A Republican operative tells us that if the Republican National Committee ends up passing the so-called “purity” resolution – which would cut off party support for candidate that violate three or or more out of ten key conservative policy positions — it’s unlikely that party campaign committees will actually abide by it.
“The litmus test puts too little emphasis on people’s most pressing concerns of spending and taxes and therefore cannot be considered an effective tool to fully judge a candidate,” the source said. “Because of this, its doubtful this will be a major factor in candidate support.”
The resolution officially calls for cutting off support for candidates from the Republican National Committee. But another important question with this resolution is whether the party’s other campaign committees — such as the NRCC and the NRSC, among others — would obey the edict to exclude candidates who don’t measure up. As far as this one GOP operative says, probably not.
The resolution, officially called “Proposed RNC Resolution on Reagan’s Unity Principle for Support of Candidates,” comes in the wake of a conservative revolt in the NY-23 special election, in which moderate GOP nominee Dede Scozzafava was forced out of the race by right-wing activists and politicians, who instead favored third-party Conservative Doug Hoffman. Scozzafava then endorsed Democrat Bill Owens, who won the election.
“The goal of the resolution is to take a position … towards reclaiming the Republican Party’s conservative bona fides,” RNC member James Bopp, the author of the resolution, told NBC News. Bopp also explained that a goal of the resolution is to “demonstrate that we are open to diverse views,” but also that “you have to agree with us most of the time.”
