Joe Schwarz knows how it feels to be fragged by his own political party.
Schwarz, the former congressman from Battle Creek, had his legs shot out from under him by the Republican Party's right wing, which decided his independence and occasional flirtation with moderate politics violated party doctrine and demanded excommunication.
Now Schwarz is watching as the GOP's self-righteous screechers try to hang a scarlet "L" around the neck of his good friend John McCain.
"The same gang that got me is going after him," says Schwarz, who lost his seat after just one term in 2006. "They are so intolerant and their minds so narrow that they can't see the damage their doing to their own party. They're not interested in getting candidates elected; they only want doctrinal purity."
The assault on McCain from conservative talk show hosts and the party's high priests continues even though it's inevitable now that the Arizona senator will be the GOP's nominee for president. If it keeps up, McCain will have to survive deadly assaults from both Republicans and Democrats to win the White House.
Schwarz calls the defamation campaign "irrational and absurd" and says the GOP risks becoming a pup tent party with room only for conformists.
"It's driving people like me out of the party," says Schwarz, now officially an independent. "And it is discouraging other people from coming in."
Character assassin Ann Coulter said again on the "Today" show Friday that she sees no difference between John McCain and Democratic co-frontrunner Sen. Hillary Clinton.
That's a nonsensical declaration. McCain has promised to make the Bush tax cuts permanent; Clinton says she'll revoke them. McCain says he'll let military conditions determine a troop withdrawal from Iraq; Clinton will be driven by political goals. McCain says he'll end earmarks and slash federal spending; Clinton offers dozens of new ideas for expanding the role of government.
And Coulter sees the two as the same person? How can she say that with her emaciated face straight?
What really bothers Coulter and crew about McCain is his independence, the same thing that galled them about Schwarz.
Both guys want to reserve the right to deviate from conservative orthodoxy when personal conscience or pragmatism dictates. "They don't like McCain because they can't control him," says Schwarz.
Schwarz differs from those who say McCain must offer the hard right an olive branch.
"In my experience, there's no making peace with them," he says. "They're so immersed in moral absolutism that there's no way to deal with them."
If there's no room in the Republican Party for free thinkers like McCain and Schwarz, the GOP is destined to become a shrinking sect. It'll keep its ideology intact, but not its influence.
To win in 1992, Bill Clinton had to convince the Democratic Party's pinkos that victory would only be found in the center. John McCain, to win in 2008, must force the GOP's right-wing nuts to the same reality.