The Republican Party has been forever tainted and morally enfeebled by its longtime embrace of the corporate-bigot alliance called the Southern Strategy, to the point where it’s not only all but impossible for most Republicans to talk sensibly about racial issues, it’s fast becoming impossible for Republicans to associate with groups most Americans know to be good, honorable forces for truth and justice.

Today’s case in point: Dan McGrath, Executive Director of the deep-pocketed conservative turkey-farm-posing-as-think-tank called “Minnesota Majority”, goes into full-on froth-at-the-mouth attack mode against several of the most respected institutions in America today, the League of Women Voters, the ACLU, Common Cause, and the NAACP, tagging them with language such as “radical”, “breathless”, and even “anti-integrity” — which is particularly hilarious given that, as his history shows, Dan McGrath is not known for possessing much integrity.

This in itself isn’t all that noteworthy; Republicans attacking honorable groups like the NAACP are all too easy to find nowadays. What is, however, noteworthy, is that Dan McGrath, by launching such an ill-considered attack, is also indirectly attacking a target in his own Republican party: David Senjem, the new Senate Majority Leader now that Amy “Hester Prynne” Koch was forced to step down.

It turns out, ladies and gentlemen, that David Senjem has been a member of the NAACP for nearly twenty years.

Really and truly. Check out his bio, courtesy of the Rochester, Minnesota Post-Bulletin; the reference to his NAACP membership (reproduced above) is on page four.

I wonder how Dave Senjem, who unlike Dan McGrath seems to have some integrity, can stomach associating with such people as McGrath, who up until he lucked into his cushy conservative-welfare gig with Minnesota Majority was best known as being the manager for profoundly nutty Sue Jeffers’ 2006 gubernatorial campaign. Does Senjem hope against hope that the crazies like McGrath will burn themselves out and allow the adults like Senjem to take the wheel once more?