Despite his veneer of moderation and his avuncular manner, Huckabee is a very religious conservative who is very unlikely to appeal to non-fundamentalist Republicans.
And while Romney is urbane and polished, his Mormonism probably works against him (among non-Mormon fundamentalists, especially), as do his attempts to rally the base with standard Republican rhetoric. I mean, was there anything funnier in the Republican primaries than Romney deriding the Democrats as “Eastern elites”? That’s comedy gold right there: the multi-millionaire governor of Massachusetts complaining about Eastern elites.
It must have been hard to come out against Palin during the campaign; those who did surely considered that doing so meant exposing what are now obvious cracks in unity. Disagreements are easier to deal with when in power. Once booted out, recrimination should surprise no one.
Feasting on entrails, eh, maybe. This is standard TV fare. John McCain seems to have found the guts to run again.
I’m just strongly suspicious of Fox News changing its spots less than 24 hours after a crushing political defeat. And I would suggest that if they were truly patriotic, they would have felt obligated to reveal the scope of her brutal stupidity to the American public BEFORE they made their electoral choice. But no. Loyalty to the party trumps loyalty to country.
I agree that this says volumes about the Republican strategy. The factions are circling their wagons — separately! — and placing blame on each other.
One faction seems to be desperate to pin this on Palin’s incompetence — though not her policies. Another faction will no doubt declare that McCain was the wrong man for the job. Others have blamed Bush. Others have blamed the money imbalance. Importantly, most pro-McCain pundits are looking for a single, visible objection upon which all the blame can be heaped. It gives me hope that they’re trying to learn the wrong lesson from all of this.
So far I haven’t heard many Republican pundits give credit to Obama for being disciplined and inspirational and organized.
Yeah, I can understand a certain amount of schadenfreude, but there HAS TO BE a fiscally conservative party in this country, or things will go to hell in the other direction. I would very much like to see a turn toward the center for the Republican party. I thought McCain might be a harbinger of that, but then Palin sprang up. Honorable conservatism is quite possible.
One of the wrong lessons is "We need to be more conservative!" in the Sarah Palin fashion- and likely, the Huckabee fashion.
Going back to Reagan is wrong too, though a charismatic of that calibre will be required. IMO that's what R.R. was, a mouthpiece. But we aren't in the 1980s anymore.
Even if you leave Barack Obama out of it, there are an awful lot of Republicans that are sick of the last few years- I don't have the debate skills for it, but could pose that they were losing 2008 no matter what.
While lying to the American people all along about how “qualified” she is. These staffers basically outed the GOP for lying about Palin being the right choice. While I think it’s vile of McCain’s campaign to try to snow the American people, I can at least hope that now others will see them for the lying scumbags that they are.
Don’t worry, I’m fully aware of the Caribbean. I was referring to the countries in NAFTA, which was the question she apparently couldn’t answer. Didn’t make that clear. Also, I suppose it depends on your definition of North America. Some might include the Caribbean as part of Central America. Trinidad is pretty dang close to South America, for instance.
But they do need to be more conservative–for certain values of the word. They need to be more respectful of civil liberties and the Constitution; they need to be more fiscally responsible; and they need to place their loyalty to the nation above their loyalty to the country. They also need to learn to not give a crap which consenting adults are boinking other consenting aduts.
The right lessons would be to examine what Obama did well, compared to what McCain did poorly.
Obama’s campaign was disciplined, organized, and on-message; it had campaign offices in virtually every state, with millions of volunteers over a long period of time. Obama spent more time talking about himself, and talking to the voters in the middle class.
McCain’s campaign was erratic, disorganized, and jumped from topic to topic looking for something that would stick; it had virtually no ground game. McCain spent most of his time talking about Obama and hardly ever mentioned the middle class.
Obama forged a coalition; McCain fortified his base alone.
However, the lessons that the Republicans appear to be drawing are few: “We didn’t do anything wrong, it was all Bush’s fault” is a sure way to repeat the mistakes of the past.
I can’t believe I’m defending Fox News, but is it clear that he was told this stuff before the election? Newsweek knew, and didn’t come out either. If you are a reporter, and reveal stuff before the time you promised to wait to, you’ll never get told anything again.
Anyhow, the details are new but no voter with a modicum of brains should be surprised by the general drift of the comments. I called this long before the election. If the McCain staff had respected here, they wouldn’t have kept her far away from the national press.
I agree — but there’s no reason that fiscally responsible party can’t be the Democrats. It damned sure hasn’t been the Republicans of late. If they want to wear the crown of fiscal responsibility, they’ll have to prove it.
Just about every Republican commentator I’ve heard has given credit to Obama for his campaign, and said that they will learn from it. I have no doubt that they will change in the tactical sense.
As for Bush, they seem to be saying that it is tough to win with an unpopular president. If that is blame, so be it, but it is hardly controversial or disloyal. Even Bush knew that.
The interesting stuff is about whether Palin is the future of the party or a boat anchor. Her supporters would never, ever support someone with a hint of being pro-life or moderate. I’d guess a lot of her detractors are wondering what it would have been like with Lieberman or some other more centrist candidate. If Obama does well, and if the Palin faction wins, the Republicans are going to sink even further until they realize that they can’t win that way. The demographics are against them. Look at all the first time voters who are feeling really good about electing Obama. They’ll be back, and they won’t be voting for Republicans.
Remember 4 years ago when our Republican friends told us that Kerry shouldn’t attack Bush but be for something? I agree that McCain made exactly that mistake. I think a problem was that what he was for sounded very Bushian. The Rove strategy of attacking your opponent’s strength, in this case his popularity, didn’t work very well this year.
[continuing hijack]
Geography can be tricky and arbitrary. Some consider everything from Tierra del Fuego to that little island north of Greenland to be one continent- America. Political geography doesn’t always match physical geography- e.g. Turkey trying to join the EU. The distinction between Asia and Europe is based on tradition. File:Plates tect2 en.svg - Wikipedia
Well, Mike Duncan (RNC Chairman) credited Obama last night and then asserted that the campaign had received millions in illegal campaign contributions.
