Arlen Specter squeaked by paleoconservative Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania's GOP Senate primary last night.

I can't believe that any respectable Democrat thinks this is a good thing. Specter's reelection is now inevitable; centrists and even liberals often vote for him, frequently after pulling the lever for a Democrat elsewhere on the ballot, while Toomey is the Fox News/talk radio dream candidate and has no crossover appeal. There was at least a chance for a Democratic pickup here -- now there's none.

Before the results were in, Matthew Yglesias said we Democrats shouldn't root for Toomey:

... the country needs two non-psychotic parties expressing different visions of the national interest, not one party for crazy people and another one for the rest of us. A Toomey victory will put the rest of the GOP legislative caucus on notice that any deviation from the prevailing madness will be punished swiftly and harshly.

Odd to see him channeling Peggy Noonan:

One wishes the Democrats well if for no other reason than the Republican Party will be at its best only when it faces a worthy and vital competitor.

OK, that's harsh, and what Noonan says isn't exactly analogous. But Yglesias doesn't seem to realize that we already have one extremist, narrow-minded, pig-headed, stridently ideological party -- it tolerates its moderates because they help provide legislative majorities, and because they provide the illusion of diversity of thought, but it marginalizes those moderates.

Remember the original Bush Cabinet? It had prominent moderates such as Powell, Whitman, and O'Neill, but it was overwhelmingly conservative -- and then the moderates' ideas were ignored, when they weren't being openly derided. O'Neill and Whitman were driven from office. Powell remains as a fig leaf for extremist policies.

That's the modern GOP in microcosm.

There weren't enough moderate Republicans to block Bush's tax cuts, or even limit them if deficits got out of control (this was Paul O'Neill's proposal, backed by Alan Greenspan -- a Republican idea, from the moderate wing, and it went down to defeat). Moderate Republicans aren't joining with Democrats to block extremist Bush judicial nominees. In 1993 and 1994, "blue dog" Democrats blocked major portions of Clinton's agenda; GOP moderates do nothing like that. GOP moderates just enable GOP extremists.

I want the GOP to look as extreme as it is. I wanted a Toomey victory because it would have helped make swing voters aware of what the GOP really stands for, something they might not really get if they don't listen to Rush or watch Fox. A lot of these people still think Bush is a "compassionate conservative." They need to know the truth; this was an opportunity for them to learn it.