Page 27 - Purity Test News Today

Him. im favorably disposed toward him, because of his fiscal prudence. but, chris, hes not going to pass a gop purity test. you know, there was an interesting issue recently that he had to make a determination on. its this trend among employers to say in want ads, the unemployed need not apply. and chris christie passed into law in new jersey a ban of that kind of advertising, that became the first in the country. and the free market poouurists e of a mind-set that people ought to be able to run...

But, chris, hes not going to pass a gop purity test. you know, there was an interesting issue recently that he had to make a determination on. its this trend among employers to say in want ads, the unemployed need not apply. and chris christie passed into law in new jersey a ban of that kind of advertising, that became the first in the country. and the free market purists were of a mindset that people ought to be able to run their business as they see fit with little guidance from uncle sam. to ...

Allow planned parenthood to be defunded in any way. thats where they really drew the line in the sand telling speaker boehner it would not occur. speaker boehner said okay. i have to take this back to my conference. he brought it back to his conference and really it was approved mainly because a lot of republicans who i spoke to including one republican senator whos fairly conservative said we did not want to look like we were going to put the country through an ideological purity test in order ...

Peeker boehner was able to do it because a lot of the older republicans, especially a few i talked to -- he spoke to one republican senator who was speaking about the house saying, look, we do not want to get into a idealogical purity test on a spending issue. it will look bad if government shuts down over something contentious as abortion where people fall on the left or the right. theres not a lot of middle ground there. there is a few more billion dollars in terms of spending cuts. an interes...

Senator, who is quite conservative. and he said to me, look, it is time that we stopped trying to apply this ideological purity test in terms of a budget fight, for social issues in term of a budget fight because it will come back to bite us. another gop aide very involved in the budget negotiations said if we keep going down this road on a social issue, we will get burned, quote/unquote. and joe biden actually said in the negotiations, we found this out in the background briefing last night, wh...

Has dragged the political center to the point where dwight eisenhower would be denounced as a socialist now, ronald reagan wouldnt even pass a purity test, that process is still very much in tact. on the right, things are working sort of the way they always have, if not faster. but heading into last nights state of the union address, the question was would president obama continue to change republicans to the right? there are two ways to approach this, right? there are two ways to claim the 92% ...

>> reporter: absolutely, monica. a fabulous leave-d-in by the producers. back and forth boxing match. its receiving a lot of attention on the "today" show, front page of the "washington post." its showing the ideological divide in the republican party. charlie crist was seen by a moderate by many, invited president obama down and embraced him for stimulus funds. that turned out to be the kiss of death. someone you thought in 06 and 08 would do well has not passed this purity test. its three-way,...

Remain a republic republican. what does it say about the current state of the gop? >> they are still having a struggle. inside every party that is not in power, there is always a struggle. there is always an identity crisis. the identity crisis here is, do we remain true blue, have this purity test? do we get back to all the conservative values and push away those people that dont agree on everything or are we going to have a big tent moderate. charlie crist the was the fave. i was talking to ou...

Implemented at the end of the day. >> you have a lot of experience with labor groups and you are close to the input on this bill all year. they at certain points drew lines in the sand that some of them ended up crossing and some of them have like marcos decided they want to get in the primary business and in the business of challenging democrats over their stance on this particular bill. are you comfortable with that strategy with what could be described maybe as a purity test over one vote on ...

All year. they certainly drew points in the sand that some of them ended up crossing, and some of them have, markos decided they want to get in the business of challenging democrats over their stance on this bill. are you comfortable with that strategy, what could be described maybe as a purity test over one vote on one bill that should decide who is the liberal and who isnt the liberal, and thats what you should mount your challenge on? >> lawrence, youre absolutely right. the labor movement pl...