Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Detonator]

And The Miami Herald has a good overview of the warring ideologies:

South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, the head of the most conservative faction of Senate Republicans, said the Democratic election gains vindicated his hard-edged call for a return to the Reaganite roots of limited government and low taxes.

"We have got to clean up, reform and rebuild before we can ask the American people to trust us again," DeMint said. "This election reflects a failure of Republicans to keep their conservative promises."

It's the old "We'll DIG our way out of this hole!" strategy.

I'm not sure what other viable options they have.  They certainly don't want to become "Democrats-Lite" as we see how well that worked for the Dems in 2000-2004.  As long as the return to their roots ignores the crazy religious minority, it might be successful.

Of course the economic turmoil is working against any sort of legitimacy they had in that regard, but it's still possible for them to form a viable alternative after some time.  The problem is a lack of fresh blood in the ranks, and not many new people want to join the sinking ship.  If they suffer more losses in Congress in 2010, maybe there will be a split, but that depends a lot on the circumstances of that time.  We'll just have to see.

[Thad]

I'm not sure what other viable options they have.  They certainly don't want to become "Democrats-Lite" as we see how well that worked for the Dems in 2000-2004.  As long as the return to their roots ignores the crazy religious minority, it might be successful.

A fair point, and actually the next part where he talks about how the bailout is a massive insult to fiscal conservatism is on the mark.

However, Jim DeMint is NOT just a fiscal conservative.  PBS:

He has opposed all forms of abortion, gay marriage and created controversy earlier in the campaign when he said openly gay individuals and single mothers should not teach in public schools.

He's not advocating ignoring the crazy religious minority, he IS the crazy religious minority.

[Brentai]

The problem is that the Republican party, in theory, have the advantage in two important areas: economy and security.  This is where they ought to have considerable strength, since the opposition's specialties - social programs, progress, foofy-ass stuff like that - are a mixed bag at best, while having a strong economy and strong army are 100% gud.

Where it all collapses is that niggling little thing called the truth: the Republican Party of today absolutely sucks on the things they're running on.  They've a demonstrated tendency to fuck the economy - not just recently, but pretty much starting with Reagan, who more or less kicked the GOP into the gear it's been stuck in ever since, bless his rotting heart - and it's starting set in on people's minds that Republican terms are not exactly remembered as peaceful.  I mean, which of these things are not like the other: Iran-Contra, Operation Desert Storm, Monica Lewinski, and 9/11?

FUN FACT: Not 100% related, but found on Wikipedia while skimming through the Desert Storm article.

In 1992, the United States Secretary of Defense during the war, Dick Cheney, made the same point:
"I would guess if we had gone in there, I would still have forces in Baghdad today. We'd be running the country. We would not have been able to get everybody out and bring everybody home. And the final point that I think needs to be made is this question of casualties. I don't think you could have done all of that without significant additional U.S. casualties, and while everybody was tremendously impressed with the low cost of the (1991) conflict, for the 146 Americans who were killed in action and for their families, it wasn't a cheap war. And the question in my mind is, how many additional American casualties is Saddam (Hussein) worth? And the answer is, not that damned many. So, I think we got it right, both when we decided to expel him from Kuwait, but also when the President made the decision that we'd achieved our objectives and we were not going to go get bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq."

I'm now convinced that anybody nominated to run for an Executive Branch position in the GOP is immediately killed and replaced with a Bizarro clone.


Apparently at one point they wanted to run MJ...

[Thad]

Right.  September, when the media narrative abruptly changed from "lipstick on a pig" to "HOLY FUCK OUR ECONOMY IS TANKING", was a reminder that reality eventually catches up.

Another thing I've noted is that people don't vote based on abstract concepts, they vote on concrete, immediate things.  Republicans have advantages on the visceral front -- terrorists want to kill you, you are paying people on welfare not to work, foreigners are stealing your jobs.  Democrats respond to these claims with nuance, and most people don't want nuance, they go with their gut.

But with the economy in the shitter, the worm has turned.  The Democrats are the ones who now have the advantage of gut politics: you're losing money, it's the fault of the Republicans, you deserve a tax cut and the richest people in the country don't.

Obama's a master at this -- McCain still polled ahead of him on foreign policy when all was said and done, but his "We need to get out of Iraq and refocus on Afghanistan" was a message most Americans can get behind.

Nuance is absolutely necessary for competent governance, but it's not a good way to win elections.

[Guild]

you deserve a tax cut and the richest people in the country don't.

I would not call that the nuanced response. It's hipocrisy.

i like candy

[Kazz]

I think the message of this election was clear: America is tired of being terrified.

The Republicans can't shake the boogieman at the American electorate and expect votes to come their way anymore.  Obama's message of hope was a lot more attractive.  It helped that Obama could safely blame the GOP for Everything Wrong With America.

If Obama's presidency is successful, then we've witnessed the last days of the Atwater doctrine.  If any of a thousand things goes wrong, we'll probably go back to electing the craziest motherfucker in town.

[Bal]

he Republicans can't shake the boogieman at the American electorate and expect more than 48% of the vote.

They didn't exactly get overwhelmed in this election, it just looks that way on our stupid Electoral maps.

[Kazz]

California is going to rampage through the west there.  Blue is probably well on its way to another card set, too.

[Bal]

Depending on the route California takes, Texas could prove troublesome

[Arc]

They didn't exactly get overwhelmed in this election, it just looks that way on our stupid Electoral maps.

A loss of six Senate seats (possibly nine) and twenty House seats (possibly twenty-two), right after mid-term losses of six Senate seats and thirty-one House seats. 2010 is shaping up to be an even larger bloodbath.

Granted, 58 million voted for McCain, but the margins weren't high enough in the correct areas. Technically speaking, they were overwhelmed on every front.

[Kashan]

6% is a very solid win in the popular vote. And 52% is the highest majority we've had since Bush Senior.

[Brentai]

Due entirely to lack of attractive third parties, mind.  It's a wide enough lead that you could never have blamed a loss on Nader though.  Perot maybe.

Either way, Obama won the popular vote by 6 points.  Clinton won by 8 in 1996, and that was considered a landslide.  And this time we're not talking about a popular incumbent.

[Thad]

I think the message of this election was clear: America is tired of being terrified.

The Republicans can't shake the boogieman at the American electorate and expect votes to come their way anymore.  Obama's message of hope was a lot more attractive.

Nice sentiment, but bullshit.

[Kazz]

I think what we see there is the part of America that loves being terrified, and the part that is scared of those people.  I'm not sure that's the same thing.

[Thad]

Of course there's a difference between rational and irrational fear.

But they're both still fear.

[sei]

Naturally, each side believes the other's irrational.

[Thad]

True.  But all signs point to the side that believes the Earth is more than 10,000 years old being right.

[Thad]

NYT: G.O.P. Needs to Change, Pawlenty Tells Governors

“[W]e cannot compete, and prevail, as a majority governing party if we have a significant deficit, as we do, with women, where we have a large deficit with Hispanics, where we have a large deficit with African-American voters, where we have a large deficit with people of modest incomes and modest financial circumstances. Those are not factors that make up a formula for success going forward.”

[Kazz]

Easy.

White males get two votes from now on!

[Arc]

Four if you own land, yo.