I agree completely with your assessment of the current situation.
If you look at the numbers, McCain is the solid favorite among the GOP voters everywhere outside the paleocon’s traditional strongholds in the Bible Belt. This strengthens your “marginalization” theory. The far right has been damaged by the ineffectiveness of the past 7 years of their anointed savior, and what we are witnessing, IMHO, are their final death throes. The extreme right wing of the party is becoming increasingly irrelevant; a large number of Republicans seem to want to return to what the party has traditionally stood for–fiscal responsibility and limited government. So the ERW has resorted to what they do best–lashing out. The problem is that they are lashing out against a fellow Republican, and this can only serve to damage the party even further–more damage than McCain could ever do.
And the Democrats (myself included) are loving every minute of it. So keep it up, extreme-righties–you’re playing right into our hands!
And to the moderate Pubs out there, a piece of advice: start talking louder than your ultra-right brethren and take control of the ship again before they sink you for a very long time.
As with the Iraqi insurgency, I wish I could believe that, but I’m afraid they’re too committed, too well-organized, and too well-funded to go gentle into the good night. Best-case scenario, they’ll become like the left wing (the really left wing – Socialists, Greens, etc.) in American politics has been since the 1940s – usually marginal, but occasionally (and sometimes decisively) resurgent.
Speaking as someone who is unquestionably a leftwing nutcase…
The Repubkican Party really fucked up. Staking their future on a dumbass like Dubya left them with almost no recourse. McCain isn’t an evil person, though he could certainly cause some evil. He’s unappealing, and as a standard bearer it’s gonna be iffy.
I want so much to leave the neocons crying.
A polite bow to the conservative Dopers, and I still disagree with you.
I’m actually a registered Republican! Has to do with state law regarding who can certify votes. And I want YOU yes YOU to vote dammit! I don’t care WHAT you vote, just get out and vote!
McCain would be happy if we stayed in Iraq for 100 years. No thanks. Does not work for me.
Like the Onion said when Bush got elected.; Thank god the times of peace and prosperity are finally over.
D.C., Maryland, Virginia, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York – seven states, and there were at least 4 or 5 more that he would have won with a majority instead of a plurality had there been 2 serious candidates still in instead of 3, as there were on the other side since before Super Tuesday.
I always vote Democrat as a matter of course, but I’m no Republican hater. I even like Bush! There are good and bad things about both parties, but in general I like the Democrats’ policies better overall. I’m just fine with Republicans in power, though; it’s never made one bit of difference in my life who was in office, even when I lived in the US.
For me in THIS particular case, I could never vote for someone in their 70s for president. That’s simply too old. I like feeling reasonably assured that a president wil live through two terms. Out of 300 million people, I do not believe that someone that old is the best that could be found.
People keep misquoting what McCain said. What he actually said was that he wouldn’t mind Americans being there for 100 years, if they were not taking any casualties. He then drew a direct comparison to the soldiers stationed in South Korea, Germany, and Okinawa. They’ve been there for over 60 years.
If Iraq became friendly with the U.S. and asked American troops to stay to protect them against countries like Iran, and the Americans were liked enough that they could live with the population, bring their families over, and help build ties to a country in a strategically critical part of the world, why on earth would you not be in favor of that?
Whether this is likely to happen is another question, but McCain was clearly commenting on this kind of a scenario.
Oh, so McCain was evading the issue by changing the subject to something that might happen in Fantasyland. That’s a huge improvement over what we all thought he said… :rolleyes:
While neither McCain nor Clinton expressed unwillingness to stampede behind the Bush administration into the Iraq war, it seems to me that between the two, McCain seems ever so slightly less likely to engage in yet another war for domestic political gain. On that basis, it is not inconceivable that McCain could be more attractive to me, and therefore entirely unattractive to the neocons.
I disagree that the screwed up. They got the Presidency, they got Congress. They got to implement the policies that wing has been pushing for for years. And it was a disaster.
And I know the true believers will say that if only Congress voted against sending money to their districts in order to cut spending everything would be okay.
Dubya appointed incompetents, but that was part of the Rove philosophy of stocking the government with loyal commisars ^h^h^h Republicans. That wasn’t a screw up either, that was intentional.
And I was a Republican for over 30 years before Bush and the crew sickened me so much I switched.
Voyager, my respect for being brave enough to change your mind. Now all you have to do is become insane, like me.
The long-term damage the neocons have inflicted on this country is indisputable. So yeah, they got that. My hope is that they’ve discredited themselves enough so that they’ll have to go into hibernation for a while.
For the OP: I think that the neocons have decided that the next presidential term will be a disaster, no matter WHO wins, and they’d rather a clear enemy (name your Democrat) gets to take credit for it.
