Brock: GOP Purity Vs. Pragmatism

The RNC gathering, held in January in Hawaii, had real promise for solving the conservative identity crisis. One delegate proposed a 10-point litmus test to separate the conservative wheat from liberal riffraff. The questions were pretty predictable, including the holy trinity of guns, gays and government. (The correct answers, for those of you scoring at home, are “yes,” “no,” and “no.”) Any GOP candidate who incorrectly interpreted more than two of the 10 fatwas would have been denied funding by the RNC. Voila! A loyalty test directly tied to campaign cash. It was a brilliant idea, masterfully framed, but it had a fatal flaw. Any candidate who passed the test would be perceived, and rightly so, as an ideological zombie marching in formation with the Far-out Right. So the muscular litmus test was withdrawn/William Brock, Moscow-Pullman Daily News. More here .

Question: If your party had a litmus test for members, based on the ideals of its true believers, could you pass the test?