Let's not offend anyone

[Hoss]

Savior? No, but she maybe the Republican's last mistake.

The Republican Party needs to have someone bring them back to the middle, to gain moderate voters and eat at the natural fissure in the Democratic Party between Labor and Progressives.

But right now the Republican Party seems to be too busy purging all moderates voices from their ranks for that to happen. In the marginalized and far right wing environment that is the Republican Party today she certainly can win a nomination and then go down in flames in a general election.

If that were to happen I could easily see the pro-business/trade wing of the Republican fracturing from right wing Christian elements and forming a more ecumenical but pro business party that really could start to win elections again by sapping those progressives from the Democrats. But that would probably permanently marginalize the remaining Republican Party as just a conservative Christian party with little money and only small power base in the rural south.

It makes one wonder what the remainder of that party will name themselves once they have done that.

The Bat-Sh*t Crazy Party?
The Obstructionist Party?
The No Party?

Just throwin' some out there.

[buckeye]

but I think she'll do like most of the other humans do, and blindly follow her own biased dogmas and misconceptions without examining or questioning her own perspective or context....

Had to fix that up a little.

Sad to see how little (or no) depth she had as time went on.  The rightwing base went nuts in a good way during her first speech, but who could stay enthusiastic afterwards?  For the sake of the party, I hope she's planning a talk-show kind of career and leaving political office out of the picture.

[we vs us]

There're a lot of outside forces keeping us as a two-party system, so ideological splits within the GOP have limited choices.  Essentially disgruntled GOPers can either reform from within or become Democrats.  The third choice -- form an independent party -- is a nonstarter because it virtually guarantees the splitters will lose most of their political power.

There're currently no internal reformers within view -- at least no serious ones. Yes, Michael Steele talks a lot about rebranding the message, but he's essentially talking about changing the delivery of the message, rather than the message itself (check out GOP.com, yo).  Even Republican names that get floated for the Big Office -- from Romney to Jindahl to Palin -- none are talking serious reform.  They're all just talking about message delivery.  

The only guy I've seen who's soberly thinking about the future of American conservatism is David Frum, and while he'll show up on tv talk shows, something tells me he's one of the less popular Republicans on the circuit these days.

[Conan71]

McCain was a pretty moderate guy, too. Why do you think Romney would have done better than McCain in a closed primary?

I saw the polling data, and McCain had the highest approval rating of any of the Republican presidential candidates by a sizable margin. So, therefore, there was absolutely no reason to believe that McCain wouldn't do very well in the primaries.

I think a lot of Republicans were repelled by Romney not because of his religion, but because of his wildly inconsistent answers on issues. He wasn't nicknamed "Multiple-Choice Mitt" for nothing.

McCain, frankly, lost his moderate and sensible Republican cachet by choosing the empty-headed Palin as a running mate. All those main reasons he gave earlier for voting for him (experience, judgment) went out the window with that one pick -- especially after her disastrous interview with Katie Couric. And nothing has happened since to make her (and him) look any better.

This polling you refer to, was that amongst Republicans only or adding in Dems and Inds (also using that to denote other smaller parties)?

Ergo my point on closed primaries and McCain not winning the nomination.

[rwarn17588]

This polling you refer to, was that amongst Republicans only or adding in Dems and Inds (also using that to denote other smaller parties)?

It was Republicans only being polled. It also had breakdowns of Romney, Huckabee. And this was very early in the primary.

It was done by Pew research, a respected poller. Among Republicans, McCain in early February 2008 had a 72 percent favorability rating, versus 54 percent for Romney and 52 percent for Huckabee.

The same poll also broke down favorability ratings at the time among all voters. Obama was tops on the Democratic side, and McCain was tops on the Republican said. And believe me, it wasn't close. Guess who got nominated.

http://people-press.org/report/392/mccains-support-soars-democratic-race-tightens

[rwarn17588]

The only guy I've seen who's soberly thinking about the future of American conservatism is David Frum, and while he'll show up on tv talk shows, something tells me he's one of the less popular Republicans on the circuit these days.

Bruce Bartlett and Daniel Larison are conservatives worth reading, too. Both -- especially Larison -- have been predicting the implosion of the GOP for several years now and that the GOP in its current form is not traditional conservatism.