What Is Wrong With Republicans?
In the primaries the Republican base did what has fractured the Democrat base. They voted for a candidate "who looks like me" (socialist Huckabee) instead of voting for the Reagan Republican (Thompson). With the conservative vote split we wind up with McCain.
The liberal wing of the party has to be satisfied (we need their votes) just as the conservative wing must be satisfied. No way in heck would Huckabee have satisfied the liberal wing. We need to give a thought to the libertarian wing as well. RR ran on a libertarian platform - lower taxes smaller government. It is something all the party can agree on. You will remember RR was a pro-abortion Governor of California.
So the "just like me" litmus tests have to be abandoned.
It is OK. Once we get totally socialized medicine and a general war in the ME Republicans will come together to save what is left. It won't be much.
Way to go guys.
The key is: every faction was looking out for itself. None was looking out for the coalition (Party). Republicans can't do coalition warfare any more. Sad.
Prompted by: Republicans: A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy?
Cross Posted at Classical Values
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3 comments:
Set aside for a moment the connivance of media in manipulating the primaries, e.g., the saturation of anti-Mormon rhetoric that may have sunk Romney, and the lemming behavior of the partisan voting blocs, e.g., the "social conservatives" who we are told voted solidly for Huckleberry.
It seems to me that the simple ego of certain candidates plays a large role in an outcome where we arguably have a second tier candidate facing off against the left in November.
I suppose that's a characteristic of most politicians. I don't have to like it. If the stakes weren't so high, McCain would never get my vote. As things are, I'm compelled to actively support him.
linearthinker,
Coalition warfare sucks. (Un)fortunately as Ben Franklin said:
"If we don't all hang together we will hang separately."
Not so sure that's what is going to happen. The more the primary voters found out about Obama, the worse he did--even among Democrats. If he continues along the rhetorical line of "we can't drive SUVs and eat as much as we want", that'll turn off (or outright scare) approximately 66% of the electorate.
With so much (although not all) of the media fawning over him, he might not really believe the extent of the damage that does. There would just be the constant drip, drip, drip of voters privately tuning out.
My prediction is that if he doesn't take a sharp turn to the right starting in July or so, it'll be McCain in a blowout. Especially if the Democrats increase their majority in Congress. Balance, you know.
I'm not sure whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. But that's how I'm handicapping it.
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