aceventura3

McCain should not have been the nominee of the party. In the primary Romney got the fiscally conservative vote and Huckabee got the religious vote - these two categories form the Republican base. McCain got everything else, including some Democrats who voted in the Republican primary. McCain is as close to being a Democrat as a Republican can get, given the choice between a real Democrat and a "Democrat light", moderates and independents picked the real Democrat. McCain also ran a character campaign, which was a mistake. I prefer to vote "for" someone or something, not against someone or something. McCain never made his case for why I should vote "for" him, he mostly made the case of why I should vote against Obama.

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

dc_dux

ace...IMO, your comments are why the Repubilcan party will continue to shrink and become the "small tent" party with a conservative litmus test.

Remember the days of Rockefeller/Dirksen/Percy repubilcans..that party no longer exists.

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

Poppinjay

Apparently, "everything else" is now the majority in the GOP. They better embrace that rather than coming back with the two men kissing issue.

__________________
I think the Apocalypse is happening all around us. We go on eating desserts and watching TV. I know I do. I wish we were more capable of sustained passion and sustained resistance. We should be screaming and what we do is gossip. -Lydia Millet

guyy

The Republicans are technically competent, too. In fact, until very recently, they were better at it than Democrats. Their problem was that they didn't have anyone to use the tools. Here in Wisconsin, the Obama campaign had operations everywhere, in little villages as well as Milwaukee and Madison. That difference is apparent in the county results. Obama won 59 out of 72 counties, everywhere except the Milwaukee & Minneapolis suburbs and a few scattered outposts like Fond du Lac & Walworth Co. Even where the McCain campaign had operations, they didn't have enough people to keep them open. They were empty most of the time. We got robocalls and mailings, but never direct human contact.

They didn't get people excited about their campaign becayse they didn't have a message. The economic crisis and Obama knocked away the two pillars of post-Goldwater Republicanism.

From the passage of the Civil Rights Act up until this summer, the Republicans were able to exploit white resentment & backlash against the civil rights movement. Although they would not and could not admit it explicitly, the identity politics they adopted in the campaign were clearly a politics of whiteness. That backfired against Obama, because the implicit message contradicted the surface projections of neutrality. The conflict in messages made McCain seem either out of control or duplicitous. Voters who wanted to move America beyond race -- which is the GOP message on racial issues & what Rush & Fox say they stand for -- voted for Obama. And that does not mean that Obama supporters voted for him because of the colour of his skin. Alan Keyes would not have defeated Obama. Of course, given the way the party defined itself, Keyes or Rice or Powell would not have won the nomination.

The problems with the identity-based campaign exposed other weaknesses. The biggest of these was the collapse of neoliberalism, another pillar of Republican ideology. McCain and the Republicans at first wanted to deny the problems even existed. When that was no longer viable they announced they were "going negative", in other words, that they had nothing to offer. They're going to have get beyond that kind of reaction.

Where do you go when the terms and operations that define who you are politically no longer function? That's up to them. I'm not a Republican.

aceventura3

I don't remember the days of Rokerfeller...I became a Republican when Reagan was in office. When I look back on a historical basis I found it interesting that Martin Luther King was a Republican.

Regarding the "small tent" issue - I am not concerned with the size of the "tent", I don't compromise on my core beliefs and if being "big tent" means bigger government (in terms of the percent of GDP - I know government gets bigger when the economy grows but government should not grow at a faster rate than the economy and should be smaller than it is now) count me out. The conservative case can be made and conservatives can get votes without compromising core beliefs.

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

dc_dux

ace....ff thats what you believe...it works for me too!

The narrower your ideology, the smaller your voter base and the less appeal to the growing number of independents.

I believe that a party can represent a diversity of views w/o comproming core beliefs.

