6th November 2008, 9:49 PM
Yeah, Palin didn't cause McCain to lose. He was going to lose either way. People in the campaign are just looking for excuses for their defeat that don't include "there was almost no way we could win" and "the Republican party has fundamental problems"... it's much easier to say "see, it's HER fault! Listen to this bad stuff I (remember/just made up) about her!"
This internal war between the Palin and McCain camps is only indicative of the serious problems the Republican party has right now. Just look at that map in the election thread... can the Republican party really claim to be a fully national party when it is falling apart everywhere except for the Deep South and Great Plains (and even in those places inroads are being made against it in some places)?
A few years ago Democrats were the ones faced with this -- "Democrats only represent the Northeast, part of the Upper Midwest, and the West Coast, not the rest (middle) of the country", but this election has fundamentally changed that, and the Republican party just keeps collapsing in those blue areas... and even in some red ones.
For instance, how there are now ZERO Republicans from New England in the US House, and only three in the Senate now that one was just voted out. New England is the original Republican stronghold... that it has changed so dramatically says a lot about the direction the party has taken in recent decades as they have abandoned moderates of all kinds, fiscal conservatives who don't really care about "social issues" and who used to be a core Republican demographic, and more. And now with the cracking on the edges of the "Southern Strategy" (Virginia and North Carolina, key states in the Confederacy, voting for a black man for President? Simply astounding!), what do the Republicans have left?
They'll probably eventually come up with something... but if they decide to go even harder right and even more towards the base, they will continue to lose like they did in 2006 and 2008, I believe. Not that I dislike the results... :) ... but the Republicans used to be an actual respectable political party in places like New England. Now the only way one can win is by desperately trying to prove that they have nothing to do with the national party and then hoping for some good luck on election day... and aside from our two senators (Snowe and Collins), that strategy isn't working.
The same thing's happening in New York too, it still has some Republicans in the House, but three fewer this year than two years ago... run hard on social issues and you lose the Northeast. 2000 and 2004 showed that in order to get a functional majority from that period of an extremely divided electorate, one party needed to crack into the other party's core areas... the Democrats figured out how to do that in 2006 and expanded on it this year. Republicans seem to be heading in the opposite direction.
This internal war between the Palin and McCain camps is only indicative of the serious problems the Republican party has right now. Just look at that map in the election thread... can the Republican party really claim to be a fully national party when it is falling apart everywhere except for the Deep South and Great Plains (and even in those places inroads are being made against it in some places)?
A few years ago Democrats were the ones faced with this -- "Democrats only represent the Northeast, part of the Upper Midwest, and the West Coast, not the rest (middle) of the country", but this election has fundamentally changed that, and the Republican party just keeps collapsing in those blue areas... and even in some red ones.
For instance, how there are now ZERO Republicans from New England in the US House, and only three in the Senate now that one was just voted out. New England is the original Republican stronghold... that it has changed so dramatically says a lot about the direction the party has taken in recent decades as they have abandoned moderates of all kinds, fiscal conservatives who don't really care about "social issues" and who used to be a core Republican demographic, and more. And now with the cracking on the edges of the "Southern Strategy" (Virginia and North Carolina, key states in the Confederacy, voting for a black man for President? Simply astounding!), what do the Republicans have left?
They'll probably eventually come up with something... but if they decide to go even harder right and even more towards the base, they will continue to lose like they did in 2006 and 2008, I believe. Not that I dislike the results... :) ... but the Republicans used to be an actual respectable political party in places like New England. Now the only way one can win is by desperately trying to prove that they have nothing to do with the national party and then hoping for some good luck on election day... and aside from our two senators (Snowe and Collins), that strategy isn't working.
The same thing's happening in New York too, it still has some Republicans in the House, but three fewer this year than two years ago... run hard on social issues and you lose the Northeast. 2000 and 2004 showed that in order to get a functional majority from that period of an extremely divided electorate, one party needed to crack into the other party's core areas... the Democrats figured out how to do that in 2006 and expanded on it this year. Republicans seem to be heading in the opposite direction.
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