Fox News has an unparalleled capacity to cause liberal journalists to say really stupid things. Take the case of the chronically unserious Dana Milbank. (Who can forget this moment?) In his Washington Post column, Milbank opens things this way:
John Boehner, Haley Barbour and other Republican leaders held a “results watch” at the Grand Hyatt in downtown Washington. For a true victory party, you had to go to Fox News.
At Rupert Murdoch’s cable network, the entity that birthed and nurtured the Tea Party movement, Election Day was the culmination of two years of hard work to bring down Barack Obama – and it was time for an on-air celebration of a job well done.
“That’s an earthquake,” exulted Fox’s own Sarah Palin, upon learning the not-unexpected news that Republicans would gain control of the House. “It’s a big darn deal.”
“It’s a comeuppance,” Fox News contributor (and Post columnist) Charles Krauthammer contributed.
“I have one word,” said Sean Hannity. “Historic.”
And Chris Wallace struggled for words. “A gigantic – not a wave election but a tidal wave election,” he envisioned.
This cheerleading on the final day of the 2010 election cycle was to be expected.
It was to be expected, and for a simple reason: what the commentators and reporters on Fox said is indisputable. Even President Obama, himself, referred to the results of the 2010 midterm election as a “shellacking.” And also Milbank’s former Washington Post colleague Howard Kurtz and Ben Smith and Jonathan Martin of Politico used the word “bloodbath” to describe the election. So were Obama, Kurtz, Smith, and Martin “cheerleading” as well? So long as they don’t appear on Fox, the answer seems to be no.
Milbank decided to compound his tendentiousness by willfully misleading readers. Mr. Milbank writes:
The victory party would have to focus on the 60-seat gain Fox projected for Republicans in the House – an enormous win, though not at the upper end of the forecasts. Fox commentator Karl Rove, pleading for “perspective,” said it still qualified as a “blowout evening.” To be fair and balanced, Fox brought in a nominal Democrat, pollster Doug Schoen. “This is a complete repudiation of the Democratic Party,” he proclaimed.
So which Democrats does Milbank leave off this list? How about Bob Beckel, Juan Williams, Kirsten Powers, Geraldo Ferraro, Joe Trippi, and Pat Caddell? Why would Milbank neglect to name any of these individuals? Because it would run counter to the narrative he’s trying to advance. Thomas Huxley referred to such things as “the slaying of a beautiful deduction by an ugly fact.”
The Washington Post publishes some of the finest columnists who have ever graced the pages of an American newspaper. But it also, alas, publishes Dana Milbank.
Racism and hate. That’s all we ever gets from this webside. Wait till the Fairness Doctrines shut you down.
Re. Brian Williams — Non sense
Jen, you have your cause and effect reversed.
The reason Williams was the most fair (?) is because, as he himself acknowledges, he was forced to wait because of MSNBC. Williams said as much on the Letterman Show of late.
If you viewed Williams as “the most fair” you obviously missed his lead ins. The latest lead in pertained to what a rough week it has been for Palin, the investigation in Alaska, the $150k dudes, etc.
On Wednesday, he and Chuck Todd spoke about how poor the chemistry was between McCain and Palin, which obviously wasn’t evident in the interviews themselves.
‘McCain campaign has been a series of discrete tactical maneuvers and redefinitions without a core narrative based in policy.” –
“McCain campaign has been a series of discrete tactical maneuvers and redefinitions without a core narrative based in policy.”- Jennifer Rubin
True, the only the problem is, a rightwing narrative is worse than no narrative this cycle. And tacking right has been the campaign’s undoing.
David Frum gets it right in his latest column: “The very same campaign strategy that has belatedly mobilized the Republican core has alienated and offended the great national middle, which was the only place where the 2008 election could have been won. ”
Obama’s left center policies — tax, economic, foreign — are vastly preferred over rightwing policies at this moment in history. McCain only this week began running hard agains the disastrous Bush record.
Interesting Newsweek poll question (asked of Republicans):
Q: If John McCain is not elected president, which one of the following three possible candidates would you be most likely to support for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012?
A:
Mitt Romney 35%
Mike Huckabee 26%
Sarah Palin 20%
Palin’s at the height of her popularity with the base. Still, no love.
What will be done about the credit card fraud that McArdle describes? Will this really have any negative impact on the leftist illuminati’s campaign at all? Or will it be another “oopsie” that doesn’t get any publicity, regardless of the fact that Obama’s campaign was clearly funded illegally?
