The Republican Party is at a real fork in the road. It is rare, in politics, to be able to see with absolute clarity such dividing points while they are happening, I should point out. Usually these things are analyzed after the fact, when conclusions can be drawn with certainty. But the GOP is now at such a point, and it faces two choices: absolute purity, or some shade or another of pragmatism ("the road less traveled," as it were, for Republicans these days).

In other words, does the party want the purest of the pure when it comes to ideology, or would it (perhaps) like to win some elections at some point in the future? Because make no mistake about it, that is the choice they now face. There is the Bobby Jindal / Sarah Palin path to the future, and there is the Charlie Crist / Arnold Schwarzenegger path to the future. The choice is theirs.

I actually waited to write this until now, because I wanted to hear Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal give his response to Barack Obama's "this is not a State of the Union" State of the Union speech. But this is not a comparison between President Obama's nice breath of reality (quite a change from most SOTU speeches, I have to say) and Bobby Jindal's... um... whatever that was. Nor is this a critique of Jindal's speech itself. I just wanted to give him a chance to prove my idea wrong before I wrote it down. I can now say with certainty, he did not prove me wrong. Quite the opposite.

Republicans, to put it bluntly, are in a tough spot. They have been soundly spanked in two consecutive elections, and 2010 is not looking all that great for them at this point. They are finally free of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, but as a result they currently have no identifiable "leader" of their party. There is the Republican congressional leadership, to be sure, but they are in a struggle with some of their own governors that has been increasingly playing out in the media.

With the perceived "leader of the party" spot wide open, an ideological struggle is taking place. On one side are the congressional Republicans and the governors who are pretty hard right. On the other side is a handful of people crying into the wind that the party has to change and be more accepting of differing ideas in order to grow: moderate congressional Republicans... all three of them... and the more pragmatic governors like Charlie Crist, Tim Pawlenty and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

As you can see, so far it's a pretty uneven balance. This is shown best in the party apparatus going after apostate Republicans with a vengeance and a fury usually reserved for Democrats and Lib-ruls. California is the best example of this, where six Republicans voted with Democrats to (finally!) pass a state budget, and were almost thrown out of the party as a result. The Senate leader was deposed by the party in the process, and the party just "censured" all six. They can all look forward to primary challenges from the right in the next election cycle, one would assume. On the national level, the same thing is playing out; Senators Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, and Arlen Specter were all threatened by the party organization that no campaign funds would come to them, and perhaps even primary challengers would attack them from the right.

This would all but guarantee the loss of these seats to Democrats, but this fact seems to have escaped the Republican party as a whole. If an ultra-right primary challenger managed to beat any one of these three in a primary, they would then go on to lose the general election in either Pennsylvania or Maine to the Democrat, because neither state is exactly a bastion of far-right Republicans.

This is what I mean about the choice between purity and electability. Republicans, it would seem, would be happier running a candidate who swore fealty to the Republican orthodoxy (and who would, in the end, lose) than they would running a candidate not as "pure," but who might have a chance of actually winning.

Oh, sure, House Republicans may have some safe, gerrymandered districts. They may not feel the necessity to change their ways at all. But they are the least relevant players in Washington right now. Senate Republicans (those up for re-election in 2010) may feel a little more pressure.

Into this fray walked Bobby Jindal tonight. His campaign speech... oh, pardon me... his rebuttal to Obama's speech (ahem) was about as devoid of anything smacking of Republican heresy as you could get. It was also devoid of any ideas we haven't been hearing from Republicans for the past two or three decades, to boot. He was a spokesman, in other words, for the "we're just not being Republican enough, dammit!" faction in the party. As such a spokesman, he probably did fairly well (not being a Republican orthodox myself, it's hard to draw the distinction). But as someone who can empathize with average Americans and offer some original solutions to the problems we face, he didn't do so well (at least in my admittedly biased opinion).

Contrast Jindal's campaign speech... sorry, I don't know why I keep doing that... Jindal's response to the president tonight with Charlie Crist, both on last week's Meet The Press, and throughout the whole stimulus package debate. Crist realized that Obama's plan would actually help his state's citizens. And he agreed with enough of it to support it. He even introduced Obama during a town hall meeting in Florida -- which is amazing when you stop to think about it.

Or contrast Jindal with what Arnold Schwarzenegger was quoted saying in the San Jose Mercury News today: "It's very important for the country that both parties pull together right now. We need to get the confidence of the people back. What's good for the party is not good for the people, and what's good for the people is not good for the party." He also responded earlier, when asked about his fellow Republican governors (including Jindal) who were turning down stimulus money for them to instead give it to California -- "we'll take it."

This is the difference between pragmatism and ideology. But Crist and Schwarzenegger seem to be the minority voices in their own party right now. And if their voices are buried under a sedimentary layer of Paleolithic conservatism, then the Republicans may have to lose another few elections before they start to wake up. Pure dyed-in-the-wool Republicans are going to have a tough row to hoe nationally, even as they joyously enthuse the Republican voter base. But their tent, to be frank, is going to get smaller following this path, not bigger.

The media has already anointed Bobby Jindal and Sarah Palin as the frontrunners of their party for a presidential run in 2012. It's not just the media, either, as the hopes of a lot of Republicans seem to hinge on one or the other of these two.

While running the risk of underestimating a future opponent, I have to say: is that the best you've got? Really? That's honestly the direction you want to head in? Wow.

-- Chris Weigant