Jeff Merkley is on track to take Gordon Smith's seat in the Senate, probably by about 50,000 votes when all the dust settles. The Constitution Party candidate, Dave Brownlow, will finish with just over 80,000 votes. Those of you who don't live in a state where the Constitution Party rises above the pack of minor third party fringe-dwellers, here are some salient portions of their platform:

Return American jurisprudence to its Biblical foundations

Each person, born or unborn, is innocent until proven guilty to the satisfaction of a jury of his peers. Abortion is a crime against God, humanity, and the unborn child.

Medical treatment to preserve the life of the mother must always attempt to preserve the unborn.

All citizens not conscientiously opposed to it should be encouraged to be armed for the public safety, thereby facilitating the calling up the militia and the posse comitatus.

We repudiate the concept that [the Oregon National Guard] is an extension of the army of the United States to be used for the purpose of invading foreign jurisdictions or enforcing United Nations mandates, a concept that is doubly repugnant when no constitutionally declared war exists.

We demand that the national government make stemming the invasion of illegal aliens across our borders a top priority. We stand against the current practice of rewarding the offspring of such invaders with United States citizenship and the extension of tax payer funded benefits to such invaders and their families. English Is Our National Language.

We declare that nationhood involves a common culture and language, and we decry the subversion of our nation by multicultural and multilingual programs forced upon us at our expense.

Five-percent is a significant chunk of the electorate when the vote comes down to a 50-50 split between the top candidates. The Republicans made the choice to give these folks power, for short-term gain beginning back in the 1980's.

The Republican Party played these social extremists, just as it played the fiscal extremists of the Libertarian Party. And the end result effectively drove what passed for moderation out of the party. It's left with a mob of loud, angry one-issue voters who don't really agree on what that one issue should be and they are beginning to splinter into their own private groups.