#1: One must wonder by the side of what web SH*T doesn’t inhale. It is indicative that it needs more than one “fairness doctrine.” #3: Drew, on the other hand, drew a blank when brains were handed out.
abe2:
You put your faith in Newsweek which, surely, none of us doubts has the best interest of the Republican party at heart and will be fair and accurate in its assessments of its future. With due respect to this impeccable authority, I tend to believe the crowds of 20-30,000 enthusiastic republicans who appear spontaneously, on short notice, at every one of her events. And I tend to be impressed with the very real record she has established as governor of Alaska, and her impressive ability to weather the most violent storm of vitriol ever visited on a serious candidate for national office, only to grow on such a steep learning curve that she is now the best (and least fearful) of the candidates in facing the press. These are qualities I find attractive in a presidential candidate. But what is my modest opinion compared to the authority of of our wise and devoted friend, Newsweek?
Abe2:
Romney should have won this time, and I’d be fine with him getting the nod in 2012. But a poll of “Republicans” isn’t worth much unless it screens for Republicans who are likely to actually vote in the primaries.
Mitt Romney will never be president, he will never be the Republican nominee, and now he couldn’t be elected dog catcher in Massachusetts so he’ll never be Senator unless he runs in Utah.
The reason for the first 2 is simple: Evangelicals hate Mormons. Evangelicals hate Mormons as much as they hate gays, and that’s a lot of hate. In the primaries Romney only won the “Jello Belt,” being those western states where Mormons make up over 10% of the population: Utah, Nevada, Idaho, Arizona, Wyoming. Romney couldn’t even win New Hampshire and became the first ever Massachusetts politician to lose New Hampshire, ever.
Mitt Romney ran as a pro-choice small government moderate and won because liberals and independents don’t hate Mormons, or even care about Mormonism. He flip-flopped on the core issues and actually mocked and insulted his own state in the primaries.
Mitt Romney has no future in American electoral politics. But I have to admit that Palin and Mitt would be purty like a Barbie and Ken ticket, you betcha.
#1 SandraHenderson, As a person of color (as they say), I’ve dealt with racism and hate all of my 67 years. No problem. What scares the hell out of me is the cold-blooded viciousness of people like you, Obama and Ayers. The kind of people who could sit around calmly discussing the probable need to “off” 25 million Americans in order to bring Marxism to this country. It is but a short moral hop from a “Fairness Doctrine” to shut us down and a bullet to shut us up.
Romney’s campaign also exemplified Frum’s critique, as Romney foolishly tried to outflank everyone on the right. He was never convincing as an arch-social conservative, and the Youtube videos of his debates in the early 90s with Ted Kennedy showed him to be a hypocrite. It’s a shame, because Romney could’ve modeled a different approach, one with appeal to the east and west coast moderates who’ve deserted the Republican Party in droves.
#12
I think that’s right. Romney took an analytical approach to re-creating himself. The problem was, he looked at recent history and failed to see that the country has moved left (whether it will shift back at some point, who can say). Ironically, an authentic moderate (I assume, based on his record) Romney would have been much better positioned to take the general election, particularly with his proven managerial skill and knowledge of the economy. I’m confident, though, that moderate Romney would have had no shot in the GOP primary. Something to think about if the GOP wants to be relevant again.
#12, 13
Both right, but irrelevant. Evangelicals will not vote for a Mormon. Evangelicals hate Mormons as bad as they hate gays. The Republican party is 60% Evangelical at this point. Mitt Romney has zero chance. Move on.
“Drew, on the other hand, drew a blank when brains were handed out.” — Alexander Almasov
One can always tell McCain supporters by their incisive arguments. This couldn’t be a better example of modern conservative thinking. You do Burke proud.
Yes, an irony of this election is that just as the GOP needs to broaden its appeal, its reach is being diminished to the reddest of red states, where conservatism is at its most extreme. It’s hard to see how the Republican politicians of the South are going to be the group that reiforms the conservative movement. Maybe the answer will come from the more libertarian mountain states. Again, Romney seems like he might have played a role here, if he had chosen to lead rether than follow.
SiouxLady – I’ve yet to see any evidence that the poster at #1 is what “she” pretends to be. Her posts have always appeared to be some kind of demented provocation of uncertain purpose – that is, it’s never quite clear whether the intention behind the “SandraHenderson” posts is to mock us or to mock the kind of thinking they appear to represent. Whatever the explanation, the individual writing them has never entered into dialogue with the rest of us. In short, she operates as a peculiar breed of troll, no more worthy of attention than the garden variety trolls that occasionally take it upon themselves to swarm the CONTENTIONS message boards with Obamanaut talking points.