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

aceventura3

In a simplistic way I would divide the Republican primary votes in 3. McCain had the advatage of 2/3's of the real Republican vote split and he got independents and cross-over votes. McCain did not get a majority of the Republican vote. Also, compared to Obama, McCain's support was weak among those who supported him. When Bush ran in 2000 and 2004, I volunteered to work both times. I did not do anything other than vote to get McCain elected.
-----Added 6/11/2008 at 12 : 46 : 15-----
I think there can be a diversity of people in a party, but not a diversity of views on the core issues. What you describe seems to be a collection of people with no direction to me.

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

dc_dux

ace...thats the problem I have with rigid ideologues of any persuasion.

Ideologues see things solely in black and white...no shades of gray allowed!

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

aceventura3

Just for the record there are differences between core beliefs/values and general ideas and concepts. For example the concept of taxation can be explored and debated and compromises reached, but the core belief in the individual benefiting from their labor in their own legal manner is not.

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

Poppinjay

How so? Here are two leading democrats from that time: Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond. Would you think MLK would register to vote with them? Democrats at that time, especially in the south, were all for segregation. Many of them became republicans when it was inevitable.

Ask any southern historian, the republican party of today is the democratic party prior to 1970. The democratic party of today is the same as the republican party prior to 1970.

__________________
I think the Apocalypse is happening all around us. We go on eating desserts and watching TV. I know I do. I wish we were more capable of sustained passion and sustained resistance. We should be screaming and what we do is gossip. -Lydia Millet

QuasiMondo

And if Dr. King were alive today, no doubt he would be disappointed in what his party has become.

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-From the Collector's Edition DVD of The Terminator

Paq

i'm going wtih poppin jay on that one...plus, i think he owed a pardon to one of the parties...

but still..when you look at who he could have supported..you get : Jesse helms an strom thurmond...the dem party was ...just 'sliiightly' racist...strom thurmond having the record filibuster against ending segregation....oh yea, SC is so great sometimes. plus, he was on the dixiecrat ticket...oh yea..lots of reasons for MLK to be republican back then.

Actually, thurmond's change to the republican party is part of what caused the state to go red..and stay there.

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YaWhateva

This, right here is what a lot of people don't understand.

__________________
“If the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam Hussein and it's clean, he has nothing, I will apologize to the nation, and I will not trust the Bush administration again.” - Bill O'Reilly

"This is my United States of Whateva!"

Cimarron29414

The answer(s) are simple:

1) The long primary season
2) South Carolina

1) By having the primaries spread out across weeks, the media has the ability to control the nominees. Think back, if all primaries were held on the same day as the Iowa caucas, the general election candidates would have been Hilary Clinton and Mitt Romney. This rule should be changed, as the candidates have many methods to spread their message and no longer need the time to campaign in every state. It would also mitigate the influence that the media has on the election, which would be a very good thing.
2) This is a bit of a stretch, but stick with me. In 2000, Karl Rove introduced untrue and slanderous accusations into the South Carolina primary regarding John McCain's service and captivity in Vietnam. As a result, South Carolinians voted against McCain and propelled Bush into the nomination. Over the past 8 years, South Carolina has come to realize they were dupped by the Bush campaign and couldn't WAIT to apologize to McCain in this primary. Hence, SC voted for McCain in the primary over candidates that actually could have had a chance against Obama - the younger, more charismatic Romney....and even Huckabee. McCain was barely even noticed in the initial leg of the primary season. It wasn't until he won SC that the media started pushing him into the top spot and other states followed SC's lead. In short, I blame my state for electing Bush and now, by propping up an unelectable alternative, for electing Obama.

While this doesn't have anything to do with the thread - I vote third party and did not vote for McCain or Obama. Why yes, I believe Obama will be the worst President in history, will make us all long for the Bush years, and will set his race back 40 years. For decades, all other black candidates will suffer from the "remember the last time we elected one of them?" This is not because Obama is black, it's because....it doesn't matter what I say, he's the president elect. The election is over and I hope that I am wrong.

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"Here lies The_Jazz: Killed by an ambitious, sparkly, pink butterfly."

Seer666

You took the words right out of my mouth will.

__________________
Bad spellers of the world untie!!!

I am the one you warned me of

I seem to have misplaced the bullet with your name on it, but I have a whole box addressed to occupant.

aceventura3

Are you guys suggesting that you would have voted for McCain if not for Palin?

For some of us Republicans, McCain got our support because of Palin. I was considering a vote for Barr and would have voted for Clinton if she was running against McCain.

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

djtestudo

Just remember one thing.

Four years of Bush brought us a major terrorist attack, two wars, of which one was even then unpopular, and the Patriot Act, and and he still beat a legitimate Democrat candidate.

Four more years of unpopular war, political scandal and questionable legislation, the loss of Congress, running likely the worst possible candidate for the time, a polarizing VP pick, and a Democrat candidate who had a cult-like following and was worshiped and protected by his supporters and the media at-large...and Obama only won 53%-46%.

There seem to be an awful lot of cocky liberals in here who should be far more wary.

The Democrats may have control but if history tells us anything it is that things can change quickly. Four years is a long time.

I want to see this country remain great, so I would love to see Obama do well. However if anything bad happens he suddenly becomes Jimmy Carter, and in four years power will move back in the other direction even if the Republicans change very little.

__________________
"Final thought: I just rented Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine. Frankly, it was the worst sports movie I've ever seen."
--Peter Schmuck, The (Baltimore) Sun

Daniel_

Supposing this were true - could the Republicans have won?

__________________

╔═════════════════════════════════════════╗
Overhead, the Albatross hangs motionless upon the air,
And deep beneath the rolling waves,
In labyrinths of Coral Caves,
The Echo of a distant time
Comes willowing across the sand;
And everthing is Green and Submarine
╚═════════════════════════════════════════╝

Willravel

Not at all. What I'm suggesting is that Palin being put on the ticket was a horrible idea. Sure, it rallied some of the base, but rallying the base isn't how you win after 8 years of Bush. You need centrism in order to recuperate. McCain sold his soul to try and win instead of remaining the John McCain of yore, and Osh Kosh Barbi was a slap in the face to anyone left of the far right with more than a few brain cells.

A vice presidential candidate shouldn't have to be told what the vice president does.

YaWhateva

No I think what most people are saying is that they made sure not to vote for McCain because of Palin. She sure scared away a lot of independents and undecideds.

__________________
“If the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam Hussein and it's clean, he has nothing, I will apologize to the nation, and I will not trust the Bush administration again.” - Bill O'Reilly

"This is my United States of Whateva!"

smooth

aceventura, did you see some numbers that democrats voted for McCain in the primaries?
In California, voters can't vote for the opposite major party during the primaries. I think it's the case in Oregon, too, but I haven't voted there for about 15 years.
If most states have open primaries, then I guess unscrupulous people could sabotage the other party :\

I don't get the SC argument, cimarron. I mean, I understand what you're saying and it makes sense, but it seems like you're saying that if not for SC in 2000 McCain would have been a viable candidate against Bush. But now he's not? Why was he a viable candidate in 2000 but not in 2008?

__________________
"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

YaWhateva

Was it 7%? a 7% win is huge and the electoral college was a landslide.

Edit: Okay I guess not super huge but still. It was closer than it should have been because of the bible belt.

__________________
“If the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam Hussein and it's clean, he has nothing, I will apologize to the nation, and I will not trust the Bush administration again.” - Bill O'Reilly

"This is my United States of Whateva!"

roachboy

dj---you'll notice that the thread is for discussing what happened to the republicans in this election--there's not much about what anyone thinks will happen next, or what they understand obama to be able or likely to do--so there's no real "cockiness" on anyone's part that i can see. instead there is a series of statements about the many ways in which the republicans find themselves boxed in by the turn to the extreme right, the right that in any other country would be clearly and obviously neo-fascist---which enabled the bush administration to get into power. the republicans are being hoisted by their own choices, structural and conjunctural. personally, i find much of populist american conservatism to be not only foul by dangerous and i am glad to see it hit the wall.

but that doesn't say anything about what i might see as happening next, nor anything about my relation to obama, which is not at all what you might think.

the main difference at this point between those who supported obama and those who supported mc-cain is that the former was supported for ALOT of different reasons in part because the language that obama's campaign used ALLOWED FOR THAT.
you cannot look at this ad hoc coalition in the same way that a republican would look at republicans.
it ain't like that.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

dc_dux

The Republican Party has a serious identify crisis at the moment and before its over it could lead to nasty internal warfare.

Who will be the face of the party....social conservatives, fiscal conservatives, neo-cons? Their greatest problem is that these competing forces just dont get along.

That and the fact that a growing number of Americans, particularly Independents, dont share the core values of any of these groups.

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

Frosstbyte

That's a pretty bold statement that you just tossed out there. Kind of a threadjack, and I don't really buy the rest of your post, but would you care to elaborate? I don't know that anything could happen to make anyone yearn for the Bush years, since I don't know anyone who thinks the last eight years have been a productive, happy time in American politics. Do you think he's incompetent? Do you think he's stepping into an unfixable situation like Carter did and is just going to have to sleep in the bed he made for himself? Are you just an unhappy third party voter whose exact political ideology isn't being represented?

Cimarron29414

I believe you are asking me, "If it were Clinton vs. Romney, would Romney have won?" It's difficult to say - there are many Christians who distrust the Mormon faith and so I believe he would not have energized the religious right - much the way that McCain could not capture them until he picked Palin. Palin may have captured the religious right, but she ostracized the female vote due to her extreme views on right to life. Obviously, she lost more votes for McCain (women) than she gained for him (religious right). Obviously, these are broad statements and anecdotal, at best.

However, I believe Romney would have appealed to moderates and he certainly didn't carry the baggage of Clinton. Overall, I believe he would have won the election. I also believe he would be more effective at leading us through the future economic struggles than Obama. If the financial crisis had occurred during the primaries, Romney would have won the nomination by a landslide.

Again, I didn't vote for McCain or Obama.

__________________
Gives a man a halo, does mead.

"Here lies The_Jazz: Killed by an ambitious, sparkly, pink butterfly."

Seer666

No, I would have voted Obama anyway. After 8 years of Bush and GOP, I really have no faith left in the party. Simple truth is I feel it's time to let someone else give it a go. Even if the Dems don't do any better, the lose will force the GOP to redefine itself a bit, hopefully for the better. And really, McCain had to many of Bushes lackeys running his campaign for me to have any faith that his presidency would be any different the the retarded monkey he would be replacing.

__________________
Bad spellers of the world untie!!!

I am the one you warned me of

I seem to have misplaced the bullet with your name on it, but I have a whole box addressed to occupant.

Cimarron29414

For the purposes of avoiding a threadjack, I will move my response into the President Elect Barack Obama thread.

__________________
Gives a man a halo, does mead.

"Here lies The_Jazz: Killed by an ambitious, sparkly, pink butterfly."

aceventura3

Interesting, how this seems to work. "People" say Palin was a drag on the ticket. The media doesn't like her, says she is a drag on the ticket, and polls show she was a drag on the ticket, but when we dig a bit deeper, we find that "people" (not all, I know some Republicans said it too) saying she was a drag on the ticket would not have voted for McCain anyway. On that basis Wayne Allen Root was clearly a drag on the Bob Barr Libertarian ticket.

On the idea of needing a centrist, I don't know many who would call Joe Biden a centrist. Chaney was not a centrist. Gore was not a centrist. Quayle was not a centrist, etc., etc.,...actually have we ever had a true centrist VP?

