Honestly I think if McCain had followed the advice Murphy is selling, he wouldn't be the nominee right now. If he just means post-nomination, I think he'd probably be in about the same spot as he is now - the decided underdog who needs something fundamental in the race to shift in order to win - just people like dajafi who never would have voted for him would like him more.

jerseyhoya wrote:Honestly I think if McCain had followed the advice Murphy is selling, he wouldn't be the nominee right now. If he just means post-nomination, I think he'd probably be in about the same spot as he is now - the decided underdog who needs something fundamental in the race to shift in order to win - just people like dajafi who never would have voted for him would like him more.

I dunno. It's not like he was making lots of friends among the right wing elite (talk radio, bloggers, Dobson, etc) during the primaries. They were all in the tank for Romney (who I don't care what anyone says, would be getting crushed even worse than McCain at this point) or even worse Fred Thompson. I think the Republican electorate picked the most appealing guy from a decidedly unappealing bunch, and it's hard to see any of them beating him, regardless of the kind of campaign he ran.

All the main R candidates during the primary, with the exception of Huckabee, were campaigning on the idea that the economy was strong, that Bush's economic policies were working, and that supply side was the way forward.

Small government conservatives have been marginalized, and the various litmus tests have made it difficult to even someone like Brownback to make noise.

Going forward is that the Republican minor league system is thin. You've got Jindal. You've got, um, well, you've got Jindal. Charlie Crist? OK. Count him too.

Maybe my perspective is distorted because I've been in Arkansas so long. But other than the Presidential election, how can the Republican Party essentially abandon a socially conservative Southern state?

mccain won because huckabee wouldn't drop out for romney. simple as that. huckabee would probably be closer to winning than mccain because of his economic opinions, who I put at about a 5% chance right now. plus, he's so damned likable, like a teddy bear.

I don't know. I can't believe we're going to lose senate seats in North Carolina and Oregon and maybe Kentucky. I honestly think if the election was tomorrow, the Dems would hit 58 or 59.

Virginia, New Mexico, Colorado, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oregon, Alaska, and then one or more between Georgia, Kentucky, Minnesota.

It's getting really ugly out there with the economic crap, and we have like no money at all to defend ourselves, either.

pacino wrote:mccain won because huckabee wouldn't drop out for romney. simple as that. huckabee would probably be closer to winning than mccain because of his economic opinions, who I put at about a 5% chance right now. plus, he's so damned likable, like a teddy bear.

It's not that simple. Romney appeared to have a hard ceiling in the mid thirties pretty much everywhere in the primaries, even in most of his good states (in primaries outside of Utah anyhow). I think most exit polls showed McCain actually beat Romney as Huck supporter's second choice.

Dole is going to lose because it looks like she doesn't care about keeping that seat AT ALL. What the heck's her problem? You'll soon be shut out of the Northeast forever (when Specter's done and with Virginia's demographic shift), so holding onto southern senate seats is vital. Her non-existent campaign is really killing things.

jerseyhoya wrote:I don't know. I can't believe we're going to lose senate seats in North Carolina and Oregon and maybe Kentucky. I honestly think if the election was tomorrow, the Dems would hit 58 or 59.

Virginia, New Mexico, Colorado, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oregon, Alaska, and then one or more between Georgia, Kentucky, Minnesota.

It's getting really ugly out there with the economic crap, and we have like no money at all to defend ourselves, either.

I don't think the blaming Carter gambit is all that persuasive, and no one is buying the Clinton's fault thing either.

I'm not wonky enough to really know for sure, but I think Supply Side economics are dead. Of course, I thought Bush had killed isolationism, and I was way wrong about that.

pacino wrote:Dole is going to lose because it looks like she doesn't care about keeping that seat AT ALL. What the heck's her problem? You'll soon be shut out of the Northeast forever (when Specter's done and with Virginia's demographic shift), so holding onto southern senate seats is vital. Her non-existent campaign is really killing things.

Not forever. Things go in cycles. You guys couldn't win crap in the South for ages, and now you're figuring out what type of candidates you have to nominate to win there. Hopefully after a cycle or two in the wilderness, we'll wise up as well.

