What becomes of the GOP if it loses this election?

[Guest StuCotts]

This is in the Times's op-ed section today.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/03/opinion/...amp;oref=slogin

[AdamSmith]

I just logged in to post this same link. Krugman dashes cold water on hopeful speculation by TampaYankee, me and others that the past 8 years are culminating in some version of the Republican party's hitting rock bottom, so that its more centrist elements will be in position to wrest power from the radical right.

Discouraging. Even such a yellow-dog Democrat as AdamSmith would breathe more easily if the Republican party were a safer, saner partner in governance. I think of Nixon (as reported by that ghastliness Monica Crowley) watching on TV in 1992 as the Bush I renominating convention opened with Pat Buchanan's bashing of gays and much else. "He's so extreme; he's over there with the nuts," fumed Nixon, complaining this undid what he praised as his own past efforts to drag the party away from the "Goldwater crazies."

...Crowley's memoirs of Nixon, as I've noted before, are riveting. This review by Chris Buckley captures it all (including some Beltway insiders' conviction that Monica knew Dick biblically, at least after Pat Nixon kicked the bucket):

Final Judgments

By CHRISTOPHER BUCKLEY

Published: August 25, 1996

Nixon Off the Record

By Monica Crowley.

231 pp. New York:

Random House. $23.

He's baaack!

For the last five years of his life, Richard Nixon sipped tonic water and spilled the beans to a young assistant he hired right out of college after she wrote him a flattering letter about his book ''1999.'' Monica Crowley was a steel-trap amanuensis, taking down every word with apparently astonishing precision -- she implies that she didn't use a tape recorder, but then perhaps Nixon's post-White House staff avoided tape recorders the way Count Dracula's assistants might avoid crucifixes.

After Nixon died in 1994, she says, William Safire, a former Nixon scribe, gave Ms. Crowley the ethical go-ahead to publish, telling her, ''Nixon knew that when he spoke to you, he was speaking to history.'' The result is her first and Nixon's final book, a portrait of the most compelling, infuriating and fascinating American political figure of our half of the 20th century. Here he is in all his five-o'clock-shadowed glory, spinning not in the grave but from it: seething over the incompetence of the Bush re-election campaign, scheming to ingratiate himself with the Clintons -- not a pretty picture -- handicapping the current election and agonizing over his place in history, all the while serving up scathing assessments of all the players.

Richard Nixon hasn't been this interesting since the Oval Office bugging system was taking the dictation. In life we knew him as Tricky Dick. Now, in death, he gives us Dishy Dick.

A lot of the players will be going around airily pretending they haven't had time to read the book, then locking the doors to the den to look themselves up fretfully in the index to find out what he really thought about them. For George Bush, James A. Baker 3d, David Gergen, Robert A. Mosbacher, Nicholas Brady, Richard Darman, Jack Kemp and Pat Buchanan, reading this book will not be a pleasant experience -- a bit like attending the reading of a will in which they are left not the house, estate and trust funds but the deceased's diabetic cat, with contemptuous instructions for its care. ''Withering'' is not quite strong enough a word to describe Mr. Nixon's feelings toward many of the above. And those are the Republicans.

President and Mrs. Clinton would do well to search elsewhere for diverting reading on their vacation, as would his Cabinet. ''Well! Look at that Cabinet. Aren't they an awful-looking group? My God! Shalala and Reno? They are so far to the left that I don't know what they are. And Hillary! She's so steely. She even claps in a controlled way.'' Secretary of State Warren Christopher is hereby advised to assume the fetal position if anyone within a hundred-yard radius brings up the book.

Who comes off well? It's a short but surprising list: Bob Dole, Mario Cuomo, H. R. Haldeman, Al Gore, Dan Quayle and Elliot Richardson. There's a fun dinner party for you.

The aggrieved will be able to take some comfort from the book's rather massive Achilles' heel, assuming it is that. Either Ms. Crowley, who occasionally gets a bit breathless about all the mentoring -- Michael Kinsley's line kept coming to me: He threw her over the desk and mentored her until dawn -- didn't catch the glaring fallacy in her argument, or something even more interesting is going on here.