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

Frosstbyte

I voted for Obama. I would've voted for McCain if he'd picked Romney as his running mate. The instant he picked Palin was the instant I stopped paying attention to the presidential race. I know several other republicans and libertarians who felt the same way and voted accordingly. She was an unmitigated disaster, and there's ample evidence to show that a McCain/Palin administration would've been divided and hostile before it began.

dc_dux

ace....I dont know where you are "looking deeper" to find those people who would not have voted for McCain anyway.

She shored up the base and drove away the Independents....which IMO is a microcosm of the Republican party at the moment. they cant figure out how to appeal to both and you cant win w/o both.

Beyond that, many of those who dont like her or dont think she is presidential material are DC party insiders and again, there's the problem.

"Real Americans" (ie mostly the social conservatives) love her...the party establishment doesnt.

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

aceventura3

Taking "fiscal conservative" first, I seem to recall many, left and right leaning people complaining about budget deficits, the national debt and wasteful spending.

On the "social conservatives" one, California just voted to ban gay marriage.

I don't understand what a "neo-con" is. Perhaps its like defining the "Bush Doctrine", something liberals just make up.

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

YaWhateva

You didn't even bother responding to my comment about her pushing away the undecideds and independents. Pick the post that's going to prove your point and ignore the others, right? Many republicans also called McCain's choice as VP a mistake.

__________________
“If the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam Hussein and it's clean, he has nothing, I will apologize to the nation, and I will not trust the Bush administration again.” - Bill O'Reilly

"This is my United States of Whateva!"

roachboy

centrist is one of those perspectival words--in a gop that has redefined conservatism in part by generating a wholly self-serving way of looking at the political spectrum, such that moderates like clinton and obama (who is a bit to the left of clinton in words, but we'll see in action--clinton was to the left of clinton in that way) are cast as "socialists"...make it hard to have a rational discussion. you say "socialist" with reference to obama, and i just laugh at you. i say moderate with reference to obama, and you may well laugh as well.

when i feel like doing it, i lay the french political spectrum over the american: the populist conservative language of the republicans maps more or less directly onto that of the front national (switch the french referencepoints for the american and the match is eerie).
the front national is neo-fascist.

from that kind of extreme rightwing viewpoint, a moderate looks like a democratic socialist and a tepid trade union supporter probably maps as a stalinist.

it all works if you don't have the faintest idea what these terms mean.

but this is a discussion i am tired of having.

addendum: neo-cons operate with a view of foreign policy that has nothing---at all---in common with the blinkered worldview of populist conservatism.
for example, it is most unlikely that a neo-con would have thought, as palin apparently did, that africa is a country.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

dc_dux

ace...the difference between "fiscal conservatives" and "fiscal disciplined" is the latter believe in a role for government, that government is not the enemy and the "free market" is not the answer to everything.

The social conservatives can win a single issue with enough money and scare tactics...they cant win on a broader platform.

Neo-cons? We know who they are and what they represent and a diminishing number of voters share their view of the world.
-----Added 6/11/2008 at 06 : 17 : 50-----
And these three groups are fighting for control of the party.

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

aceventura3

Just look on TFP, so far I see one person who indicated they voted for Obama because of Palin. And then consider the numbers of opinions saying she hurt the ticket, there is a clear pattern.

The coverage on this issue has been superficial at best, the media disliked Palin from the start. Women who supported Clinton disliked Palin. People passionate about protecting a woman's right to abortion disliked Palin. I think these groups drove the anti-Palin crusade and were able to skew poll results.

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

dc_dux

ace...cool, blame the media and the liberal elitist of TFP.

It wont stop the infighting within the Republican party...buts thats fine with me

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

aceventura3

I think a bigger factor was the economic crisis. McCain faltered on this issue. Even for me, I strongly disliked the fact that he said the economy was fundamentally sound, which it is, and then backed off of that statement. I dislike McCain not backing Phil Gramm when he told Americans to stop whining. McCain's mis-steps made Obama look like a hero on this issue.

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

roachboy

it's called being awake, ace.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

dc_dux

wait...South Africa is not a province in the nation of Africa?

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire