More than a year to learn the lesson of 2006 elections about what wins (all combined, not just this or that piece of the whole package) - conservatism, clear thinking and ideas, enthusiasm and willingness to “work the base” and creating events (not just attend them), articulate and passionate leadership... and what loses - infighting and backstabbing, fractured demoralized leaderless and rudderless base, voters looking for “who can win”, lack of passion and articulation of ideas, inability or unwillingness to finance those who could and were willing to lead the party and conservative movement (”because they would be killed by the media” - never understood that argument)... Reagan Democrats came into being not because he pandered to them but because his ideas appealed to him, he didn’t join them, they joined him because he led.
Yep, in the immortal words of Forrest Gump - “stupid is as stupid does...” And in the immortal words of Bill Engvall - GOP, “here is your sign!”
From excellent, short and incisive article by Michael Barone in OpinionJournal http://online.wsj.com/article_print/SB120235128484149553.html (a must-read, in my opinion, which got completely sidetracked in FR’s post) :
“What I find most striking about this nominating season is that every candidate’s strategy has failed. Yes, each party will still nominate someone. If one rule of a zero-sum game is that all players but one must lose, another rule is that one must win. But not because his or her original strategy worked.”
“The ideas vacuum in campaign 2008 still remains to be filled...”
“The fact that every campaign’s experts came up with losing strategies...”
Surreal is a good way to describe it, but not at all unexpected, because every campaign was / is based simply on tactics.
The GOP is backing a 25 year member of the Old DC Boy Club member who looks ill, speaks poorly and is virtually broke against a Democrat machine that will be out spending him 10 to 1.
The Democrats have a massive advantage in organization, enthusiasm and turn out. They are like we were in 2000. This will be their 1st chance to hold all 3 branches of Govt in 15 years. They will be ground glass Democrats.
Meanwhile this is an election that is structurally difficult of the GOP to win. Really hard for any party to win the WH 3 times in a row. Nixon (1960) and Gore (2000) could not do it. Reagan’s legacy carried Bush 1 in 1988 to it but Bush 2 legacy will not carry McCain. In fact, taking into consideration the record low approval numbers of the whole political class these days, it will hurt him.
The GOP is telling us they can win with out us icky Conservatives. I don’t see how.