Posted on 11/05/2008 5:03:43 AM PST by hardhead
Now that the blood-letting has begun, could there be anything good about this election?
Great write up and for the most part, I agree with everything you wrote.
I have always believed that Bush’s refusal to defend himself from his critics has been a big contributor to our demise. If the leader of the party can’t/won’t defend himself, then how in the hell are we supposed to? Bush has made life very difficult for his supporters at times over the past 8-years. All the opposition had to do is throw out an accusation, and because of his non-response, it stuck! I have made this point numerous times on here. Think McCain would have been any different?
In terms of this election, I agree that McCain should be commended for his service to the country. However, his obsession with ‘bi-partisanship’ was a sign of more of the same. For most of the campaign, he refused to attack Obama for who he is. Jeremiah Wright was completely off the table for God’s sake! Additionally he spent way too much time praising democrats that he’d like to have in his administration (Cuomo, Gore, etc). Would this have been something that Reagan had done? The answer is clearly ‘no’ and it’s something that republicans are sick and tired of from our current leadership.
We need true leadership that is not afraid of being CONSERVATIVE! There were moments when Palin was able to show this, which is one reason why I think so many republicans love her! Any hits to her popularity were mostly due to the cross contamination that she received from McCain’s political correctness. She was at her best when they let “Sarah, be Sarah”.
I hope you change your mind. I have really enjoyed your posts here.
Yet another result without historical precedent. I guess we can infer that most Americans were unhappy with Congress because it was not sufficiently liberal or left wing enough. I mean, I don't know any other way to explain the GOP taking yet another bath in the House races.
But if you are looking for a silver lining, consider this. If two years of Obama and a heavily Democratic Congress doing things that radical leftists do -- and the resulting harm to this country -- doesn't revive, fire up, and expand the GOP base in a very short time, nothing will and we are REALLY screwed. After the 1964 election, there was the 1966 election. After the 1976 election, there was the 1978 and 1980 elections. There is hope -- if this country can somehow survive as a republic for two years. Help may finally be on the way in 2010.
I was just making the exact same point to someone else (not here at FR). The Dems may now have a lock on the electoral college similar to what Republicans had during the Reagan and first Bush 41 Presidencies (which they squandered away during the 1990s). This is very ominous, and it is going to get worse unless the GOP starts doing much better with Hispanics than it did in 2008. Don't look now, but even the Hispanics here in Texas voted much more Democratic than they did four years ago. The Texas GOP still outperformed the national party (we even recaptured Tom DeLay's old seat), but this won't last forever with the current trends.
And why should the GOP settle at 40%? To me, Hispanics should be a GOP constituency: they tend to be Catholic, hard working and even enterprising, married with children, etc. We should be able to count on 50%+ support, which if even close to becoming realized would reverse the electoral college lock and give it back to the GOP.
As for narrowing the party ID gap, I am very confident that this will happen very quickly without much actual input from the GOP itself. All you need is an Obama Administration working with a heavily Democratic Congress, and the rest will take care of itself (and accelerate as the nation starts experiencing the consequences). If you want a historical analogy, think the Carter Administration, what it wrought, and what it eventually led to. Or maybe the LBJ years. Or 1992-1994. The problem is that the rest of us have to live with the consequences for at least the next two years and probably much longer.
I agree 100% with everything.
Yikes. At this rate, Texas may be a battleground state as soon as 2012. Although I should add that the Democrats were running a Hispanic candidate against Cornyn as well and that may have had something to do with it. Plus the black vote in Dallas and Houston.
Illegals may ‘migrate’ to Texas in droves and then be declared ‘naturalized’ by the commies, which in turn takes TX out of the battleground category and places it firmly to the left. This has already been happening incrementally - cities, certain counties, and now states. Remember the Free State Project?
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