At the outset of Part 1, she writes: ''Above all for Nixon, leadership demanded a person secure in his abilities and in himself and who was, therefore, willing and able to take those risks. Of the many criticisms leveled at him, the one he found most egregious was that he was insecure. Politics, by its very nature, attracts the supremely secure.''

As they say in the Valley, Hello? There's enough in that there asseveration to keep every pundit, political scientist and psychologist in America arguing for a month. Her book is a prosecutor's brief for the antithesis, at least in Nixon's case. Almost every page contains DNA evidence, supplied by her mentor himself, that for all his undeniable guts, his ability, again and again, to take a kicking and go on ticking, Richard Nixon was the most transparently insecure human being ever to reach the White House.

''Why the hell isn't he showing some leadership?'' he fumes about George Bush's lack of vision. ''I'll tell you something. When the (expletive deleted) and his gang come to me for advice, I am not going to provide it unless they are willing to thank me publicly. Neither Reagan nor Bush did that after all these years of my advice, and frankly I have had it. They'll find me when they need me, but I may not be available.'' You can hear the stamping of slippered feet on the study floor.

Twenty pages later he's bristling about the Bush campaign -- ''All tactics and no vision. Nothing.'' In his histrionic, tautological way, he tells her: ''I reiterate to you once again: I will not give them any advice unless they ask and unless they are willing to thank me publicly. I'm tired of being taken for granted. They all come to me on the sly when they are in big trouble -- well, no more. No more going in the back door of the White House -- middle of the night -- under the cloak of darkness. . . .'' Wonderful image, that: Nixon being bundled into the side entrance under a raincoat.

Desperate to be a player again, he submits to the humiliation of a visit from the Presidential aspirant Ross Perot, calculating that the specter of his becoming a Perot shadow adviser might prompt Mr. Bush or Mr. Clinton into bringing him in out of the cold. Mr. Perot makes the former President wait two hours, pleading New York City traffic. (To paraphrase Dana Carvey's Perot, ''Isn't that just sad?'') In one of the book's more amusing moments Nixon, convinced that his phones have been tapped, resolves to flush out the tappers with a prearranged call to Ms. Crowley, telling her that he's planning to come out publicly for Mr. Perot. First time as tragedy, second time as opera bouffe.

''I hope to God they don't ask me to speak at the (1992 Republican) convention,'' he says later. ''I won't do it. It's a loser all around.'' He doth protest a bit too much here. Richard Nixon would have bicycled to Houston to speak at that convention in a New York minute, if asked. And too bad he wasn't. His take on Pat Buchanan's fateful speech at that convention: ''He's so extreme; he's over there with the nuts. . . . Attacking the gays was wrong, wrong, wrong. Besides, they vote too.''

Again and again he tells Ms. Crowley, in terms that would scorch paint off the walls, of his contempt for Bill Clinton. Then when Mr. Clinton wins, he sets out to cozy up to -- another less attractive phrase comes to mind -- the new President with such zeal that you find yourself mumbling, ''Say it ain't so.''

After Nixon had read her a copy of a letter to Mr. Clinton, she reports, ''He said to me 'I know it goes a bit overboard, particularly on the character stuff, but the guy's got a big ego, and you've got to flatter the hell out of him if you are going to get anywhere.' '' And there you have it in one excruciating sentence: Nixon so yearned to be a contender again that he was willing to bear any burden, pay any price, to get back in the ring. ''I used the word 'character' not in the moral sense,'' he elaborates to a no doubt dumbstruck Ms. Crowley, ''because he has no morals -- but in the strength sense. Adversity builds character. . . . I have to work with the guy, so I might as well start with this.''

Mr. Clinton put him back in the (outer) loop with a few phone calls about foreign policy. Nixon tells Ms. Crowley that he told the President, ''Foreign policy is just more interesting.'' No surprise there, but how delicious to find a few pages later all our suspicions confirmed: ''Monica, history will not remember him (Mr. Clinton) for anything he does domestically. The economy will recover; it's all short-term and, let's face it, very boring.''

