Much has been written and said about the ability of Barack Obama to “attract Independents”, and how that translates into good news for his electability in November. But no one ever mentions that there is a huge difference between “Independents” and “Moderates”. Independents, as defined by the exits polls, are all over the map in terms of ideology, and include not just people who are “moderates” (that is, those who think that Democrats are too liberal and Republicans too conservative), but also “third” parties (Greens, Libertarians), individuals who are disaffected from the political system, and those on the ideological fringes who think the Democrats and Republicans are too “centrist.”

Everyone should always call it "Murdoch's WSJ" just so we don't forget. Subscription only but I'll fair-use some of it for you here.

But polling data confirm business support for Republicans is eroding.
In the Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll in September, 37% of
professionals and managers identify themselves as Republican or leaning Republican, down from 44% three years ago.

Richard Clinch, a 69-year-old New York native, illustrates the party's plight. The retired Westinghouse manager and mechanical engineer says he has been "a lifelong Republican." As a young fiscal conservative, he was attracted by the party's reputation for frugal and competent governance, he says. The Democratic Party left him cold, he says, because of its social spending and ties to the unions that exasperated him at work. As a retiree in Annapolis, Md., he became a local
Republican officer.

Yet next year, for the first time since he began voting in 1960, Mr. Clinch won't support the Republican presidential nominee, he says. He only "very reluctantly" voted for Mr. Bush's re-election in 2004. "Like many Republicans, I am frustrated," he says. "We've lost control of spending," and the administration's execution of the Iraq war has been "incompetent." Mr. Clinch says he is liberal about rights for women and gays, and vexed that "we [Republicans] get sidetracked on these issues like gay marriage."

Looks like Harold Mayer's been reading the blogosphere. Smart man:

Chafee and Maine's Olympia Snowe and such deathbed converts to moderation as Ohio's Mike DeWine are seeking reelection to the Senate by claiming that they represent a Republicanism less rabid than the Bush-Rove strain. They point to individual votes in which they broke with the president and flouted the party line. But those votes have been negated a hundred times over by their votes to make Bill Frist the majority leader, just as they would be negated when the new Senate takes office in 2007 if the moderates backed any Republican unwilling to make a fundamental break with Bush and Bushism.

As the blogosphere has been shouting at the top of its digital lungs since at least 2002.

Making the Shrill into BCW is hard work! But come on in, Harold! Join the party: