cboas:

...But most importantly because any self respecting economicly minded republican will defect from his/her party when he/she sees that the religious right has officially executed a coup d'etat of rthe GOP.

I think this is wishful thinking--though there is precident: the southern democrats who abandoned the party after it was co-opted by the left wing. However, I know a lot of economically minded country-club republicans. My father, for one. And he would vote for Hitler were he the republican nominee. For example, when I challenged dad on the national endowment that the republicans wanted to axe, he would say, "don't worry, they'll never get that passed." There are a lot of republicans who don't buy every piece of wood in the party platform, but will support it nevertheless because of the issues that matter most to them.

And they have more in common with snake handlers like Huckabee than the radical lesbians who follow Hillary.