For a time, Nixon was thrilled and energized by Mr. Clinton's attentions. ''He invited me to the White House,'' he announces one day. ''The sentence hung there in the air before he continued, 'In 12 years, neither Reagan nor Bush ever put me on the White House schedule or put a picture out.' '' Just as it took Nixon to open China, so it took Mr. Clinton, whose own wife had served on the impeachment committee, to open the White House back up to Nixon. Amusingly, Nixon tried to keep Mr. Clinton from consulting with Henry Kissinger. But alas, the Rodney Dangerfield of Saddle River got no enduring respect from the Clintons. That realization came when they did not attend the funeral of Mrs. Nixon. It's a harrowing and poignant moment, Lear on the blasted heath, Monica Crowley in the role of Cordelia.

''Nixon, rocked with grief, exploded after the service. 'Vernon Jordan? The Clintons sent Vernon Jordan? He's a fine man, but come on. Hillary should have been there. That was inexcusable. He comes to me for advice . . . and he can't even send a Cabinet member to Mrs. Nixon's funeral?''

The disappointment and anger would turn out to be conclusive, yet when Mr. Clinton made his next State of the Union speech, promoting health care, he included a mention of Nixon's health care proposals. ''Did you know,'' he says to Crowley, ''that that was the first time a President ever mentioned me? Ford, Reagan and Bush never did.''

In life, Nixon was famed as a 20-20 political handicapper. In death, it remains to be seen. Bob Dole ''must really take over the party,'' he tells her. ''He's the only one; no one else can do it.'' Later: ''Dole is the only one who can lead. He is by far the smartest politician -- and Republican -- in the country.'' He advised his protege to wait until after 1994 and then ''kick the hell out of Perot'' (still waiting), to cultivate Colin Powell (done, to little avail), to avoid letting the religious right dictate the terms (yes and no), to be ''conservative'' on economic issues (done) but ''compassionate'' on welfare and health care (so-so), to ''stay young'' (he's trying) and -- the $64,000 question -- to ''attack Clinton's policies and not him personally.'' In fairness, Nixon said this in 1993; now the character issue may really be Mr. Dole's only available red meat.

Mr. Dole, one of Nixon's most serious students, who eulogized him with the words, ''The second half of the 20th century will be known as the age of Nixon,'' would surely have invited him to speak at the '96 Republican convention. What a pity he didn't live long enough for that final dispensation.

Whatever we thought of Nixon, he paid full fare for his sins. It's all here, the pain and humiliation of his 20-year exile from the arena. He made a fatal mistake not burning those tapes a quarter-century ago. It is inconceivable that he made a second fatal mistake letting it all hang out with Ms. Crowley. Mr. Safire was right: Nixon knew his soul-revealing musings would eventually see the light of day. ''Nixon Off the Record'' is a collaboration, not, as some suggest, a betrayal, and that makes the author's naive whoppers about her subject's confidence all the more charming, even endearing. Thank heavens Monica Crowley is a relative innocent. An older pro would have inserted 18-minute gaps and But that would be wrong's. Even so, it's doubtful Nixon expected her to perform such editorial services. He was many things, but naive he wasn't. This remarkable book is an act of catharsis, not hubris, Richard Nixon's final apologia. Tough as he was on everyone else, he was always toughest on himself.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...;pagewanted=all

[Guest StuCotts]

I just logged in to post this same link. Krugman dashes cold water on hopeful speculation by TampaYankee, me and others that the past 8 years are culminating in some version of the Republican party's hitting rock bottom, so that its more centrist elements will be in position to wrest power from the radical right.

I envy you your hopefulness, of which I share not a speck. In victory, those people are petty, grudging, viciously ill-bred, pathologically vituperative and contemptuous of democratic process. How gracious might they be in defeat, or how committed to the principle of loyal opposition? Sore winners are sorer losers.

P.S. You're so deeply interested in Nixon! I confess I'm drawn to everything written about him with a morbid curiosity akin to the one that lures some to gory car wrecks.

[AdamSmith]

I envy you your hopefulness, of which I share not a speck. In victory, those people are petty, grudging, viciously ill-bred, pathologically vituperative and contemptuous of democratic process.

