Posted on 07/08/2010 3:37:04 PM PDT by rabscuttle385
To understand why Democrats ever picked Mondale, you have to understand where the party — and where the country — was in 1982 and 1983, when the nation’s verdict on Reagan and his policies was far less positive. In those days, with unemployment surging over 10 percent and the president’s popularity slipping to sub-Carter levels, Democrats mistakenly assumed that the ‘80 election had been a mirage. The electorate, they figured, had acted in haste and was rapidly returning to its senses. The results of the 1982 midterms, when Republicans (who had begun the cycle with claims that they’d win back the House) lost 26 House seats, only encouraged this thinking. To these Democrats, putting up Mondale made all the sense in the world. —Steve Kornacki
I appreciated Kornacki’s argument. He makes several good points explaining how a party recovering from a presidential election defeat could so badly misread the political landscape and choose such a poor nominee. It could be that I am underestimating the effect that most Republicans’ sheer contempt for Obama will have on the next nomination contest. When it comes to channeling and expressing this contempt there are quite a few willing to do it, but there aren’t any prominent Republicans that take more delight in it than Palin. If Republicans choose to believe that 2008 was just a fluke and that a re-match of sorts would have a different outcome, Palin would become a very appealing candidate for them. Kornacki is right when he says:
In nominating her, Republicans would be saying to the country, “We have learned nothing these last four years. We have changed nothing.”
Indeed, they have learned nothing during the last four years, and they haven’t really changed much of anything, so Palin would be a good fit with the party’s leaders and activists for that reason, but I remain skeptical that they are really prepared to go down in flames out of little more than pride and spite. I won’t rehearse all of the reasons I have given before why I doubt the GOP would be so self-destructive as to nominate Palin, but there still seem to be too many structural reasons why someone occupying Palin’s political space cannot succeed in a Republican primary contest. The comparison with Mondale is instructive. Palin and Mondale are alike in that they represent the face of the party as it was when it was defeated, but they are quite different in their sources of support. Mondale was the candidate of the party establishment and important interest groups, and Palin has made a point of aligning herself with every possible anti-establishment, insurgent campaign she can find.
While there are some Washington pundits and journalists on the right that continue to take her seriously, she isn’t likely to have the insider support or backing from party leaders. That space is already being filled by Romney, who also enjoys the status of default frontrunner. Despite her positioning as a “populist” insurgent, she seems uninterested in building an organization to challenge better-funded, better-organized rivals, and she is quite unsuited to running as a party reformer brimming with innovative policy ideas. Her positioning as an insurgent puts her at a particular disadvantage in Republican primaries, which tend to favor runners-up and establishment favorites. Because of their overconfidence and their extremely low opinion of Obama, Republicans may end up nominating a Mondale-like candidate in 2012, but I still have a hard time seeing how Palin gets there. In many ways, Romney has a much easier path to the nomination, and he has just reminded everyone why he would be a spectacularly unsuccessful general election candidate.
LOL! You're making that up.
If both house AND senate go republican in November we may just see an unprecedented defenestration (that means throwing out of a window).
If Obama ends up losing the Hill for the dems THEY will be the ones pushing for impeachment.
I’m happy with silence. I think you know my views on third party trolls.
Silence is the only option.
Good grief, Sarah Palin = Walter Mondale. Posted as a serious thread on FR.
Inconceivably stupid. But what else would you expect from a Paul bot?
As long as we know where the crap comes from, we will have a better understanding of what should be taken seriously and what should not be taken seriously. Indeed, some of the latter must be considered hilariously funny.
Full disclosure: I like rabs when he doesn't attack Sarah, but once he starts attacking her and pings all his friends to pile on and gang up on a poster that is a Palin supporter, all the while chanting RINO, RINO, it totally turns me off.
Ditto
Ditto
Ditto
Ditto
As usual, I agree with “almost” your every word.
Any “anti-Sarah, let’s have a flame war” hopes for this thread were immediately dashed because the author is so damn politcally dense to write such a silly essay. I mean it’s a ROTFLOL-er.
In fact, I forgot to look to see whether the parents were pinged.
In fact, I forgot to look to see whether the parents were pinged.
Hahaha, that's funny.
Without her, the choices become....the abyss....or war.
Neither choice excites me.
Unfortunately, 2012 may be too far away.
This kind actively works against conservatives for the sake of some kind of mythical "purity".
It helped get us the 2006 debacle and Bambi and his evil minions in 2008, and there's not much comprehension of the depth of damage being caused.
You are correct. I misread him as a Mittbot. He’s a Paulian. My bad.
PS I admit to being something of a Palinut. That said, I would support any true conservative.
Right, Lakeshark. I concur, except that the mythical purity is anti-military, anti-war, anti-Israel and most of the Republicans it hates are pro-military and pro-Israel. AND of late, the hero Ron Paul, came out nitpicking AZ’s new law!
These are the kind of individuals who are never happy with conservatives and always find some fault to excoriate and tear them down, but these are the same individual who hardly attack Obama or his liberal administration. It makes you wonder what side are they really on, doesn't it?
Just one more reason (in an increasingly lengthy list of same) to find a nice, comfy plastic cell in which to stash his worthless, Barney Frank-loving hinder.
LOLOLOLOLOL. Thank you!
You betcha. You've got it exactly right.
Worse than democrats because the third party types seek to divide and conquer whereas the democrat enemy is content to conquer and comes straight at his GOP opponent with the usual and anticipated lies and smears.
Interesting, as you noted, nary a word nor worry about the enemy Marxists currently in power. Too busy trying to divide and conquer the Republicans, err, um RINOS.
My motto: Re-elect NOBODY.
Scant few exceptions
Yeah Newt sure was a genius in early 2007 waddling his fatass all over Sunday morning tv declaring the Iraq war lost, proclaiming while troops were hot in the fight that their CIC Bush had failed and should admit he failed and should “cross the aisle and join with pelosi and reid and plan a departure from Iraq as sooon as possible”. And fatass newt sure was clever giggling on a couch with pelosi and talking about how much he agreed with her on the dangers of man-made global warming and how we must do something about it. The same with him standing next to hillary about how he agreed with her healthcare policy.
That should tell you all you need to know.
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