Yesterday I posted about E.J. Dionne’s piece called “the End of Conservatism?” Steve posted at Crooks and Liars an entry that falls along the same lines. Now we learn of even more Republicans leaving their party because they feel their is no room for moderates.

OKLAHOMA CITY — Republican state Sen. Nancy Riley, complaining there is no room in her party for moderates, switched to the Democratic Party Thursday and threw a new obstacle at GOP hopes of taking control of the Senate for the first time in state history.

Riley, flanked by a half dozen Democratic Senate leaders, announced her change in party allegiance while criticizing Senate Republicans for what she said was their “lack of compassion for people” and for ignoring her and other political moderates.

“The moderate Republican has been pushed aside for the extreme right wing,” Riley said. Riley, a member of the Senate’s GOP leadership team who holds the title of minority whip, said she has received no support among Republicans in the state Senate.

“The treatment I received in the last legislative session was abhorrent,” she said, adding that her focus in the Senate has been “on families, children and the average Oklahoman.”

“I was totally disregarded,” Riley said. “The moderate Republican no longer has a voice.”

She said her shabby treatment was in part because she is a woman

It is no secret that the country has made a shift to the right since the 1980s. We once had liberal wings in both parties. Now we only have a liberal wing in the Democratic party and the word liberal has been demonized. While I do not like this shift, it does have a silver lining. That silver lining is that America now sees what agendas of extreme conservatism will do to her. The American people and the politicians who truly care about America and what she stands for realize this danger and are working to change our course.

We may be in dire times in our nation, but we are starting to see the curve ahead and our nation could once again be back on the road to being great. To get around that curve we still need people to get out to vote and put the breaks on the conservative movement that is plaguing our democracy.