Ambinder has an excellent post here about how the confident predictions that some in the GOP, including Karl Rove, have been making about a comeback in 2010 underestimate the structural problems of the party. This is the point that struck me:
Conservatives hold more sway in the Republican Party than liberals do in the Democratic party. To put it another way, conservatives make up a larger portion of the Republican base than liberals do of the Democratic base -- a larger percentage, even of their national committee that liberals do in the DNC. Therefore, it's more difficult for Republican candidates to challenge orthodoxy and dogma; it's harder for a Bill Clinton figure to emerge.
This is why John McCain didn't, in the end, stand a chance. On the one hand, here's a candidate with huge potential to appeal beyond traditional party boundaries. He's spent much of his career in disagreement with his party mainstream, he's a true war hero, he opposed the incumbent president on several key issues, he has a record of being bipartisan. But he was pretty much forced to throw all of these advantages away by the conservative base of his party. He wasn't allowed to put any distance between himself and Bush. He couldn't present himself as an independent, centrist figure. He wanted to pick Lieberman, which might have made quite a difference in that regard, but the base wouldn't let him. He couldn't reach out - he was forced back into their corner. And at the moment that's an angry, defensive, fearful place.
With an unpopular Rep. Bush presidency, and the economic meltdown, no Rep was gonna win UNLESS he had clearly been anti-Bush on economics.
Maybe like Mike Huckabee, a populist conservative anti-elite.
I think you're missing the reality that the old elite, Big Bank, Big Business, rich Republican is being swept aside/ leaving for the Dems.
Sarah Palin will be one of the faces of the future Reps: working for a living, pro-life, pro-family, pro-Christian.
In favor of American victory when America is fighting.
Had Lieberman been on the ticket, it would have been a far bigger Dem blowout, with a real conservative rebellion against the elite / moderates who advocated McCain, but then left for Obama anyway.
Posted by: Tom Grey | December 08, 2008 at 04:14 PM
Tom, I think you're right about what would have happened if Lieberman had been picked. I also agree that Sarah Palin may well be one of the major faces of the Republicans in the next few years. But (I suspect) unlike you, I think both those things spell bad, bad news for the electoral prospects of the GOP.
By the way: "in favor of American victory when America is fighting" - as opposed to...all those Republicans and Democrats in favour of American defeat? Who might they be?
Posted by: Ian Leslie | December 08, 2008 at 05:29 PM
I notice it is YOU, not I, who create the strawman phrase "in favor of American defeat", and ask who? Of course, none claim that; yet...
Who? Well, those in Democratic Party who voted in 1974-75 to 1) restrict the ability of the President to send forces back to Indo-China, (even if the N. Viet commies violated the Paris Peace Accords),
2) voted to reduce funding for the US backed S. Viet allies.
These Dems essentially voted to allow the N. Viet commies to win.
The US lost. Because of Congressional votes. None claimed to support American defeat.
In Iraq, the Dems who wanted the US to withdraw 2005-2007, and those, like Barack Obama, who were against the surge -- all opposing the actions needed for victory.
Similarly, it is the anti-war folk who allow genocide in Darfur (tho the UN says it's not). I claim the choice is war or genocide (and favor war); the anti-war folk don't claim to favor genocide, but they have been accepting it and NOT protesting it as much as protesting against Bush's Operation Iraqi Freedom.
What do you favor?
Posted by: Tom Grey | December 09, 2008 at 05:12 PM