To be sure, my hopefulness may be naught but naivete. Although one does recall that, before W. and H.W., there was Prescott, and today there are, as noted before, the tiny handful of Lugars, Hagels, et al. to perhaps give some glimmer.

Of course it may not really be hope, but just a wish, given that their soon-to-be banishment cannot last forever.

Nixon! I confess I'm drawn to everything written about him with a morbid curiosity akin to the one that lures some to gory car wrecks.

That, certainly. But more, too: the Faustian, even Lear-like dimensions of the beast. The relentless drive; after the deepest humiliations, the return to the arena again and again; the daring & boldness of the diplomatic openings; etc., etc., etc. And then destroyed by his own hand, felled by the same energies that had raised him up or, at least, impelled him.

Part of it is simply nostalgia for political villains and scoundrels who nevertheless -- starkly unlike current-day neocons and other cons -- had a sharp grasp of realpolitik.

[TampaYankee]

Not sure what Mr Krugman had to say as I do not access to the NYT but I just heard Buchanan and Barnicle opine on the possibililty that the conservative movement might fall back on the old populist Goldwater conservatism of spending restraint and stayinging out of the bedroom - a move I would welcome. Part of the basis for the opinion was recognition of the wave of immigrants and the increasing hispanic and African American participation in future politics.

I'm doubtful the right wing religious groups will give up on GOP control until a string of defeats demoralizes their base. The first step in that string, IMO, is cementing the Right of Privacy in the Supreme Court for another generation. Maybe the second step will be a realization that they cannot get their Constitutional Ammendments adopted, if that day ever comes. They will remain active at the state levels.

For now I expect warfare between the conservative intellectual wing and the religious wing. The business wing will align with the percieved strength left standing as their ideology extends little beyond their checkbooks.

Although some are likely to proclaim a new American political realignment for a generation, do not believe it. I have see it all before. No party has a lock on virtue and either party's grasp is always firm until their own abuses do them in or outside circumstances overtake them such as the business cycle or war.

[Guest StuCotts]

Not sure what Mr Krugman had to say as I do not access to the NYT

I'm sorry I put in a link that didn't work for you. It must have to do with copyrighted items being accessible only to subscribers. I hope the same isn't true of plain news items. I'll put one in below. Tell me if you can access it. If not, I won't put in any more from the Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/04/us/polit...amp;oref=slogin

FYI, and very briefly stated, Krugman's point is that the most retrograde elements in the party, admirers of the racist and exclusionist messages of the likes of Palin and Chambliss, who consider themselves real Americans, by contrast with us fake Americans, would come out of this stronger than ever, based on a sense of grievance at having had the election stolen from them by the media and other malevolent forces.

That summary makes me guilty of both radical oversimplification and stringing out a run-on sentence. I can picture the disapproval of my high school English Composition teacher.

[AdamSmith]

Just a footnote on accessing the New York Times online: Both Stu's first link above and my own are accessible via free registration on nytimes.com. No paid sub required. And I have not noticed any deluge of spam due to having registered there.

[TampaYankee]

I'm sorry I put in a link that didn't work for you. It must have to do with copyrighted items being accessible only to subscribers. I hope the same isn't true of plain news items. I'll put one in below. Tell me if you can access it. If not, I won't put in any more from the Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/04/us/polit...amp;oref=slogin

FYI, and very briefly stated, Krugman's point is that the most retrograde elements in the party, admirers of the racist and exclusionist messages of the likes of Palin and Chambliss, who consider themselves real Americans, by contrast with us fake Americans, would come out of this stronger than ever, based on a sense of grievance at having had the election stolen from them by the media and other malevolent forces.

That summary makes me guilty of both radical oversimplification and stringing out a run-on sentence. I can picture the disapproval of my high school English Composition teacher.

Adam, thanks for the synopsis. I agree with Mr. Krugman. That is why I suggested it will take a few more signficant failures before the culture warrior right wing base looses heart.

Let me clear up confusion I sewed. I choose not to accept the NYT conditions for access to their articles. I don't trade my email address for easy access at most -- almost all -- online sites. Call it a quirk or peculiar personal principle. Sometimes that leaves me out of the conversation. I live with it.

