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[Thad]

I guess the question now is whether the rest of the party will follow suit.

Right.  They sure didn't with Giuliani.

[Brentai]

I'ma need to hear to context for the whole "doesn't know Africa is a continent" story.  People slip up and call Africa a country all the time, even the ones who are in a position where they ought to be more careful.  If someone had to actually inform her of the difference, that's a story.

The "refused help from campaign staff on how to deal with the media and then blaming them for it going to hell" part is completely in line with what we know about her, though.

[Thad]

...Given that she allegedly couldn't name all the countries in North America, the Africa part doesn't seem like a stretch at all.

But this is still Fox News.  Just because they're eating their own doesn't mean they're not still full of shit.

[TA]

...Given that she allegedly couldn't name all the countries in North America, the Africa part doesn't seem like a stretch at all.

But this is still Fox News.  Just because they're eating their own doesn't mean they're not still full of shit.

It wasn't that she couldn't name all the countries in North America.  Shit, there's 41 countries in North America.  I'd be genuinely surprised if anyone on any ticket could rattle them all off off the top of their heads, and wouldn't really expect them to.

No, she couldn't name the countries in NAFTA.

[Cthulhu-chan]

there's 41 countries in North America

wat   

[TA]

there's 41 countries in North America

wat  

Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, Canada, the Cayman Islands, Clipperton Island, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Greenland, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Martinique, Mexico, Montserrat, Navassa Island, the Netherlands Antilles, Nicaragua, Panama, Puerto Rico, Sant Barthelemy, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Martin, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, the Turks and Caicos Islands, the United States, and the US Virgin Islands.

If you count weird semi-independent shit as part of their overseeing nation, like counting Puerto Rico as part of the US, then there's still 23 seperate nations, and then France, the Netherlands, the UK, and Denmark all have bits in North America.

By comparison, NAFTA has three signatory nations.  The US, Canada, and Mexico.  That's not hard to fucking remember.

[SCD]

Technically, the divide between North and South America is the Canal, while NAFTA defines north America as us Gringos, Eskimos, and that one crazy lazy nation of sombrero-loving, time-share scamming, bull-skewing nuts down south.  


But TA, while I'm impressed that you can count from 1 to 41 on a Wikipedia table (See article:  North America), you fail to understand that several Carribean states are not sovergn.  In fact, I'm kind of bamboozled that you weren't able to pick out Puerto Rico from the list.


Also, understand that both your colonies and the British Colonies in the Carribean still have executive control from the host nation.  Where here the string has been cut in all but decorative ceremony, the semi-independent states can still be run like puppets if they have to. 

edit:  Oh, she couldn't count the NAFTA countries..

Dumb americans..

[Royal☭]

there's 41 countries in North America

wat  

Turns out, there's land below Mexico.

[Disposable Ninja]

... South America.

[Royal☭]

You're fucking crazy man.  What next, East and West America?

[Zaratustra]

 

 

[Thad]

I'm seeing a lot more ink on the Palin allegations, but -- (deep breath) -- Palin's right: I haven't seen a single person willing to put his name on this stuff.  Anonymous staffers trying to shift the blame off themselves are not a reliable source.

Which is not, of course, to say that Palin's not a big, big part of why McCain lost.

Meanwhile: Blunt's out as minority whip.

[Arc]

I'ma need to hear to context for the whole "doesn't know Africa is a continent" story.

Her aides discovered that she wasn't aware that South Africa was actually a country, and then further deduced she didn't know Africa itself was a continent. The first half is totally believable, the second half questionable on account of her nutball voodoo priest and all.

That said, throwing her under the bus clearly ranks as the most patriotic action the McCain campaign can take credit for. I'm still reeling from the prank call... Fuck!

[Brentai]

...except the McCain campaign is responsible for her in the first place.  This is just adding way more fuel to the "did you have any idea what you were doing when you picked her?" fire.

[Guild]

Palin's right:

omglol

[Thad]

Rasmussen shows Republicans love love LOVE Palin:

Sixty-nine percent (69%) of Republican voters say Alaska Governor Sarah Palin helped John McCain’s bid for the presidency, even as news reports surface that some McCain staffers think she was a liability.

