# Extremists Have Utterly Ruined the GOP: Time for a Multi-Party System **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 4, 2009, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremists-have-utterly-ruined-the-gop-time-for-a-multi-party-system/512525 "2009-10-04T06:37:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2009, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremists-have-utterly-ruined-the-gop-time-for-a-multi-party-system/512525/61 "2009-10-15T15:58:48Z")
> [@bri1600bv](#): > > Their goal is to win elections and if current polls are correct, they will be doing pretty well. What polls are these? ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2009, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremists-have-utterly-ruined-the-gop-time-for-a-multi-party-system/512525/62 "2009-10-15T16:14:25Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Someone, like McCain, with whom the party’s base isn’t that thrilled. An idiot. Totally agree. 🙂 > [@](#): > > So what? McCain needed that to rally the base. They flubbed by picking a lightweight from the right rather than someone with some intellectual heft. Again, that’s a tactical mistake, not any indication of the the GOP going off the deep end. Not any more than saying the Dems are doomed because they had another presidential candidate with a sex scandal. Palin is a flash in the pan, working her 15 minutes of fame for what it’s worth. She won’t ever be a significant player on the national election scene. So, which intellectual heavyweights would have appealed to the loonies? There were a bunch of Republican women mentioned, but they were all way too far to the left for the Kristol Krowd. Palin’s choice was clearly a tactical mistake, but it also demonstrated the power of the radical right, who somehow convinced McCain that he could win against a moderate Dem by moving to the right. I don’t ever remember a VP choice being dictated to a candidate this way, unless you consider Cheney picking himself as that. How did McCain interview her? Any reasonable discussion should have revealed her ignorance pretty quickly. Either McCain never brought her qualifications up, in which case I wouldn’t want him doing interviews to fill a janitor’s position, or he didn’t care because he was not going to be able to reject her. I favor the latter explanation. Forcing an unacceptable candidate on the nominee because of ideological purity is going off the deep end in my book. If a wing of the Democratic party forced Kucinich on Obama, I think we could day the Dems were going off the deep end also. (And he is far more qualified than Palin.) But I hope you are right about her 15 minutes of fame. You are more of an optimist than I. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2009, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremists-have-utterly-ruined-the-gop-time-for-a-multi-party-system/512525/63 "2009-10-16T02:50:00Z")
ITT: **Sam Stone** from the comfort of a UHC country wants Americans to be denied healthcare. Come down, here, with a pre-existing condition, and say that buddy. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/extremists-have-utterly-ruined-the-gop-time-for-a-multi-party-system/512525.md?page=3)