[AdamSmith]

Adam, thanks for the synopsis. I agree with Mr. Krugman. That is why I suggested it will take a few more signficant failures before the culture warrior right wing base looses heart.

Stu's synopsis, actually (tho I would be glad to take credit for most of his posts). My view is not quite as dire as Krugman's or, I take it, Stu's. I look forward to some fairly immediate arguments within the GOP in which moderate voices are raised rather louder than in recent times. Perhaps even to some productive schisms that prefigure real power shifts within the party, and reconceptions of the "base." (All too apt a word, it strikes me!)

I choose not to accept the NYT conditions for access to their articles. I don't trade my email address for easy access at most -- almost all -- online sites.

Ah -- you reminded me of something I left out. I have a dedicated Yahoo email account that I created specifically to use in registering for sites such as these. I glance at it now and then (and indeed, as reported, have not seen NYT-identifiable junk in it). But I don't really have to care whether it gets spammed or not, as it is not one of my primary email addresses, and I did not enter any of my real bio-info when I created it.

[TampaYankee]

Adam, thanks for the synopsis. I agree with Mr. Krugman. That is why I suggested it will take a few more signficant failures before the culture warrior right wing base looses heart.

Let me clear up confusion I sewed. I choose not to accept the NYT conditions for access to their articles. I don't trade my email address for easy access at most -- almost all -- online sites. Call it a quirk or peculiar personal principle. Sometimes that leaves me out of the conversation. I live with it.

Sorry Stu, mangled my post. Thank you for the synopsis. I finally caught up with the complete article on Crooks and Liars (dont ya just love that site name ) where it was reprinted.

[AdamSmith]

The Economist does not seem too hopeful of any imminent return to sense by the Republican party at large...

Ship of fools

Political parties die from the head down

JOHN STUART MILL once dismissed the British Conservative Party as the stupid party. Today the Conservative Party is run by Oxford-educated high-fliers who have been busy reinventing conservatism for a new era. As Lexington sees it, the title of the “stupid party†now belongs to the Tories’ transatlantic cousins, the Republicans.

There are any number of reasons for the Republican Party’s defeat on November 4th. But high on the list is the fact that the party lost the battle for brains. Barack Obama won college graduates by two points, a group that George Bush won by six points four years ago. He won voters with postgraduate degrees by 18 points. And he won voters with a household income of more than $200,000—many of whom will get thumped by his tax increases—by six points. John McCain did best among uneducated voters in Appalachia and the South.

The Republicans lost the battle of ideas even more comprehensively than they lost the battle for educated votes, marching into the election armed with nothing more than slogans. Energy? Just drill, baby, drill. Global warming? Crack a joke about Ozone Al. Immigration? Send the bums home. Torture and Guantánamo? Wear a T-shirt saying you would rather be water-boarding. Ha ha. During the primary debates, three out of ten Republican candidates admitted that they did not believe in evolution.

The Republican Party’s divorce from the intelligentsia has been a while in the making. The born-again Mr Bush preferred listening to his “heart†rather than his “headâ€. He also filled the government with incompetent toadies like Michael “heck-of-a-job†Brown, who bungled the response to Hurricane Katrina. Mr McCain, once the chattering classes’ favourite Republican, refused to grapple with the intricacies of the financial meltdown, preferring instead to look for cartoonish villains. And in a desperate attempt to serve boob bait to Bubba, he appointed Sarah Palin to his ticket, a woman who took five years to get a degree in journalism, and who was apparently unaware of some of the most rudimentary facts about international politics.

Republicanism’s anti-intellectual turn is devastating for its future. The party’s electoral success from 1980 onwards was driven by its ability to link brains with brawn. The conservative intelligentsia not only helped to craft a message that resonated with working-class Democrats, a message that emphasised entrepreneurialism, law and order, and American pride. It also provided the party with a sweeping policy agenda. The party’s loss of brains leaves it rudderless, without a compelling agenda.

