Maine's GOP: A 'wack job' Tea Party takeover?

Republican delegates in this moderate state have unexpectedly adopted a party platform full of "fringe" ideas and "conspiracy theories." What does it mean?

What will the Tea Party coup in Maine mean for the future of the state?
(Image credit: Getty)

At the convention of Maine's traditionally moderate Republican Party, delegates surprised nearly everyone by approving an unorthodox Tea Party–friendly platform instead of the policies endorsed by state GOP leaders. The new platform, described by ex-state GOP attorney Dan Billings as "wack job pablum" and "nutcase stuff," calls for abolishing the Federal Reserve and Department of Education, adopting "Austrian economics," and fighting "efforts to create a one world government." What does this Tea Party takeover mean for Maine's GOP? (Watch Maine's delegates vote for the new platform)

Republicans will pay for this: This alliance of Tea Partiers and "Ron Paulbot" libertarians is "a nightmare" for the Maine GOP, says Rick Moran at The Moderate Voice. At their best, Tea Partiers could emerge as a "vital" voice demanding "fiscal sanity." But when "paranoid loons" succeed in taking over the GOP, as they did in Maine, "failure is the real outcome."

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