By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: May 16, 2010

Utah Republicans have denied Robert Bennett, a very conservative three-term
senator, a place on the ballot, because he's not conservative enough. In Maine,
party activists have pushed through a platform calling for, among other things,
abolishing both the Federal Reserve and the Department of Education. And it's
becoming ever more apparent that real power within the G.O.P. rests with the
ranting talk-show hosts.

News organizations have taken notice: suddenly, the takeover of the Republican
Party by right-wing extremists has become a story (although many reporters seem
determined to pretend that something equivalent is happening to the Democrats.
It isn't.) But why is this happening? And in particular, why is it happening
now?

The right's answer, of course, is that it's about outrage over President
Obama's "socialist" policies -- like his health care plan, which
is, um, more
or less identical to the plan Mitt Romney enacted in Massachusetts. Many on the
left argue, instead, that it's about race, the shock of having a black man in
the White House -- and there's surely something to that.

But I'd like to offer two alternative hypotheses: First, Republican extremism
was there all along -- what's changed is the willingness of the news media to
acknowledge it. Second, to the extent that the power of the party's extremists
really is on the rise, it's the economy, stupid. 

http://tinyurl.com/ELEPHANT-TREME

ENJOY!!!

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