This is happening at a time when the American population is becoming more educated. More than a quarter of Americans now have university degrees. Twenty per cent of households earn more than $100,000 a year, up from 16% in 1996. Mark Penn, a Democratic pollster, notes that 69% call themselves “professionalsâ€. McKinsey, a management consultancy, argues that the number of jobs requiring “tacit†intellectual skills has increased three times as fast as employment in general. The Republican Party’s current “redneck strategy†will leave it appealing to a shrinking and backward-looking portion of the electorate.

Why is this happening? One reason is that conservative brawn has lost patience with brains of all kinds, conservative or liberal. Many conservatives—particularly lower-income ones—are consumed with elemental fury about everything from immigration to liberal do-gooders. They take their opinions from talk-radio hosts such as Rush Limbaugh and the deeply unsubtle Sean Hannity. And they regard Mrs Palin’s apparent ignorance not as a problem but as a badge of honour.

Another reason is the degeneracy of the conservative intelligentsia itself, a modern-day version of the 1970s liberals it arose to do battle with: trapped in an ideological cocoon, defined by its outer fringes, ruled by dynasties and incapable of adjusting to a changed world. The movement has little to say about today’s pressing problems, such as global warming and the debacle in Iraq, and expends too much of its energy on xenophobia, homophobia and opposing stem-cell research.

Conservative intellectuals are also engaged in their own version of what Julian Benda dubbed la trahison des clercs, the treason of the learned. They have fallen into constructing cartoon images of “real Americansâ€, with their “volkish†wisdom and charming habit of dropping their “gâ€s. Mrs Palin was invented as a national political force by Beltway journalists from the Weekly Standard and the National Review who met her when they were on luxury cruises around Alaska, and then noisily championed her cause.

Time for reflection

How likely is it that the Republican Party will come to its senses? There are glimmers of hope. Business conservatives worry that the party has lost the business vote. Moderates complain that the Republicans are becoming the party of “white-trash prideâ€. Anonymous McCain aides complain that Mrs Palin was a campaign-destroying “whack jobâ€. One of the most encouraging signs is the support for giving the chairmanship of the Republican Party to John Sununu, a sensible and clever man who has the added advantage of coming from the north-east (he lost his New Hampshire Senate seat on November 4th).

But the odds in favour of an imminent renaissance look long. Many conservatives continue to think they lost because they were not conservative or populist enough—Mr McCain, after all, was an amnesty-loving green who refused to make an issue out of Mr Obama’s associations with Jeremiah Wright. Richard Weaver, one of the founders of modern conservatism, once wrote a book entitled “Ideas have Consequencesâ€; unfortunately, too many Republicans are still refusing to acknowledge that idiocy has consequences, too.

http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstate...ory_id=12599247

[Guest StuCotts]

The Economist does not seem too hopeful of any imminent return to sense by the Republican party at large...

http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstate...ory_id=12599247

This piece must have been written amid bitter tears of chagrin. This mag is so deeply Tory that any defeat suffered by our own version thereof would be a stab to the vitals. I still remember that early in 2003, when Bush was daily pounding his chest and making warlike noises, the leader writers were in paroxysms of ecstasy. They applauded every idiotic lie and gibbered their adoration of his wisdom and courage in invading Iraq.

Since then things have turned around to the point of even prompting the endorsement of Barack Obama. It was last-minute and framed with enough qualifiers to make the reluctance shine through clearly, but it did happen.

All this must be paining them. They have only to close their eyes...

[AdamSmith]

This mag is so deeply Tory that any defeat suffered by our own version thereof would be a stab to the vitals.

Precisely why I found their pessimism so striking.

All this must be paining them. They have only to close their eyes...

Indeed. I anticipated many pleasures great and small from Obama's victory, but not this schadenfreude over The Economist's comeuppance.

[Guest BewareofNick]

For the GOP to rebuild, it has to do a lot of things that Rush Limbaugh itself has scoffed at:

1. it must abandon the "Southern Stratergery" and reach out to minorities.

2. it must jettison the Religious Right, or at least keep them on a short leash.

3. it must return to its roots of fiscal conservatism, instead of its current "borrow and spend" philosophy.