Jack, your point is a serious one, but in my opinion you’re making a different version of the same mistake that the fixated “desperado” makes, which is to deal with broad sections of the party or movement by way of stereotypes, even while implicitly or explicitly accusing them of being the ones who think that way. They kind of political vivisection is and should remain a specialty of the other party. If a re-shaping of the conservative party emerges from the libertarian mountain West, for instance, it surely won’t be by force of numbers: There just aren’t enough high altitude libertarians. It would have to be by force of ideas and values that much larger numbers of people can share and stand behind.
CK MacLeod – Thanks for the “heads up.” Maybe he/she/it is Mitt in drag. I sure miss that dolt head. He was always good for a laugh and could be safely ignored. However, it’s nice, sometimes, to have them as a foil for points one wants to make at Jennifer’s posts. Take care . . .
CK- nice try, but you must be unaware of Southern Baptist and other Evangelical attitudes towards Mormons. Evangelicals hate Mormons as much as they hate gays. Ask Mitt why he lost Iowa despite spending a year and $7 million in that state. He lost to Huckleberry, who ran on an anti-Mormon message. Why did Mitt lose New Hampshire and California, both of which he was supposed to win big? Because Evangelicals absolutely will not vote for a Mormon, never gonna happen, the theological hate is fierce and deep and mutual. There are millions and millions of Evangelicals, so they will always have a veto in the GOP. Too bad these same Evangelicals don’t know they’re being fooled by the billionaires….but they won’t be fooled by Mormon billionaires, gosh darn it!!
I’m yet to see evidence that vast swaths of evangelical Christians cannot stand Mormons. Being a part of evangelical communities all my life, I’ve never really seen that to be the case. Evangelicals differ from Mormons on theological issues, to be sure, but find them natural allies on many political and social issues. Mormons are also “evangelical” in the sense that they believe what they believe deeply enough to consider them worthy of sharing with other people (for other peoples’ sake), and in that sense evangelicals have much more in common with Mormons than with mainline Protestants for whom Christianity is too often a sort of cultural veneer on an otherwise “worldly” life.
What I saw, during the primary, was a bunch of secular elites supposedly concerned that evangelicals would reject Romney for his Mormonism. This told me more about the secular elites’ prejudices than it did about evangelicals’, since it showed that those secular elites believe evangelicals as a whole to be bigoted, hate-filled individuals who would disqualify an otherwise attractive candidate solely for his religious beliefs. But most of what I saw from evangelicals was tepid support for Romney–the same sort of tepid support he got from so many other slices of our demography.
Unfortunately I think Romney and Giuliani stole half of each others’ votes, and the schedule of the primaries worked against them. You point to Romney’s loss in New Hampshire. Well, New Hampshire is not exactly a hotbed of evangelicalism. So how could evangelical hate of Mormonism have done him in there? Romney lost, where he lost, largely because he came across as stiff, plastic, “too perfect” or insincere. He was attacked from the right for being a flip-flopper. It’s unfortunate, because I’m a big fan of Romney’s. I thought he did reasonably well in Massachusetts (where I live), considering what a cesspool of liberal corruption our state has become. I’m sure you’ll disagree.
What’s ironic, with all the seats we’ve lost in Congress, and with shifts in party affiliation and so forth, I’m still not convinced that the country has drifted leftward ideologically. Democrats have had more success, to be sure. But is that because they’ve convinced people to move to the left? Or is it because they’ve positioned themselves as centrists, and the media has become more and more forceful in its battle against Republicans and its desperation to get past Bush to an Obama administration? I suspect it’s more the latter. Witness the rise of “blue dog” Democrats. Witness Obama posing as a tax-cutter. Witness all the attempts to neutralize cultural issues such as abortion, by focusing on “reducing the need” rather than the number of abortions. Witness the absence of any major Democratic candidate coming out strongly in support of gay marriage. Witness Obama pretending that his desire to get out of Iraq is not a sign of weakness–since he just wants to put them in Afghanistan instead (which is a total crock). Witness Obama changing his position on dozens of issues after the primary. Witness his opening the door to increased oil drilling (another crock, of course). Obama is to the left of Clinton, no doubt. But he’s pretending to be Clinton, pretending to be a centrist, and that’s the only way he could win.
