Pejman Yousefzadeh

Winners can afford to purge the allegedly ideologically impure from their ranks. Losers can’t. Losers need to expand their base, have a bigger tent, and attract as many people to come inside that tent as possible.

So, like Krauthammer, I am puzzled by CPAC’s decision to not invite Chris Christie to its upcoming conference. Now, it has been suggested to me on Twitter that perhaps Christie really didn’t want to be invited; he is in a blue state and might not be able to afford to get too close to conservatives, lest he endanger his chances for re-election. I can understand that. But if this was a CPAC-inspired move that was designed to punish Christie, then I can only shake my head at those who seem to think that alienating potential allies will somehow help their side win elections.