GOP Purity Test Is a 'Suicide Pact'

Just when things start going in Republicans' favor, along comes the idiotic idea of forcing candidates to take a purity test, complains Kathleen Parker. This is no test—it's a "suicide pact." The idea is to withhold party support from candidates who fail to sign on to 10 so-called principles. It's going to do nothing but scare away independents and moderates who were just beginning to sniff around the party again.

"The problem is that many conservatives have lost faith in the ability of Republican leaders to think," writes Parker in the Washington Post. "The resolutions aren't so much statements of principle as dogmatic responses to complex issues that may, occasionally, require more than a Sharpie check in a little square." (More Republicans stories.)