Then, on the other side of the issue, we have the relentless bashing of Bush and Republicans from ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN, NYTimes, WashPo, BosGlobe, LATimes, and so on. It was beginning to look as though McCain might win, and the Republicans might hold their numbers or even increase their numbers in Congress, until the financial crisis hit and the media construed this as the fault of the Republicans.
Anyway, all this to say I’m not at all convinced that the Republican party and its candidates must move to the left in order to win future elections. Look at it this way. With just about every conceivable advantage, with an overwhelmingly favorable media, with a strongly unpopular Republican incumbent, etc., Obama was behind in the polls a few weeks ago. I have little doubt that McCain would have won on an even playing field. And he may yet win. This campaign has seen so many twists and turns, so many unexpected events, that it would be foolish to think it’s over yet. With a media that will try to turn anything to Obama’s advantage, it’s hard to see how it could turn around. But stranger things have happened.
“You wonder what instructions are given to McCain surrogates”
I wonder what ever happened to Joe Lieberman? Why have we heard nothing from him in the last month? The Jewish vote seems to be slipping away from McCain even in Florida. Why isn’t the third Joe front and center anymore?
desperado just comes off as, well, deranged. Either he is deranged or he is six years old, and the next words off his fingers will be “Nyaah, nyaah, evangelicals hate Mormons, do too, do too, to INFINITY!!” Along with something about rubber, glue, bouncing off him and sticking to you.
Evangelicals believe Mormons are wrong about their prophet and doctrine, and generally do not recognize their organized church as a Christian one. This does not mean evangelicals “hate” Mormons. Some evangelicals — a small minority — express vocal concern about the suitability of Mormons for high public office, as they do about Catholics (and, for that matter, Muslims and Jews). Only someone who has never met any evangelicals and knows nothing about them could say that this is a majority mindset.
A large number of evangelicals voted for Romney in the primaries, in spite of some reservations about him. The best way to characterize the attitude of many evangelicals about Romney would be to call it wariness. The basis has never been his being a Mormon, but his latter-day reversals on key issues in social conservatism — abortion and gay marriage — and his embrace of programs like mandatory health insurance in Massachusetts.
As Ahithophel says, evangelicals and Mormons have been natural political allies from most perrspectives. In my experience, from a life also spent much in the company of evangelicals, virtually all of them would say this about Mormons: they respect the First Amendment, and in our historical era can be trusted in high office, like Christians and Jews, to respect freedom of religion, to respect its role in public life, and to not turn the state against the religion of anyone else. (Regarding Muslims, evangelicals are not alone in believing that that judgment would have to be made on an individual basis, Islam itself being so often construed as antithetical to secular-religious separation, and to freedom in faith.)
Ahithophel — I agree with you that there is no definitive evidence of a nationwide turn to the left. The Republicans voted out of office in 2006 had a collective record as a high-spending, overregulating Congress since about midway through Clinton’s second term. Their spanking was not by any means a rejection of conservatism, since they had not been practicing any. Likewise, current dissatisfaction with Bush is as much about the UN-conservative trends in his administration — illegals policy, weakness on Iran and North Korea, failure to curb federal spending, failure to communicate a coherent message to the people, now the financial bail-out — as it is about anything Bush has done that could be called “conservative.”
I don’t think we have to fear that the GOP will lurch to the left any time soon, but there seems to be no question that a realignment is going on. Perhaps I should really say that a long-term realignment is becoming more evident. This year is really functioning as a watershed, revealing and highlighting the divisions within the party much as the 1964 election did. The resolution is likely to come as much from a unifying personality as from a thorough parsing of positions on the ideological spectrum. Many who voted for Reagan were alarmed by those who voted for Goldwater, yet there was a core who were galvanized and truly thrilled by both men. Reagan, however, had the more unifying effect.
What I do NOT think will work for the GOP, at any point along the path to 2010 or beyond, is focusing on the bad news about individual Democratic candidates. The GOP is the party of ideas about freedom, and if there is anything we need, it is a resurgence of positive expression in that regard. History validates the power unleashed by cultivating and protecting individual liberty, versus the invariably evil consequences of burying liberty in invidious victim-isms, redistributionism, and statism. That’s the air Republicans need to breathe in.
Or perhaps a gay Mormon – or maybe Mormon-curious?
Don’t know, don’t care – sounds like the the medical guy, Cory?, who was working somewhere in the South and still had bruised feelings about some Christian extremists throwing their weight around once upon a time in SLC. Sooner or later, we all get our feelings hurt or feel on the outside looking in.