Only 20% of GOP voters say Palin hurt the party’s ticket, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Six percent (6%) say she had no impact, and five percent (5%) are undecided.

Ninety-one percent (91%) of Republicans have a favorable view of Palin, including 65% who say their view is Very Favorable. Only eight percent (8%) have an unfavorable view of her, including three percent (3%) Very Unfavorable.

When asked to choose among some of the GOP’s top names for their choice for the party’s 2012 presidential nominee, 64% say Palin. The next closest contenders are two former governors and unsuccessful challengers for the presidential nomination this year -- Mike Huckabee of Arkansas with 12% support and Mitt Romney of Massachusetts with 11%.

I'm disinclined to believe the polls.  Problem number one is, people who voted Obama aren't likely to self-identify as Republicans to a pollster.  Problem two is the Eleventh Commandment; they're not going to blame her for their party's loss just in case she DOES end up as the nominee four years down the road.  As for her being the top pick for the nomination, let's be honest: most voters don't remember who ran in the primaries; Palin's name is fresher in their minds.

But I'm sure some of the people surveyed are just dumb.

[Arc]

Speaking with Republicans after the election, I've found that they're highly aware she rallied the base, yet blissfully unaware that her unfavorables polled higher than her favorables.

[Thad]

Well, I suppose by definition anyone who voted for her was willing to overlook her glaring faults.

I still don't see her making it through the '12 primaries.  I don't even have to know who else is running to predict she'll get eaten alive in the debates.

[Brentai]

She has four years to train.  All it takes is one good montage.

one good montage

one good montage

one good montage

[Thad]

More on the schism:

A Politico piece, which is right that the Republican Party needs to modernize but, IMO, wrong in its examples.  I maintain that the victories of JFK, Clinton, and Obama (and, for that matter, Reagan) have much less to do with their politics than their charisma.  If being moderate were enough to win an election, Kerry would have done it.

The Philadelphia Inquirer has another take, which gets to the heart of the matter:

Some conservative thinkers - particularly those such as George Will, Kathleen Parker, Christopher Buckley and David Brooks, who broke ranks over the Sarah Palin nomination - seem eager to get down to the hard work.

Others would rather just fit Palin for the mantle of savior, apparently content with a rump conservatism that is small-town, resentful, anti-intellectual, and lily white.

Barack Obama must be quietly saying to himself: Go ahead, make my day.

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.

David Frum, a conservative columnist and former Reagan speechwriter, sees broader forces at work.

Republicans, Frum said, must move beyond their base of white, middle-aged men epitomized by "Joe the Plumber," the Ohioan whom McCain made famous during his campaign.

"College-educated Americans have come to believe that their money is safe with Democrats, but that their values are under threat from Republicans," Frum wrote in a column for the Daily Telegraph of London. "There are more and more college-educated voters."

If GOP leaders want to pursue them, Frum said, "This will involve painful change on issues ranging from the environment to abortion. It will involve even more painful changes of style and tone - toward a future that is less overtly religious ... and less polarizing on social issues."

[...]

 Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who was elected to his second term Tuesday, said the noisy, Republican-led defeat of immigration revisions last year helped erase the gains that Bush had made among Hispanic voters.

Less than one-third of Latinos voted for McCain, down from the 44 percent share that Bush had in 2004. Hispanics helped Obama win Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico, which Bush had carried.

"Our brand label with Hispanics is way down," Graham said. "It's one thing to reform a broken (immigration) system. It's another thing to single out one group in a way that they feel threatened."

Bill Greener, a Republican consultant from Alexandria, said Obama had targeted younger voters via text-messaging and cutting-edge online communications.

Obama also took advantage of the growing number of states that allow pre-Election Day voting, Greener said.

"We are getting crushed in early voting and the efficient use of technology," he said. "It's a huge deal when the other side is text-messaging to cell phones while our side is hoping we've got a good e-mail list."

And The Arizona Republic -- McCain's hometown paper, mind -- has a pretty good analysis which boils down to "He probably would have lost anyway, between Bush's fuckups and the economic meltdown in September, but his very bad campaign did not do him any favors."