When are the republicans going to take back their party?

The larger message from these political events is hard to ignore. If you are a Republican officeholder, what is the incentive to risk crossing the Tea Party or the Koch brothers? Is there any reason to consider political compromise or conciliation with Democrats, knowing that to do so means tempting a Tea Party challenge and millions of dollars in out-of-state cash being used to end your political career? The smart move for Republicans, indeed the only move, is to stay on the "right" side of the political fence. While this lesson has been hammered into the heads of Republican politicians over the last two election cycles, it is also evident on the presidential level. When Mitt Romney first ran for elected office in Massachusetts in 1994, he cast himself as a relatively centrist, technocratic businessman. He took more moderate positions on divisive social issues such as abortion and in a year in which Republicans had the political momentum at their back assiduously avoided being linked to Newt Gingrich and the national party.

When he ran for governor of Massachusetts in 2002, he strayed only marginally from those positions, continuing to stress his pro-choice bona fides and even adopted a position on gun control that ran counter to the powerful National Rifle Association. As late as 2008, when he first ran for president, Romney was prone to tout his one major domestic policy initiative – healthcare reform.

Those were the days. As the Republicans have moved consistently further to the right Romney has followed the crowd, adopting increasingly strident political positions. This was true throughout the Republican primary season as Romney, facing off against a motley collection of Tea Party-approved also-rans, was forced to take stances on immigration, government spending, taxes, abortion and a host of other issues favoured by the party's most conservative members but that left him vulnerable to Democratic counterattack.