The strongest anti-Mormon feelings I’ve personally encountered have been among secularists who just about equally despise evangelicals. It’s less of a political problem among leftists, of course, because they just assume that everyone on their side is equally hypocritical, deceptive, or shallow about their religious beliefs or lack thereof. Sarah Palin’s frank religiosity is frightening to them because they suspect that she means it. Harry Reid’s Mormonism, Nancy Pelosi or Joe Biden’s Catholicism, and Barack Obama’s love of Jesus (about which he’s been much more openly “evangelical” than any candidate other than perhaps Mike Huckabee) don’t bother them because they simply refuse to believe that anyone “intelligent” enough to be on the liberal-left really buys into all those fairy tales they sometimes choose to go on about. It’s just a politically convenient cultural stance, not much different from pretending to be happily married whether or not that’s the case.
If Palin witnessed with the same words and seeming sincerity as Obama, she’d be widely derided as a Jesus freak and an enemy of all that’s holy (i.e., secular). Here as elsewhere, he gets a pass precisely because a particular faction takes comfort in the idea that he’s a con man, not a true believer. It’s those of us who place a higher value on honesty and consistency than on ideological conformity who are on the outside looking in.
The Evangelicals hate Mormons mantra is overstated.
The antipathy towards Mormons is generated more from people among a certain strain of Reformed Christians whose dogmatism and Reformation age style of doing religion puts them at Trinitarian odds with Mormons. RCs and this strain Reformed share a strong attachment to the Trinity, but RCs allow for salvation to reach those outside the Church who have not realized, acknowledged and then rejected the Church.
Reformed Christians of Barthian stripe can also go to some of Barth’s writings that touch upon Covenants and stipulate that the Synagogue gave birth to the Church, and as such, retains the promises of God. In fact, Barth advises against Christian prosetylization of the Jews.
Many Evangelicals aren’t dogmatic at all. Outside the Atonement, Redemption and the free grace of salvation they’re relatively free from ancillary propositions. They’re not rubes. Not at all. And they’re not monolithic even regarding subjects such as evolution, etc. If memory serves, Francis Collins -recent Head of the Human Genome Project- is Evangelical and a proponent of theistic evolution.
Mitt Romney lost because he didn’t have the guts to be who he was until the end. Nothing befitted him and his campaign more than the classy manner in which he bowed out.
The Evangelical beef against homosexuality is simple: it’s not at parity with heterosexuality and shouldn’t be treated as such. While one may accept that it’s organically anomalous, one doesn’t have to accept it as an equal good.
Rick Warren of Saddleback fame [via Maggie Gallagher and NRO] and the beginning of the electorate’s double take on Obama, said the following when endorsing Proposition 8:
Probably 60% of the population would agree with Warren.
If the electorate is headed towards the left, and I think it is, it’s an economic thing.
But Conservatism -a true Conservatism not purist but true- may very well have died a long time ago. You can’t employ the strong arm of government in order to solve social ills and remain Conservative. Conservatism can really only thrive within the ethos of the local. A local economy and caring and doing for one’s self and one’s neighbor through the free institutions created within the community. Free trade and a capitalism inspired as much by piety as it is by profit. One on one, both you and your butcher having to look each other in the eye during a local, small-town transaction. Feeling gratitude for all that you have. Gratitude was on the mind of Seneca and others in the classical age because it’s a remarkable evolution, a matter of heart and soul.
If Conservatism is to be reinvigorated it will have to begin at a local level and not with the sole purpose of acquisition of power. If Conservatism is more about Empire than anything else it’s not Conservatism.
Reagan and the Conservatism that followed in his footsteps is really not the sagebrush Conservatism of Goldwater, is it? Maybe it can’t be because of technological advance, a one- world, sharing economy shielding all from the collapse of one, and power vacuums that require perpetual occupation.
Nonetheless, sagebrush Conservatives even the urban ones, are misfits and in the end cannot really find rest in the Republican party.
If we are to live our politics then with malice towards none and charity towards all, I’m for wishing the Republican party well, but walking just the same. The future, if we have one, is a very long way off, so why not invest it with quality.
Mary — I like your point about conservatism needing to not be about the acquisition of power. What it should be about is the AVERSION of power becoming concentrated in the hands of a centralized state apparatus. Much of what is most important about conservatism applies to aspects of life the state should not be regulating anyway. Seeing the state as a servant, whose wages are merely overhead for real life — and NOT as the object of our highest philosophical aspirations — is the healthy perspect embodied in modern conservatism, and the one that should advanced by it.
Somebody snooping at Joe The Plumber’s files. This is how low will people go to discredit Joe?
