There are many ways to lose a presidential election. John McCain is losing in a way that threatens to take the entire Republican Party down with him.
A year ago, the Arizona senator's team made a crucial strategic decision. McCain would run on his (impressive) personal biography. On policy, he'd hew mostly to conservative orthodoxy, with a few deviations -- most notably, his support for legalization for illegal immigrants. But this strategy wasn't yielding results in the general election. So in August, McCain tried a bold new gambit: He would reach out to independents and women with an exciting and unexpected vice presidential choice.
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The GOP today has the vestige of the New England Yankee Republicans, a small coterie of Midwestern conservative Republicans, led by the OH Tafts, and the IL Dirksen, and the Rocky Mountain Republicans, with the LDS in Utah and Goldwater in AZ. Then, of course there are the misnomered "social conservatives and religious right" which are nothing but bigots, racists and dominionist theocrats.
It's rare that an American has the opportunity to act gallantly for his country, above and beyond the call of duty, so many times in one lifetime. If McCain truly does take down the entire Republican Party with him, then he has doubled down on his heroism. If the Republican glub glub comes true, consideration for Mt. Rushmore would be in order.
"We need a message change that frankly acknowledges that the Democrats are probably going to win the White House -- and that warns of the dangers of one-party, left-wing government."
Frum was on Colbert last week (I think) saying the same thing. I don't remember what Colbert said in response, but i don't think he let Frum get away with it.
I actually agree with some of what Frum says, in a very general way; the underlying problem is not that the Democrats will wield a terrifying power bloc in the WH, Senate and Congress. In general, Democratic policies tend to benefit a wider swath of people than Republican ones, so that's not really all that scary.
The kernel of truth that Frum seems to want to ignore is that the Republican political philosophy, as interpreted by the neo-con wing, offers the American people nothing. It's morally bankrupt; its theories have proven not not work; and ultimately, as America has proven itself to be more of a liberal country than conservative, it's becoming more and more outdated.
Unless an until the Republican party drastically restructures itself and purges its radical evangelical and neo-con hijackers, it's doomed to wander in the wilderness for the forseeable future.
It's amazing that the only card the Republicans ever have in their deck is the fear card.
Obama is foreign
Obama is socialist
Obama is communist
Obama is against free speech
Obama is a terrorist
Obama is a baby killer
Obama is taking away your guns
No matter what their attacks are they have the same thing in common. The reason the Republicans have zero issues that will bring progress to America.
People forget that Republicans decried the dangers of getting rid of the fairness doctrine because they complained the media was too liberal at the time. Now when Republicans know that cable TV and news radio is far slanted to the right so they are crying about not bringing it back.
I think it's too late for the fairness doctrine and it's a mute point with the advent of the internet that has added fairness to the nation discussion. But under the fairness doctrine you cannot argue that we had a much more robust media and non-polarized nation.
I keep hearing a lot of comments concerned that the Republicans are going to try and steal the election. What I keep thinking is if the Republicans were that good at stealing elections, why did they lose so many congressional elections in 2006. They lost three very close U.S. Senate elections (Montana, Missouri, Virginia) and I'm sure there were quite a few others. My point is, I'm a little paranoid, too, because I think there are crazies within the GOP that cannot accept losing, but it seems like the Republicans' main tactic to steal elections is through voter suppression and names being taken off voters' rolls. We can fight this by voting early.