Shorter Michael Steele: “Everyone’s welcome in the Republican Party, as long as you believe in exactly the same things we do.”

Here’s Michael Steele, via Balloon Juice:

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele appealed to the political middle Friday to join his party but added that the party itself wouldn’t moderate.

“All you moderates out there, y’all come. I mean, that’s the message,” Steele said at a news conference. “The message of this party is this is a big table for everyone to have a seat. I have a place setting with your name on the front.

“Understand that when you come into someone’s house, you’re not looking to change it. You come in because that’s the place you want to be.”

So, let me use what I hope will be a highly illustrative example of what M. Steele is saying here. Say you and your significant other are in mind to go out for dinner some Saturday night, and you really have in mind that you would like a nice filet mignon accompanied by a nice red wine, in a restaurant with a nice atmosphere and friendly waiters. It’s your anniversary, after all, and you have had your fill of fast food over, say, the last eight years. So, here comes Michael Steele. He owns the local Taco Bell. He tells you that you can come on in, you really should, this is a great restaurant. You can’t imagine how wonderful it really is. Just don’t ask for filet mignon with red wine, because he doesn’t have it and he isn’t going to be pandering to any potential customers who might not want a taco full of melty processed cheesefood, so don’t even bother asking. He’s telling you that you REALLY want a taco! There are lots and lots of people who like tacos, and you should really be one of them. Screw that whole filet mignon thing.

Now, with much less snark and minus the Taco Bell analogy, here is Maha discussing the exact same issue.

In many ways, IMO, the Republican Party is acting like an apocalyptic cult — a small number of true believers waiting for some Big Cataclysmic Event that’s going to change everything, to their advantage. For that reason, present reality doesn’t interest them, because present reality is just a temporary aberration (which it may be, but not in the way they think). Thus, movement conservatives brush off opinion polls that show their positions to be wildly unpopular. They don’t need to worry about election losses, shrinking party membership, an aging political base, or senior senators who jump ship. They don’t need to change with the times. They’ll be vindicated when the Mother Ship arrives. You’ll see.

And they must truly believe in the Event, because they’re betting everything on it. In 2000 they still were shrewd enough to market Dubya as a moderate — a “compassionate conservative” who liked to be photographed surrounded by smiling black children. Now they aren’t even pretending to make adjustments to political reality.

Well said. I think I like my Taco Bell analogy better, tho.

GOPasaur from Daily Kos.