this email. I have never contacted this group, I have never had any correspondence with them, I have not sought their support nor have I ever talked to anyone from their group. So I have no idea what this could be about, but it was not at my request or authorization," he emailed.

Email exchange after the jump.

» Continue reading Log Cabins at issue in RNC chair race

Andrew Sullivan thinks the GOP leadership is punch-drunk and all they know to do is the same old same old:

Just a glimpse into the far-right psyche. The two biggest ticket items that have leaped into public consciousness discrediting parts of the stimulus package have been family planning and STD prevention. Both have been blaring Drudge headlines. Now, this is technical stuff and I don't doubt that there's merit to the case against portraying these as in some way necessary counter-cyclical emergency funding.

But why is it the GOP is so easily galvanized by sexual panic? Weird, if you ask me. This is the budget we're talking about here. Even there, they reach, like the exhausted tacticians they are, for the culture war. And it isn't reaching back.

Over at The Next Right posts have been a sort of Straight White Guy's version of Gay Patriot: Limbaugh/Hannity talking points and general whingeing (the party needs to change! the party does not need to change!)


Sad. We need vigorous debate on the merits when one party has a head of steam up. Parties that feel they have a mandate always overreach (Roosevelt post-1936; LBJ post '64; Nixon in '72). and they always get hammered at the next election. we don't need more electoral turmoil, we need legislators who can see beyond the next election cycle and ask, "What works?"