T Boone Pickens looks like Al Davis in a blue suit jacket

jerseyhoya wrote:

pacino wrote:Dole is going to lose because it looks like she doesn't care about keeping that seat AT ALL. What the heck's her problem? You'll soon be shut out of the Northeast forever (when Specter's done and with Virginia's demographic shift), so holding onto southern senate seats is vital. Her non-existent campaign is really killing things.

Not forever. Things go in cycles. You guys couldn't win crap in the South for ages, and now you're figuring out what type of candidates you have to nominate to win there. Hopefully after a cycle or two in the wilderness, we'll wise up as well.

And then you'll have to either run counter to your national party's social platform and get more Chafees and Specters...and that will marginalize them again. The Republican party will have to learn to co-exist with each other like the 'Blue Dogs' seem to be doing thus far.

pacino wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:

pacino wrote:Dole is going to lose because it looks like she doesn't care about keeping that seat AT ALL. What the heck's her problem? You'll soon be shut out of the Northeast forever (when Specter's done and with Virginia's demographic shift), so holding onto southern senate seats is vital. Her non-existent campaign is really killing things.

Not forever. Things go in cycles. You guys couldn't win crap in the South for ages, and now you're figuring out what type of candidates you have to nominate to win there. Hopefully after a cycle or two in the wilderness, we'll wise up as well.

And then you'll have to either run counter to your national party's social platform and get more Chafees and Specters...and that will marginalize them again. The Republican party will have to learn to co-exist with each other like the 'Blue Dogs' seem to be doing thus far.

Right, but I think the Dems only coexist with the Blue Dogs because they were in the minority for 12 years, and they saw how much that sucked, and so they're willing to compromise to be back in charge. See how quick the conservative base figures out that President Obama with massive majorities in both houses is a bad thing. In a cycle or two, they should be all for having Specters in place of Caseys and Chafees in place of Whitehouses (well, maybe not Chafee, I mean Chafee really, really sucked).

dajafi wrote: It bothers me enormously if potential President Sarah Palin believes those things, and saber-rattles with Iran because she figures her family's "saved" anyway. Or even that her Young Earth Creationism might leech its way into less spectacular forms of policymaking--public school curricula, say, or the federal budget for scientific research.

(Perhaps this is the downside to putting Joe Sixpack and Hockey Mom on their blue and pink pedestals--you get all their stupidity inextricably tied to their down-home folksiness. Anyone care to speculate about how George W. Bush's faith-based certitude might have led to some bad policy choices)

You make a fine point. If Sarah Palin's beliefs become policy and she pushes for the things you mention, that should be a problem for you. That's why we look at the record of how they govern. In Palin's ten years in public office, how have her social beliefs impacted her administrations? How would it influence how she's governed? How she will govern?

Bush's bad foreign policy choices have to do with farming out foreign policy to a bunch of neocons who aren't socially conservative. His administration has been a major disappointment to social conservatives as he's barely addressed issues like abortion, gay marriage, and other Christian issues. Bush's incompetence has more to do with a lack of ability than his religious beliefs.

Even though the Democrats are responsible for some of the conditions of the fiscal mess, the perception is that Republicans are responsible. Obama has finally managed to sell the country that McCain is a Republican. And it's an issue that he has less to do with than most they've tried to tie him to.

jerseyhoya wrote:

pacino wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:

pacino wrote:Dole is going to lose because it looks like she doesn't care about keeping that seat AT ALL. What the heck's her problem? You'll soon be shut out of the Northeast forever (when Specter's done and with Virginia's demographic shift), so holding onto southern senate seats is vital. Her non-existent campaign is really killing things.

Not forever. Things go in cycles. You guys couldn't win crap in the South for ages, and now you're figuring out what type of candidates you have to nominate to win there. Hopefully after a cycle or two in the wilderness, we'll wise up as well.

And then you'll have to either run counter to your national party's social platform and get more Chafees and Specters...and that will marginalize them again. The Republican party will have to learn to co-exist with each other like the 'Blue Dogs' seem to be doing thus far.

Right, but I think the Dems only coexist with the Blue Dogs because they were in the minority for 12 years, and they saw how much that sucked, and so they're willing to compromise to be back in charge. See how quick the conservative base figures out that President Obama with massive majorities in both houses is a bad thing. In a cycle or two, they should be all for having Specters in place of Caseys and Chafees in place of Whitehouses (well, maybe not Chafee, I mean Chafee really, really sucked).