4. it must embrace the policies of Newt Gingrich

5. It must soundly reject Sarah Palin and what she represents.

6. It must abandon anti-intellectualism

We all know the GOP loves its "base", but its base is what is destroying the GOP, and thankfully for all of us, the base is shrinking.

[Guest Conway]

BON, I think that is a very perceptive analysis. As I said many times during this election and the previous election, victory comes from the middle America swing voters that vote largely based upon their economic circumstances at a given point in the economic and political cycle.

The economy worked clearly against the GOP in this election. The GOP focused to heavily on attracting the social conservative base that pushed GWB over the top in 2004. Social conservatives couldn't give a rats ass for John McCain and Sarah Palin alienated the middle voters with her lack of educational acumen. As a result, social conseravatives stayed home and middle of the road voters drifted to Obama and Biden.

[TampaYankee]

For the GOP to rebuild, it has to do a lot of things that Rush Limbaugh itself has scoffed at:

1. it must abandon the "Southern Stratergery" and reach out to minorities.

2. it must jettison the Religious Right, or at least keep them on a short leash.

3. it must return to its roots of fiscal conservatism, instead of its current "borrow and spend" philosophy.

4. it must embrace the policies of Newt Gingrich

5. It must soundly reject Sarah Palin and what she represents.

6. It must abandon anti-intellectualism

We all know the GOP loves its "base", but its base is what is destroying the GOP, and thankfully for all of us, the base is shrinking.

Do I detect a whif of AuH2O republicanism in the air? That would be appealing IMO. That would include dumping the activist (war mongering) Neocons in favor of a more traditional conservative foreign policy.

[TampaYankee]

BON, I think that is a very perceptive analysis. As I said many times during this election and the previous election, victory comes from the middle America swing voters that vote largely based upon their economic circumstances at a given point in the economic and political cycle.

The economy worked clearly against the GOP in this election. The GOP focused to heavily on attracting the social conservative base that pushed GWB over the top in 2004. Social conservatives couldn't give a rats ass for John McCain and Sarah Palin alienated the middle voters with her lack of educational acumen. As a result, social conseravatives stayed home and middle of the road voters drifted to Obama and Biden.

I don't disagree with any of that but it misses one very significant point IMO. Any party government or administration that fails so horrendously, repeatedly, not to mention abuse of power and politicization of nonpartisan government process just needs to be thrown out on its ass. There has to be some prize for such major screw ups. No amount of promises to come back to the old time religion should spare them from serving some penance in the desert. They earned the time off. They need it too to get their act together.

[Guest StuCotts]

For the GOP to rebuild, it has to do a lot of things that Rush Limbaugh itself has scoffed at:

We all know the GOP loves its "base", but its base is what is destroying the GOP, and thankfully for all of us, the base is shrinking.

I don't know how true it still is that the GOP at large loves its base. My doubt is based in how much of the party, from its most prominent intellectual and generally sane defenders to its most anonymous rank-and-file, rejected the base in this election.

I do believe that the base loves the base and the right wing media love the base at the top of their lungs. The decible level can be deceptive. Who in fact pays attention to Limbaugh any more? He excoriated McCain to keep the nomination away from him, but McCain got it. He ranted like a lunatic about Obama during the election campaign, yet Obama was elected.

That proves that the electorate, even the GOP electorate, has turned its attention away from him and his ilk. The base has not and, for whatever reason, the commentariat has not.

All in all, the chances that your wish list for the GOP may be realized to some extent are better now than in recent times.

Lest I be misunderstood, I hasten to clarify that in my personal view, the GOP shpuld spend the next century weeping and gnashing its teeth in the outer darkness for the harm it has done to the nation.

[TampaYankee]

Lest I be misunderstood, I hasten to clarify that in my personal view, the GOP shpuld spend the next century weeping and gnashing its teeth in the outer darkness for the harm it has done to the nation.

Unfortunately, unchecked power always descends into lunacy and corruption. The Democrats are not immune.

The amazing thing about the Republicans is that the so-called Party of Conservative Principles descended so rapidly into abuse and corruption and unabashedly so. Does anyone remember the blatant refusal of the Republican Congress to perform any serious oversight on the Bush Admin? How about the just as blatant refusal to let Dems participate in the government with any voice. Let's not go into partnering with K Street to buy and sell influence to and for those willing to play.

