-----So are we to assume that Whitman et al are an insignificant entitity (sic)?----
Hopefully, yes.
What Whitman doesn't get is that what she says sounds plausable in theory, but in reality does the opposite.
Her people drive the faithful (real conservatives) out of the party & attract none of the Dems that she thinks they will. What she fails to understand about Dems is that party loyalty supersedes personal good sense. They ain't comin' over, regardless.
Example: A friend of mine was going totally ballistic last year. Howard Dean on steroids. I posed a hypothetical question to him: "What if Bush were to wholeheartedly endorse every liberal cause you favor, and disavow every conservative principle you dislike?"
His response? "I hate the SOB no matter what; I'm never voting Republican".
"I hate the SOB no matter what; I'm never voting Republican".They hate George W. Bush so much because he looks, acts, and talks like most of America.
They are not the "I hate Bush party", they are the "I hate America" party.
Ms. Whitman, Arnold, Rudy and the rest should take the Democratic party back from the kooks. Then we could return to a serious, and civil, debate on social issues.