Over-zealot and corrupt officials. Say it ain’t so.
“healthy perspective”…
Never try to watch football and make blog posts at the same time…
Precisely and wonderfully put.
JED, check this out:
http://www.usnews.com/blogs/capital-commerce/2008/10/23/would-obama-dems-kill-401k-plans.html
They really are after a Total Society in which everyone feels the shadow of their reach.
Mary, you’re right. I’ve been hearing about the potential run on 401(k)s for several days now. This is the kind of thing that Obama, with a filibuster-proof Senate, could actually make happen. Couple this with the documented instances of Obama’s campaign seeking to silence opposition speech, and Obama’s long associations with political radicals who have no respect for constitutional limits on government, or any concept of “loyal opposition,” and we have a recipe for attempts at state socialism at least as bad as the ones made under FDR.
As a Mormon, I sure hope Ahithophel and J.E. Dyer are right. I certianly don’t hate any other religions just because we disagree on doctrinal details and would be sad to think people would dislike me for that reason alone.
However, despite being a Mormon, I’m not a fan of Mitt. That is solely based on his political stances and his flip-floppery. I know a lot of other Mormons who felt the same way. In fact, I think some of us were harder on him than we would be anyone else because we knew people would be looking at him as a judge of our entire religion so when he went pro-choice and said he didn’t believe in modern day revelation (something Mormons DO believe in) I think he alientated a lot of Mormon votes–a demographic he was supposed to have locked down. Just my two cents.
Shakes- ridiculuous. Mitt got 95% of the LDS vote in both Utah and Nevada. He got less than 10% of the self-identified “born again” vote anywhere, and it killed him in California, where he spent $40 million of his own money.
As for Giuliani and Mitt splitting the vote- again ridicurous. Half of zero is still zero, Giuliani completely flamed out and barely got any votes, Giuliani didn’t even run in Iowa, knowing it to be hopeless, and dropped out before Super Tuesday. All his votes went to McCain.
YOur man Mitt knows whats up. Why did he give that absurd “we are Christian” speech that totally tanked his career? Right now he’s campaigning for McCain in Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana! Oh yeah, like Republicans need any help in the Redneck belt. No, Mitt is collecting chits, spending millions, right where the evangelo-wackos live, hoping they won’t mid his magic underwear next time.
Ask your wives.
The idea that the GOP has lost this election because it is too far to the right, and hence needs to move left to win, is complete nonsense. McCain is hardly some extreme right-winger: He’s much closer to the political center than Obama, and was the least conservative of anyone in the GOP primary, except maybe Rudy. The whole (crazy) theory behind nominating McCain was that he would compensate for the loss of all the conservatives who couldn’t bring themselves to vote for him, with his appeal to independents. Predictably, this strategy failed, because McCain’s support among independents was built on the positive MSM coverage he’d received for criticizing conservatives, and supporting liberal causes like amnesty- as soon as his opponent was a liberal Democrat, the MSM immediately turned on him, and his independent support collapsed.
This would have been a tough year for any Republican to win, but someone running on a traditional conservative platform, like Romney or Fred, would probably have done better, because then, unlike McCain, they would at least have had a coherent message, and the enthusiasm of the GOP base would have been a match for the enthusiasm of the Dem base.
28
J.E. Dyer Says:
Excellent.
“this strategy failed, because McCain’s support among independents was built on the positive MSM coverage he’d received for criticizing conservatives, and supporting liberal causes like amnesty- as soon as his opponent was a liberal Democrat, the MSM immediately turned on him, and his independent support collapsed.” — Jon
No, the strategy failed because McCain didn’t run a campaign that had any chance of attracting independents. He failed to live up to his billing. He picked Palin, which turned off conservatives. His tax and health plans and drilldrilldriil and Iraq strategy are all boilerplate Republican/rightwing policies. Blaming the media is just pitiful. I thought rightwingers were against the politics of victimhood. If the GOP can’t broaden its appeal, and that means reaching left, and making inroads with hispanics and younger voters, it will remain in the wilderness. Face it, your base is dying. Subsequent generations are far more socially liberal. Just look at their attitudes on gay marriage. Entirely different than the way their parents thought.
At this stage we don’t know for sure what factors will have been most crippling for McCain if he loses. Tacking to the right did cause consternation among some undecided voters, but just how many middle ground voters McCain has driven away is not clear.
