Cornyn To Conservative Partisans: Slow Your Roll If You Want To Win

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), the man in charge of getting Republicans elected to the Senate next year, said yesterday that right-wing members of his party eager to enforce conservative purity need to "yield to reality" if they want to win seats in 2010.

In a Reuters story about the Delaware Senate race, where Cornyn and the NRSC are backing Rep. Mike Castle in his run for Vice President Biden's old Senate seat, Cornyn says that moderates like Castle are what the party needs to win in areas where the Democrats are strong. That flies in the face of the conservative-or-nothing strategy pushed by the Club For Growth and others in states like Florida and Pennsylvania.

Cornyn told Reuters:

Folks on the right, and frankly I'm one of them in terms of voting record, have to yield to the world as it is and not necessarily how they wish it would be.

In Delaware, Cornyn said, that reality is that a candidate more conservative than Castle simply can't win. And on a number of levels, Castle is exactly the kind of Republican conservative groups hate. He voted for the cap-and-trade bill in the House and told Reuters he faced boos when he dismissed birther conspiracy theories as nonsense. Castle says he expects to face more criticism from the right, but said the push for conservative purity will cost the GOP a governing coalition.

Castle, on the need for the GOP to "accept different points of view":

You can't be a majority party unless you are accommodating of that. Democrats have done a better job at that than we have.

Cornyn himself has faced right-wing criticism over his decision to back "reality-based" candidates like Castle in other races. The NRSC's early support for Gov. Charlie Crist in Florida was a rallying cry for conservatives backing Marco Rubio for the GOP Senate nomination. Cornyn backed off that endorsement and others in November, promising not to spend money on a specific candidate in contested GOP primaries.

In Florida, Democrats have welcomed the move, with supporters of Rep. Kendrick Meek (D) pointing to polls that suggest Rubio will be an easier opponent for Democrats in the moderate-leaning state.

Cornyn's comments about the importance of "reality" for conservatives eager to see a single-ideology GOP also differ from the views of RNC chair Michael Steele. Over the past few months, he's strived to tie the RNC to the tea party movement, acknowledging the tea partiers' anger at the GOP and promising to turn the party into the home for the movement's brand of ultra-conservatism.