I think Republican party considers 2012 a wash. The problems of 2012 will be so huge that whoever is in power at the time will be blamed for many things. The Republicans are trying to avoid the blame when it comes.
I think to a great extent, they are looking at 2016. They think the population will be screaming for solutions at that point and the Republicans will give them those solutions then. To try and solve them in 2012 won’t work, because the population in general don’t think the problems are all that serious and if the Republicans do what Greece is doing, they could find themselves blamed for cutting back entitlements and raising taxes and find themselves out of power permanently, while a resurgent Democratic party gets all the credit (and you know the media will everything to blame the Reps and laud the Dems) for solving the problems and did nothing to solve those problems.
I’m seeing the Federal Liberal party playbook being played all over again.
>>>I think Republican party considers 2012 a wash. The problems of 2012 will be so huge that whoever is in power at the time will be blamed for many things. The Republicans are trying to avoid the blame when it comes.<<<
I agree with this assessment... but the Republicans are basing their resons on the presumption that the republic will still be in existence in the year 2016. On the left, I think their assumption is that the “transformational” changes they’re putting in place will be so extreme that opposition will be moot. The poor GOP slobs don’t seem to realize that another four years of this and they’ll be the targets of all sorts of undermining and smears, ranging the from the subtle agitprop we’re seeing with the invented contraceptive debate up through some kind of Reichstag Fire event - although I’m imagining that an American version of that event will happen when the left takes advantage of a real terrorist attack or an economic collapse instead of doing it themselves. (As a sidelight, maybe that’s why Obama and the left are so eager to disarm the military - they want to precipitate something like that.)
The Palins, Christies, Rubios and so forth seem to be biding their time. At the same time, the left is accelerating accumulation of power and control. I do not have much faith in the cavalry coming over the hill this time around.
God help us.