But what about all the "no compromise the reason we lost in 2006 was all the moderates overturn Griswold v. Connecticut and torture Arabs and spend whatever it takes to build the Berlin Wall between the US and Mexico types" who are currently running the party? Those people would rather lose than compromise. They're true believers, and like Marxists, they really think historical inevitability is on their side. I know that there's a group of NJ Republican legislators who are trying to move the party to the center, and their, in what was the last bastion of Country Club Republicanism, they're running into opposition.

TenuredVulture wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:

pacino wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:

pacino wrote:Dole is going to lose because it looks like she doesn't care about keeping that seat AT ALL. What the heck's her problem? You'll soon be shut out of the Northeast forever (when Specter's done and with Virginia's demographic shift), so holding onto southern senate seats is vital. Her non-existent campaign is really killing things.

Not forever. Things go in cycles. You guys couldn't win crap in the South for ages, and now you're figuring out what type of candidates you have to nominate to win there. Hopefully after a cycle or two in the wilderness, we'll wise up as well.

And then you'll have to either run counter to your national party's social platform and get more Chafees and Specters...and that will marginalize them again. The Republican party will have to learn to co-exist with each other like the 'Blue Dogs' seem to be doing thus far.

Right, but I think the Dems only coexist with the Blue Dogs because they were in the minority for 12 years, and they saw how much that sucked, and so they're willing to compromise to be back in charge. See how quick the conservative base figures out that President Obama with massive majorities in both houses is a bad thing. In a cycle or two, they should be all for having Specters in place of Caseys and Chafees in place of Whitehouses (well, maybe not Chafee, I mean Chafee really, really sucked).

But what about all the "no compromise the reason we lost in 2006 was all the moderates overturn Griswold v. Connecticut and torture Arabs and spend whatever it takes to build the Berlin Wall between the US and Mexico types" who are currently running the party? Those people would rather lose than compromise. They're true believers, and like Marxists, they really think historical inevitability is on their side. I know that there's a group of NJ Republican legislators who are trying to move the party to the center, and their, in what was the last bastion of Country Club Republicanism, they're running into opposition.

I think it will change when we lose for a cycle or two, as I said above. You clearly don't. Not sure what good arguing is going to do.

jerseyhoya wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:

pacino wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:

pacino wrote:Dole is going to lose because it looks like she doesn't care about keeping that seat AT ALL. What the heck's her problem? You'll soon be shut out of the Northeast forever (when Specter's done and with Virginia's demographic shift), so holding onto southern senate seats is vital. Her non-existent campaign is really killing things.

Not forever. Things go in cycles. You guys couldn't win crap in the South for ages, and now you're figuring out what type of candidates you have to nominate to win there. Hopefully after a cycle or two in the wilderness, we'll wise up as well.

And then you'll have to either run counter to your national party's social platform and get more Chafees and Specters...and that will marginalize them again. The Republican party will have to learn to co-exist with each other like the 'Blue Dogs' seem to be doing thus far.

Right, but I think the Dems only coexist with the Blue Dogs because they were in the minority for 12 years, and they saw how much that sucked, and so they're willing to compromise to be back in charge. See how quick the conservative base figures out that President Obama with massive majorities in both houses is a bad thing. In a cycle or two, they should be all for having Specters in place of Caseys and Chafees in place of Whitehouses (well, maybe not Chafee, I mean Chafee really, really sucked).

But what about all the "no compromise the reason we lost in 2006 was all the moderates overturn Griswold v. Connecticut and torture Arabs and spend whatever it takes to build the Berlin Wall between the US and Mexico types" who are currently running the party? Those people would rather lose than compromise. They're true believers, and like Marxists, they really think historical inevitability is on their side. I know that there's a group of NJ Republican legislators who are trying to move the party to the center, and their, in what was the last bastion of Country Club Republicanism, they're running into opposition.

I think it will change when we lose for a cycle or two, as I said above. You clearly don't. Not sure what good arguing is going to do.

I think your party is going to split. The Huckabee/Palin wing will become one party, and the there will also be a cosmopolitan party. If that happens, it may require a similar response from the Democrats, or it may be that the split goes along regional lines.

The other alternative for you guys is you discover more Bobby Jindals, who might be able to maintain the Republican coalition.

