Time's Joe Klein: GOP Is An 'Extremist' 'Regional Southern Party'

The Republicans may have won huge victories in New Jersey and Virginia on Tuesday, but Time's Joe Klein still thinks the GOP is "an extremist shard of a party that is essentially a regional southern party in the country."

I guess the 66 and 60 percent of independents who voted for the Republican gubernatorial candidate in Virginia and New Jersey respectively on Tuesday are also part of this extremist regional southern party.

Alas, such facts didn't enter into the discussion on Sunday's "Reliable Sources" when Klein showed how one's political biases can easily trump logic (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript, relevant section at 4:18, file photo):

HOWARD KURTZ, HOST: All right. Joe Klein, political reporters love elections; it's part of what we do. But did this motley collection of races really have the huge national implications that some of these commentators were suggesting?

JOE KLEIN, TIME MAGAZINE: I mean, it was a sign, but actually, I was out of the country on Tuesday. That's how important I thought it was.

But I think that, you know, to go back to what Michael Medved just said, you know, it's not hard to keep all of your party in line when your party has become an extremist shard of a party that is essentially a regional southern party in the country and doesn't have broad appeal to the mass of Americans. And I think that that's...

KURTZ: But Joe, come back to the point...

KLEIN: And I think that that's the problem that Republicans are facing going forward. You know, you had two governors' races where you had Republicans who ran as moderates against dreary Democratic candidates, surprised they won. Up in New York, in that congressional race, you had an extremist attempt to take over the party there. And that extremist lost.

Well, at least Klein was honest about being out of the country Tuesday, as that quite explains how errant his opinions were five days later.