Scozzafava Maddow Interview: Purging Party Of Independent Thinkers Leads To Minority Status

Last night, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow interviewed Dede Scozzafava, the GOP congressional candidate (New York-23) who was ousted from the race by conservatives for not being ideologically pure enough. Conservatives celebrated the ouster of Scozzafava as a step towards the goal of ridding the GOP of so-called RINOs (Republicans In Name Only), but Scozzafava warned that this type of purging would ultimately lead to a minority party:

I don't think it's good for the health of our party. Any party that just tries to purge members that might have any sort of independent thinking I think will eventually will run itself into very much of a minority status. I think any sort of party has to be willing to solve the problems. And in order to solve problems you have to look at thing sometimes differently, and you do have to drive towards some sort of consensus building. Otherwise you have ideology that's really not based on any sort of substance that can move an agenda forward that can really help people in this country.

Scozzafava ended up endorsing the Democratic candidate over the conservative party candidate because she "needed to endorse the candidate that I thought would best look out to represent the constituents that I currently represent in the state assembly. There are real differences in the two campaigns. Not only in the tones of the two campaigns but also philosophically."

Scozzafava says she has no plans to leave the Republican party.

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