What next for the GOP's shrinking tent?

Here's one conservative who thinks he knows: columnist Matt Barber.

Just like the Israelites "were made to wander aimlessly in the desert for 40 years," he writes in a column, "we find an improvident Republican Party lost in the political wilderness." Sounds about right. Where did they go wrong? Why, they became too leftist, of course:

In a “big tent” effort to be all things to all people, the GOP — charmed by a gaggle of “moderate” RINOs [..] — has taken a hard left, hustling along in exactly the wrong direction. As a result, that elusive Promised Land shrinks in the rearview mirror with every “centrist” capitulation.

Much of the party leadership has become emotionally addicted to the placebo of political pragmatism, swallowing the media-driven misconception that, to voters, ideological “moderation” is somehow the political gold standard.

It's people like Michael Steele mouthing "pro-abortion talking points" and sounding "like a spokesman for the “gay” activist Human Rights Campaign," obviously; it's talk like his that led the GOP to suffer "a largely self-inflicted electoral thumping at the ballot box."

You know, part of me really wants voices like Barber to win the debate in the GOP - let them scorn "moderation" in scare quotes; that should handily help the Democrats win a few elections more. But I don't know, they're pretty scary voices.