Comments on: The Party Of Small Minds, Not Small Government

By: HollywoodBill

HollywoodBill — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 22:26:13 +0000

Sinz54, as usual, the Palinistas somehow seem to think that the MooseHunter gets a pass for the loss. She does not. While she started off high as any unknown newcomer would, she ended up having the highest negatives of any of the 4 principals running. Her endless mindnumbing interviews with Gibson and Couric as well as Tina Fey’s accurate satire helped doom her. Her kids needed to be at least tutored while on the road instead of being used as props. Palin’s pregnant, high school drop unmarried daughter is not exactly the role model of a first or second family. The GOP lost every single suburb in America including Dallas and Houston. Like it or not, the Palinistas will have to accept that Palin will have the same fate as every other failed VeeP candidate. She is not Presidential material except in the minds of the social conservatives. And there aren’t enough of them to win national elections.

By: DougD

DougD — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 22:10:16 +0000

Well, the one thing that’s crystal clear in this thread is that people who care about the future of the GOP disagree strongly. My point, some hours ago is: let’s bail on the stuff we disagree about and focus on the stuff we agree on. The GOP should not be a party of social advocacy – pro-gay, anti-gay. A pox on both of your houses. People need to get this out into the streets and sort it out – don’t form a circular firing squad and destroy our chances in coming elections.

By: sinz54

sinz54 — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 22:09:44 +0000

HollywoodBill: Palin had little to do with McCain’s loss. Americans never vote for the Vice-President, they vote for the President. In 1988, Dan Quayle was made a virtual laughingstock (unfairly, I believe). But that didn’t stop George H. W. Bush from beating Dukakis handily.

Note also that after the GOP convention and the speech there by Palin, McCain actually pulled ahead of Obama in the polls. But just a few weeks later, the U.S. financial market fell off a cliff, sparking a national economic crisis. McCain’s frenetic but unfocused and ineffectual attempts to deal with it, turned off the voters and quickly sank his candidacy. Obama seemed more statesmanlike, just for not getting rattled by the bad news from Wall Street. And in the presidential debates, Obama seemed to have better command of economic issues than McCain did. McCain’s obsession with earmarks wasn’t appealing to many voters. If the GOP had known that the bottom was going to fall out of the U.S. economy in September, they might have thought twice about nominating McCain, who had actually admitted that economics wasn’t his strongest suit.

By: HollywoodBill

HollywoodBill — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 21:23:44 +0000

While the loss in November goes to McCain the Palinistas have to accept that she was as much of the problem as he was. McCain would have been the oldest President ever elected. 72 is not the new 50. The electorate rejected putting a religious extremist with no real credentials a heart beat away from the Oval Office. Palin and Jindal are not the future of the GOP. They are regional candidates. The last two dinosaurs left standing after the meteor strike.

By: suey

suey — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 21:02:31 +0000

gerry, I support you the GOP needs to go way right, as right as right can be.

By: gerrysh

gerrysh — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 20:26:53 +0000

What a crock – like Democratic Lite worked for the Republicans in the November election.

Do you ever bother to learn from reality?

By: sinz54

sinz54 — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 20:22:20 +0000

I don’t think the GOP can afford to make a RADICAL change in its social policy so soon, because the evangelicals might just walk out. I keep suggesting some MODEST changes to the current GOP platform, which would just soften the hard edges here and there. In the case of abortion, I suggested continuing the opposition to abortion, but removing the assertion that the unborn are entitled to protections of the Fourteenth Amendment. (That would make every woman who has had an abortion guilty of violating the Constitution, which could land her in a Federal penitentiary.) The 1980 GOP platform (which helped get Reagan elected) had strong language against abortion too, but it did not include that assertion about the Fourteenth Amendment. In the case of homosexuality, the GOP can continue to oppose actual marriage for gays, but it should support some other kind of legal arrangements to give they partner of ay person the same visitation rights, inheritance rights, Social Security benefits, etc., that a married couple would.

By: buzzricksons

buzzricksons — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 19:32:30 +0000

The obscenity filter is having a field day with the spell-checker in the comments! Can someone on staff tone it down already? Makes for ridiculously prudish reading; probably not the message the “new majority” types want to send, now, is it?

By: stysonss

stysonss — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 15:32:27 +0000

Also, one thing that is usually lost in these post-2008 debates on h-omosexual rights: do all of you social cons realize w far the goal posts have shifted? Do you realize that you are essentially conceding Lawrence v Texas, that outlawing h-omosexual conduct is off the books forever? That banning, say h-omosexuals from teaching or lding jobs simply on the basis of their orientation is also off the table? The only issue you are admitting you can “ld the line” on is marriage. *Marriage*. Something that wasn’t being discussed by even the most ambitious and optimistic g-ay rights advocates 20 years ago. Yet now, polls of people under 30 or so sw huge support for the idea, and many people believe they will see it in their lifetime, even tse w oppose it. Of course, sites like Free Republic ply their hate and some always will, but the language and public dialogue of g-ay rights has shifted dramatically, and g-ay rights have leapt centuries in just decades. The GOP hasn’t realized that yet.

By: stysonss

stysonss — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 15:23:42 +0000

CA ped Prop 8 because the Yes side lied about its effects, plain and simple. The Yes side ran two campaigns; they ran a TV war claiming that kids would be taught marriage in scols (a lie) and they ran an off-the-radar (internet and pulpit campaign) campaign claiming that pastors would be arrested for preaching against mosexuality or failing to perform marriage (more lies). Add to that the rribly-run No campaign (also well doented) and the Yes side *still* only barely managed to win. llywoodB is right: the tide is turning on this, and the social cons will lose this battle over time.