Can Republicans "win pure"?

With Dick Armey stumping in the district for Doug Hoffman today and Newt Gingrich taking up Dede Scozzafava’s banner, NY-23 has become the latest front in the Republican Party’s civil war.

It’s a civil war that has already driven out former GOP moderates such as New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (mostly over gun issues) and Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter (who faced a conservative primary challenge that he was unlikely to win).

The next casualties could easily be Dede Scozzafava and Doug Hoffman, whose blood-feud could send both to the runner-up circle.

This battle has raged from coast-to-coast, and across the airwaves and blogsites of the conservative movement. The arguments of the two sides go something like this:

Conservatives insist that it was a lack of ideological purity that allowed the Bush administration to wander so deep into the wilderness.

Overspending and fuzzy-thinking on immigration angered so many conservative voters that they sat out 2006 and 2008. When their “silent majority” went dormant, Democrats won big.

Moderates see this very differently. They’re convinced that most Americans really don’t want the hard-right conservative agenda.

They see the GOP brand as broken not by overspending and a willingness to compromise.

They think the problem lies with fire-breathers like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, who’ve ratcheted up the culture war to a fever pitch.

There are elements of truth to both narratives. A party has to stand for something.

And if the GOP becomes the “Democrats Lite” they have a hard time defining themselves and charting a course back to the majority.

On the other hand, there’s mounting evidence that in much of the U.S., the conservative agenda and its message carriers are complete turn-offs.

The latest ABC/Washington Post poll shows that only 20% of Americans describe themselves as Republicans.

That’s the lowest number since 1983, and more than a third below the support enjoyed by Democrats.

If there is a silent majority/town hall revolution waiting out there, hungry for a conservative resurgence, the pollsters aren’t finding them.

And demographic trends — more women voters, more immigrants, more people of color — suggest that the conservative dream may be harder and harder to reach every year.

The Republican-Conservative movement has always been a fragile thing, uniting groups with fairly disparate agendas.

Even when all the wings and factions were working in tandem, they often won elections by razor-thin margins.

But now there’s a civil war on.

While Democrats plug away at building voter enrollments, organizing get-out-the-vote efforts and bit TV campaigns, conservatives and Republicans are blasting at one-another.

It’s very hard to see how that’s a winning formula. But it’s also increasingly difficult to see how they put this back together again.

I hear real loathing from the two sides. Within the conservative movement, I hear far more animosity against Scozzafava and the Republican leadership than against Democrat Bill Owens.

And Scozzafava’s campaign has taken to marching outside Doug Hoffman’s headquarters.

A final footnote: I can’t make a public prediction now. That’s not kosher for a journalist covering the race. But I’m emailing my best guess to my colleague David Sommerstein.

After this is over, I’ll let you know if i was close…

You readers, on the other hand, don’t have to be coy. How do you think this plays out? Is this a Republican debacle, or will purity win out?