BooMan23 must have been taking his psychic pills when he asked is there any "possibility that the Republican Party will crack-up and go the way of the Whig Party" last Tuesday.
Today, in almost identical language, GOPosaur hero Mike Huckabee asked the same thing. He just came at the question from a slightly different angle.
"Throw the social conservatives the pro-life, pro-family people overboard and the Republican party will be as irrelevant as the Whigs,"
It gets better
"They'll basically be a party of gray-haired old men sitting around the country club puffing cigars, sipping brandy and wondering whatever happened to the country. That will be the end of the party,"
Today the GOP is not a party of gray-haired old men in country clubs. It's a party of gray-haired old men in country clubs and salivating wing-nuts dialing into Rush and Sean on the AM radio.
Coalition Math
The great success of the GOP since 1980 was putting together an improbable, unstable coalition of "conservative" groups. Social conservatives who love guns and God. National Greatness conservatives who want to throw some shitty little country against the wall every now and then "just to show the world we can". Neo-cons who think we can do a better job managing a global empire than the Brits did and 4 or 5 other strains who normally would be at each other's throats.
Now this coalition has exploded and the GOP faces an insurmountable, mathimatical problem. There remains no possible combination of "conservative" factions which adds up to 50.1% of the voting population.
Huck is 1/2 right
If they throw out the social conservatives, the GOP will be as irrelevent as the Whigs. But if they don't toss the Holy-rollers, they're still going to be remembered as the 21st century's Whigs.
Damned if you do. Damned if you don't.
I think I love Meghan McCain
I sometimes wonder what the world would be like if Meghan McCain and Steve Schmidt really were the future of the Republican Party. McCain certainly has been saying some sensible things lately.
What would it be like to live in a two party system where one party wasn't insane? I like some of the things Republicans of old had to say and even have a well thumbed copy of Barry Goldwater's "The Conscience of a Conservative". Except for the scary nuke stuff, Goldwater had some interesting things to say.
So what if the GOPosaurs could promote those ideas without having to bow to the 7th Century wing of their party?
If that actually happened, I might start voting GOP. But I'm betting it never will.