McCain and Obama were neck to neck before the financial crisis. It’s hard not to attribute his fall in the polls mainly to the crisis. Now, McCain did make things much worse for himself by not hammering home Obama’s links to Freddie and Fannie and his own opposition to them.
And McCain, until recently, did not expose Obama’s tax cut for 95% of Americans for the fraud that it is.
“which turned off conservatives”
Oops. Obviously, I meant to say “independents.”
#1: “Racism and hate. That’s all we ever gets from this webside.”
In that case, why don’t “we gets” our backside away “from this webside”?
Interesting article on coming GOP civil war:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/uselection2008/barackobama/3260074/Republican-fears-of-historic-Obama-landslide-unleash-civil-war-for-the-future-of-the-party.html
More Frum:
“Mr Frum argues that just as America is changing, so the Republican Party must adapt its economic message and find more to say about healthcare and the environment if it is to survive.
“He said: “I don’t know that there’s a lot of realism in the Republican Party. We have an economic message that is largely irrelevant to most people.”
“I’m not sure why former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge thinks it’s a good idea to tell the state’s voters he would have been a better choice for VP.”
Here is his explanation:
“I was asked a question, and I delivered an honest answer that was taken completely out of context. I wholeheartedly believe that John McCain made the right choice by selecting Sarah Palin to join him on the ticket. As a former two-time governor of Pennsylvania, I was simply making the point that, of course, the dynamics of the race in PA would be different if the former governor of PA were on the ticket. The dynamics of the race would be different in Florida if Governor (Charlie) Crist were on the ticket. Or Minnesota if (Gov. Tim) Pawlenty had been selected. That’s a given. I have stated many times, as I did today, that I believe John made an excellent choice and that Governor Palin will make a great vice president. I have witnessed firsthand the excitement she has generated in Pennsylvania and throughout America and I believe she will help deliver our commonwealth’s 21 electoral votes to our GOP ticket this November 4th.”
He is right: the article’s title did take his words out of context.
Here is some context, in the article itself:
Ridge nonetheless defended the Palin selection as “excellent” and called it a “typical, bold McCain-like choice.””
This seems to exonerate Ridge from anything but lack of caution in speaking
to unscrupulous media.
What’s relevant to me, if not to Frum, is the stock market and the health of business. Does he see anything but stagnation there with Obama and a Democratic Congress:
1. Tax increases on businesses that emply must of the people
2. Expanding tax increases the next year
3. Global Warming regulatory nonsense
4. Strengthened Unions
5. Raids on pensions
6. Inefficient, costly govt health care program
7. Trade barriers
With his help we are ushering in a political environment that existed in 1933, one which produced eight years of economic stagnation and took a world was to get us out of. It is supreme folly, but all the Frums do is say we all need to get aboard and join the train wreck, because that’s what the American people want!
What I know is that the GOP was poised to win this election until the stock market drop and consequent recession. People were not demanding a European style socialist regulatory state, even if they have been panicked now. Frum can go to hell and write a book from there to let us know what it’s like.
I still can’t understand the lack of vision in McCain/Palin. Where are the policies? Where is the brighter future? Why are they as obsessed with Obama as the media is?
They have a little over 1 week, to start over, and make a new pitch to America. It is confusing how Schmidt would run a campaign without a message. Obama wants to spend trillions and cut taxes for 95% of citizens. Where is the response? Does is take a blue-collar plumber, to ask hard questions of Obama?
Maybe the Kool-Aid effects everyone in the Beltway, including Republicans.
One week to start over=Admission of total defeat. John McCain has been running for president since 1999, and he still has no coherent message. “Socialist” “Joe the Plumber” “Terrorist” didn’t work. Palin turned off at least as many people as she turned on: It is Over.
I thought Pat Buchanan was exaggerating in 2005 when he said that Hurricane Katrina swept away the Bush administration and the Republican party. It is amazing to behold a political party that was ascendant as little as 3 years ago implode and completely lose the trust of the American people. You can thank not only George Bush, but also the pliant conservative media that defended Bush all the time, so that trapped in their bubble echo chamber conservatives were not warned to see the abyss before falling into it.
McCain has also run an absolutely terrible campaign, both strategically and tactically. As of today Obama has locked up 273 Electoral Votes, not including once red states where he is either leading or tied such as Virgina, Ohio, Indiana, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota or Nevada. In the last week before the election McCain is reduced to skipping around the country aimlessly.
This is 1980 folks, with John McCain playing the role of Jimmy Carter, while a brash outsider sweeps the country and ushers in a new era. It took Democrats 26 years to recover from that, but Republicans are wealthier, so it might only take them 12 years. Palin in 2020?