Unchecked power always comes to a bad end. Unfortunately, we no longer have a responsible opposition party. I pray they can reform themselves to be a National Party with national interests in place of their usual devisive interests.

[AdamSmith]

Unchecked power always comes to a bad end. Unfortunately, we no longer have a responsible opposition party. I pray they can reform themselves to be a National Party with national interests in place of their usual devisive interests.

I hang hope on the possibility that Obama is acutely aware of that.

Thus Rahm Emanuel, for starters. Some saw that as signaling hyper-partisanship from the get-go. But others, even unto Lindsey Graham and Peggy Noonan, noted Emanuel's proven ability to moderate the Democratic party's own excesses, for example nominating House candidates who might actually have a shot at getting elected in their district, even if they did not pass every last party-platform litmus test. Thus those commentators and others observed that Emanuel's appt suggests BO laying plans to prevent his own party scuppering his chances for success in the long run.

[TampaYankee]

Thus those commentators and others observed that Emanuel's appt suggests BO laying plans to prevent his own party scuppering his chances for success in the long run.

I was confident from the date of the pic that Emanuel was brought in to keep discipline in the Demococratic congress rather than exact war on the Republicans. The old time liberal establishment is the biggest threat to Obama's administration. Shrewd move.

[Guest BewareofNick]

I don't know how true it still is that the GOP at large loves its base. My doubt is based in how much of the party, from its most prominent intellectual and generally sane defenders to its most anonymous rank-and-file, rejected the base in this election.

I do believe that the base loves the base and the right wing media love the base at the top of their lungs. The decible level can be deceptive. Who in fact pays attention to Limbaugh any more? He excoriated McCain to keep the nomination away from him, but McCain got it. He ranted like a lunatic about Obama during the election campaign, yet Obama was elected.

That proves that the electorate, even the GOP electorate, has turned its attention away from him and his ilk. The base has not and, for whatever reason, the commentariat has not.

All in all, the chances that your wish list for the GOP may be realized to some extent are better now than in recent times.

Lest I be misunderstood, I hasten to clarify that in my personal view, the GOP shpuld spend the next century weeping and gnashing its teeth in the outer darkness for the harm it has done to the nation.

As you and TY point out, the GOP richly deserves its fate, and to wander in the wilderness for a decade or so. We'll know if they are getting it, or not, if they nominate Sarah Palin in 2012. If they do, that means they don't get it.

As regards Rush, I wouldn't underestimate his ability to influence elections. In 2006, it was his over the top attack on Michael J. Fox that won Claire McCaskill her seat in Missouri, handing the Senate to the Democrats (of course, George Allen and Macaca helped too). I also believe that his Operation:Chaos helped Obama to beat Hillary in the primary, thus handing the White House to the Democrats (not that Hillary couldn't have won, but I believe that it would have been a much closer race if it had been Hillary vs McCain)

Sean Hannity also helped the Democrats win this election. Remember Terry Schiavo? Hannity was one of the biggest cheerleaders in getting the GOP to meddle in what should have been a private family affair. The President even called a special session of Congress to pass a law to "save" her life. Thanks to the conservative media, they were all convinced that this would energize the base, and the rest of the GOP, like never before. What it signaled was how far the GOP was willing to go to abuse its power, and it was the beginning of the end. Not so long after, the President and Congress, who could mobilize for one brain dead woman, appeared unconcerned and uncaring as Katrina destroyed New Orleans. Oh yes, there was plenty of blame to go around (Ray Nagin, Kathleen Blanco), but it was another nail in the coffin for the GOP.

During this election, Hannity couldn't let go of irrelevancies such as Rev. Wright and Bill Ayers. The questions had been asked, and answered, and yet Hannity couldn't let them go. It turned out that the American people couldn't care less about Obama's "palling around with Terrorists", because the whole issue had been thoroughly vetted and there was no "there" there. But Hannity kept beating those drums, and it helped Obama win the White House.