Frum has something of interest to say here. At the same time, as is usual with these Republican analyses, this one leaves out the deepest truth of the matter. It's usually some version of the same truth: that the Republican Party has become a disgrace.
So in this case, Frum argues, with some validity, that "John McCain is losing in a way that threatens to take the entire Republican Party down with him."
What he leaves out is that, in a whole variety of ways, John McCain is losing because it is the Republican Party --which has become a cesspool of dark and disturbed elements-- whose nomination he spent two years trying to obtain, and because it is under the Republican banner --connected as it is with crimes and disasters that have become steadily more visible to the American people-- that he's trying to sell himself to the full American electorate.
Both, of course, can be true.
THis is the first half of Frum's piece. The rest of it can be found at <a href=" *********************
<em>Sorry, Senator. Let's Salvage What We Can.</em>
by David Frum in the Washington Post October 26, 2008
There are many ways to lose a presidential election. John McCain is losing in a way that threatens to take the entire Republican Party down with him.
A year ago, the Arizona senator's team made a crucial strategic decision. McCain would run on his (impressive) personal biography. On policy, he'd hew mostly to conservative orthodoxy, with a few deviations -- most notably, his support for legalization for illegal immigrants. But this strategy wasn't yielding results in the general election. So in August, McCain tried a bold new gambit: He would reach out to independents and women with an exciting and unexpected vice presidential choice.
That didn't work out so well either. Gov. Sarah Palin connected with neither independents nor women. She did, however, ignite the Republican base, which has come to support her passionately. And so, in this last month, the McCain campaign has
Palinized itself to make the most of its last asset. To fire up the Republican base, the McCain team has hit at Barack Obama as an alien, a radical and a socialist.
Sure enough, the base has responded. After months and months of wan enthusiasm among Republicans, these last weeks have at last energized the core of the party. But there's a downside: The very same campaign strategy that has belatedly mobilized the Republican core has alienated and offended the great national middle, which was the only place where the 2008 election could have been won.
I could pile up the poll numbers here, but frankly . . . it's too depressing. You have to go back to the Watergate era to see numbers quite so horrible for the GOP.
McCain's awful campaign is having awful consequences down the ballot. I spoke a little while ago to a senior Republican House member. "There is not a safe Republican seat in the country," he warned. "I don't mean that we're going to lose all of them. But we could lose any of them."
In the Senate, things look, if possible, even worse.
The themes and messages that are galvanizing the crowds for Palin are bleeding Sens. John Sununu in New Hampshire, Gordon Smith in Oregon, Norm Coleman in Minnesota and Susan Collins in Maine. The Palin approach might have been expected to work better in more traditionally conservative states such as Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia, but they have not worked well enough to compensate for the weak Republican economic message at a moment of global financial crisis. Result: the certain loss of John Warner's Senate seat in Virginia, the probable loss of Elizabeth Dole's in North Carolina, an unexpectedly tough fight for Saxby Chambliss's in Georgia -- and an apparent GOP surrender in Colorado, where it looks as if the National Republican Senatorial Committee has already pulled its ads from the air.
Andrew Bard Schmookler's website www.nonesoblind.org is devoted to understanding the roots of America's present moral crisis and the means by which the urgent challenge of this dangerous moment can be met. Dr. (more...)
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.
The fact that the GOP laughed and sneered at the ideas of RON PAUL, who turned out to be correct on economic issues, doesn't help it to unite the party. Those of us who toiled for the principles of FREEDOM, SOUND MONEY and PEACE were rewarded with being shunned from the process.
The GOP has exactly what's coming to it. And hopefully, it will be the Ron Paul Republicans that bring the party up from the ash heap.
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wgadget (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 17 comments) on Tuesday, Oct 28, 2008 at 8:19:15 AM
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