Is the GOP in "auto-destruct" mode ?

Thanks to Talking Points Memo, we've got the news from the Washington Times that Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley will NOT be an official voting delegate to the Republican convention. This is unheard of. Senators are invariably given a delegate position at the national party convention. Generally they chair the delegation.

But apparently in Iowa a group known as the Christian Alliance has taken over the party and control the GOP executive committee. Senator Grassley is a "tax-cut" dogmatist. who rolled into Congress as part of the "Reagan Revolution" and staunch opponent of abortion rights, gun control, immigration reform - you name the "conservative issue and Grassley's on board.

There's one little wrinkle in Grassley's right-wing mantle however. He helped initiate investigations of a group of televangelists who were fleecing viewers and lining their personal pockets. Thus the ire of the "Christian Alliance" against conservative Senator Grassley. Normally, such an investigation would be considered legitimage oversight of "non-profit" organizations that enjoy tax exemption. To the Christian Alliance, apparently Grassley was violating the seperation of church and state by looking out for the interests of credulous "believers."

One wonders just how far the GOP can go in auto-destruct mode as the 2008 election season grinds on. This Iowa "ultra" wackiness might seem like an isolated example if the national McCain campaign itself wasn't a veritable three-ring circus of gaffes and failed messages. Actually, a campaign whose co-chair launches an attack on the electorate as "whiners" when asked about an increasingly sour economy with major structural problems in the financial sector - as one recent example - is more demolition derby than circus. For McCain this Iowa madness only underscores the fact that his position is so precarious he can't afford to alienate these GOP wingnuts, even as he struggles to calibrate an appeal to the "moderates" and independents that are his alleged "base." Since I've already sunk this paragraph with bad metaphors, I'll note that McCain is increasingly becoming that guy on the old Ed Sullivan Show who juggled spinning plates on the ends of sticks. That guy pulled it off for a couple of minutes to much applause. McCain's got three-and-a-half more months.

Bonus: Chris Bowers is cruel to McCain, here.