Long story short, you see an ordinary cyclical adjustment, and I see major shifts occurring over the next 10 years. I think a lot of people missed the basic significance of Huckabee's surprising success.

By the way, the craziest thing--I get these e-mails from the DFA (I'm not even sure what that stands for, but the e-mails are directed at the foaming at the mouth hard core activist Dems. Don't ask how I got on their list. Normally, I just delete them, but for some reason, I read one today. They wanted to me to send $25 to James Inhofe's opponent! I mean, for real? Isn't there a close race where my 25 bucks would make a difference? So, it seems that the Dems are taking this expanding the playing field thing very seriously.

I guess that would be a good thing. I can't imagine the christian nuts winning with a split party. If one of the Huckabee/Palin nuts do ever get in the white house I'd make a strong push for New Jersey to secede from the union since I will surely have vast amounts of influence here in the future.

TenuredVulture wrote:By the way, the craziest thing--I get these e-mails from the DFA (I'm not even sure what that stands for, but the e-mails are directed at the foaming at the mouth hard core activist Dems. Don't ask how I got on their list. Normally, I just delete them, but for some reason, I read one today. They wanted to me to send $25 to James Inhofe's opponent! I mean, for real? Isn't there a close race where my 25 bucks would make a difference? So, it seems that the Dems are taking this expanding the playing field thing very seriously.

We're doing terribly just about everywhere. Inhofe doesn't have a real shot at losing, but I guess he might get kept under 60% or even conceivably 55%. When people talk about how badly McCain's campaign is being run, they're neglecting the fact that he's outperforming the GOP brand still by a healthy margin.

If I were running the Republican Congressional Campaign, I'd release a bunch of ads on the theme, "We're not the majority in Congress."

Interesting discussion. Maybe it centers on how quickly the best and brightest within the Republican Party realize that, right now, the Democrats are closer to the mainstream of American public opinion than they are, and that the Democrats' proposed solutions, imperfect though they might be, simply seem more relevant than the more-of-same that the Republicans are offering.

That said, I'm a bit closer to jerseyhoya on this; I do think these things are cyclical. Go back fifty years and you see these same two factions within the Republican Party: the Eisenhower/Rockefeller types who more or less accepted the New Deal and decided they could thrive within its framework--especially if a willingness to do so meant the difference between winning and losing--and the Buckley/Goldwater types who wanted to burn that system down and to some real extent preferred to lose running on their principles than win compromising them. That viewpoint becomes less and less attractive as you spend more time out of power.

The thing is that, as much as people look at the 1968-2008 period as one of Republican ascendancy, the only candidate who ever ran even sort of explicitly on that Buckley/Goldwater worldview and won was Reagan--and he was a political genius running in a climate as favorable to him as the current moment is to Obama. Bush wasn't that guy in 2000, and the way he won in '04 was a unique result of that political moment.

(The question is whether moderate Republicans can ever really rise again. I've written many times here that I think this only happens if and when they stop giving Norquist and Dobson an effective veto over their national leadership, and start embracing a worldview--and this is definitely in the Eisenhower/Rockefeller tradition--that allows for the possibility of government, even limited government, working as a positive force in the lives of average Americans. But maybe that's just me.)

Perhaps what happens is that eventually, parties out of power come back to power by first pissing off their base, then convincing said base that what the true believers initially see as compromise or capitulation actually can be accommodated within the party's philosophy. With the arguable exception of free trade, there's no serious debate among Democrats anymore about most of the "deviationist" things Clinton pushed in the '90s. It just took both time and the miserable experience of being completely shut out at the federal level by Bush and DeLay to incorporate welfare reform, newfound regard for law enforcement, etc as part of the scenery.

Probably one could make a case that this is what Douthat and his bunch are trying to do--but to my knowledge, they don't really have champions in office, the way the New Dems did at the state level and in Congress starting in the '80s. Maybe Pawlenty, coiner of the "Sam's Club Republicans" handle, is in that boat.

Actually, it's ironic that Bill Clinton could prove to be the bridge from the old, intellectually exhausted and widely despised Democratic Party of the Reagan era to a new center-left Obama-era majority... keeping in mind that Obama and the Democrats have to deliver as a governing party, which is probably no better than a 50 percent shot. Otherwise, they'll default it back to the Republicans, and this moment will be no more lasting than '76 or '92.