#45, sure. John McCain as Jimmy Carter. That is funny.
you know, I found this link to be very interesting.
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=309654379748584
In my opinion that’s a re-writing of history. There wasn’t a “whole theory” behind nominating McCain. It’s not as though a group of Republican Big Brains got together and wrote up a theory. He campaigned. So did the others. When it became clear to the security-first voters that Giuliani would be vetoed by social conservatives, and that McCain was viable after all, they moved to him. At that point, with Fred never having mounted a serious campaign, and contrary to the the immortal propaganda of selected Hucksters and Mittsters, McCain was the Huckabee voter’s second favorite choice compared to the hated Romney, and and the Romney voter’s second favorite choice compared to Huckabee. Period. End of story.
The reason that anyone believes any of the various alternative version of this history is that seemingly everyone has forgotten how salient national security still was as an issue among Republicans last Winter. Earlier, as late as last Fall, it was still salient enough that reasonably intelligent political observers – such as Mr Frum mentioned above – honestly believed it could make social liberal Giuliani acceptable to the social conservatives. It remained decisive in generating McCain’s consistent pluralities over all others, and was critical in particular in Florida when Mitt’s fate was confirmed.
Some thought that Hillary’s failure to press the “3 AM” issue successfully, rather than confirming its ebbing significance, had more to do with her own relatively low security credibility, a lack of appreciation of national security peculiar to Democrats, or maybe the all-consuming Obama cult. Even as recently as a couple of months ago, a few luminaries still hoped that McCain’s “experience” advantage (read: national security) would prove decisive, and criticized the Palin pick since they presumed it somehow weakened it. It’s not that the issue has lost all relevance, but it’s certainly not what it was.
The rationale for selecting or accepting McCain on the part of voters certainly included the appeal of his maverick or independent profile and his potential for running a race from the nearer the nation’s ideological center, but it was equally an accession to a simple reality: There were no viable “true conservative” candidates, a condition that was also partly a byproduct of the Bush Administration’s and the GOP Congress’s joint failures and the relative exhaustion of the conservative movement. That’s the subject for a shelf of books, not a blog comment, unfortunately. The point is, we’ve seen a series of events resolved into personalities, not a controlled experiment testing a centrist hypothesis. Life’s messy.
desperado, thanks for the horribly offensive response to my post. It really makes me take your arguments seriously. And by the way, I’m a woman.
#43. Pedant von knowital:
“What I know is that the GOP was poised to win this election until the stock market drop and consequent recession.”
Quite so – and that’s what all those who are bewailing either
the Palin selection or the McCain nomination should not forget.
Neither was a mistake – any other pair of Republican candidates
would have been hit by the same hurricane.
P. V. k. was of course making a different point – with which
I agree, though this may be an understatement:
“Does he see anything but stagnation there with Obama and
a Democratic Congress”
It could be worse than just stagnation… these are volatile and
precarious times, globally as well as nationally.
Anti-growth, anti-trade, anti-enterprise,
anti-capital policies would be harmful at any time –
but could be devastating at this time.
Shakes- you’re welcome. I meant, Ask your sister-wives.
Shouldn’t you be gay bashing right about now? Didn’t Monson order all garment wearers to martyr themselves in California? Better git going afore you lose your recommend!
Zogby’s advice to McCain.
http://zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1611
Jonas,
Zogby’s advice to McCain seems to be to focus on the economy, right?
Exactly what is McCain’s economic message? Opposition to Bush tax cuts? Not my strong suit? Suspend my campaign while I reach across the aisle for a bailout? Mortgage relief? Obama is a socialist?
Zogby says there is still plenty of time, and I hope this is so, as I greatly fear an Obama presidency. But I have no idea what our guy’s supposedly winning economic message is. Do you?
Inagua,
exactly. I have been writing my friends in DC and even calling the RNC, demanding a vision from McCain/Palin. It is so surprising to me that they have gone this long without presenting the American voters with their contract. Enough already! Tell us what you are going to do! I know Obama is a far-left liberal posing as a moderate or whatever anyone wants to see in him. But, I want to vote for McCain, and not against Obama.
I just quoted Zogby to show the advice is coming from a pollster, rather than a amateur blogger.
desperado is the only one attacking Mormons here. It is very informative that both Ahithophel and I directly contradicted his proposition about evangelicals, yet the one he comes back to attack is Shakes, who affirms that she is a Mormon.
This merely strengthens my assessment that desperado is deranged.