just rename their party "God's Own" and leave the poor old Conservatives to fend for themselves?

Let the Dems and the Cons scrap over the other 67% of the country.

_{"What we've got here is, failure to communicate"}

Nixon made a pact with the devil to begin with and Lee Atwater and Karl Rove sealed it in blood. Now they are finding that the devil has come for his due.

Will the conservative elite take a back seat on the coming ride in the hope of some crumbs falling their way, or will they bolt?

Nor am I sure that evangelicals like Mike Huckabee will accept Palin's leadership. As a Dominionist, closet secessionist and John Bircher, she seems too far out, even for at least some of them.

Looks like the coalition of Burkeans, Goldwater conservatives, Reaganites, social conservatives, and assorted rednecks and wingnuts is kaput.

Frank Rich has an interesting take from a bit of a different angle today. Plus, the demographics are against them, and the GOP is heading for civil war over this debacle.

In addition, it's no secret that lots and lots of folks have had it up to the ears with the Christianists. If a Christianist runs on the top of the GOP ticket in 2012, there will very likely be a serious third party Bull Moose conservative challenge that will siphon off votes.

Finally, I think that Obama will make good on his intention to put together a new dominant coalition by positioning himself as the uniter and integrating moderate Republican elite into his administration. My sense is that Obama is going to be able to pull this off. The US is at a watershed moment, and the GOP is going to have to change to survive in the new political environment, as people like David Brooks and David Frum are saying.

I don't believe we need to worry about Sara Palin's aspirations to become president. She's so extreme that she'll self-destruct. The hordes that are currently clamoring for her presidential ascent will eventually dissolve into the lunatic fringe.

The Guardian, October 26

Sarah Palin has rallied socially conservative Republicans, but she angers Democrats and has alienated some moderate Republicans.

What we're finding on this trip is that Sarah Palin is an extremely polarising figure. She thrills socially conservative Republicans while alienating moderate Republicans and enraging Democrats, and we saw that during our trip through Colorado.

John McCain wasn't social conservatives' first choice of candidate, but they cheered his choice of Sarah Palin. In an interview this week, Palin told Colorado Springs-based evangelical leader and broadcaster James Dobson that God "would do the right thing" on election day. Blogger Celtic Diva writes:
Palin is herself a transformational figure: She is transforming an increasingly narrow band of Americans into a political lynch mob. Only her supporters are pro-American, only her supporters are hard-working and only her supporters serve our country in uniform. Now we can add this: only Palin's God is the real God and only a McPalin victory could be the Will of God.

Colorado bloggers have joined Democrats across the country in calling for Sarah Palin to be made more available to the press to answer questions. A sentiment echoed by CNN's Campbell Brown who has launched a "Free Sarah Palin" campaign.
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_{Tolerating prostitution is tolerating abuse and torture of women and children.}

She makes George W Bush, that's the "Shrubuya" on his worst day look eloquent. Is there even an example of a question that she's answered well out there? One of my friends speculates that McCain's campaign has transcended presidential politics and has become a form of performance art. Palin certainly makes more sense in that context.

Running Paling against Obama in 2012, is pretty similar to running Keyes against him in 2004 - a de facto concession. There's a bit of hindsight here, but Huckabee is a much stronger presidential and vice presidential candidate than Palin will ever be. (And I say that despite my disagreement with a lot of his views.)

Is her ability to create enemies. She's a poor manager and a dreadful leader becuse she's not loyal to her followers (Sarah Barracuda).

Friends come & friends go. Enemies accumulate.

And, I agree with tjfxh. I believe Obama is both a good leader & and excellent manager. Just look at his campaign organization.

And sooner or later (sooner I hope) a real christian leader will emerge, armed with the Beatitudes, to show the way forward is based on Christ's love, not Jehovah's Vengence and hate.

If Alaskans are serious about impeaching her, she is toast. Go Alaska! :)

If John McCain is not elected president, which one of the following three possible candidates would you be most likely to support for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012?

Mitt Romney 35%
Mike Huckabee 26%
Sarah Palin 20%

Newsweek

decided to start their own party.

I'd donate generously to get them started. Maybe we all could.

It's certainly possible that Palin will end up being the GOP standard-bearer, but I have to join the skeptics in saying that such an entity would have a very hard time winning an election. It's not just Palin-the-scary-True-Believer, it's also the Palin who doesn't even dare hold a open press conference. Assuming Obama wins, right now I'd say the scariest potential 2012 challenger is name not even on that list: David Petraeus.

when I was a student. He stood on a soap box bible in his hand, words coming out of his mouth continuously. "God, Jesus has Fire, Sin for you sinners! Brimstone B R I M S T O N E in Hell, all of you at this place, Jesus loves the brimstone you are going to sit on ...". None of it made any sense. I always dismissed him as a schizophrenic. He would make the perfect running mate for Palin though.

"You have no respect for excessive authority or obsolete traditions. You're dangerous and depraved, and you ought to be taken outside and shot!" - Joseph Heller

It ain't over till the fat lady sings, despite the dispute among the GOP talking heads

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrat Barack Obama's lead over Republican rival John McCain has dropped to 5 points, according to a Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll released on Sunday.

Obama leads McCain by 49 percent to 44 percent among likely U.S. voters in the daily tracking poll, which has a margin of error of 2.9 points. Obama's lead has dropped over the last three days after hitting a high of 12 points on Thursday.

_{"The mythical John McCain is an affable, straight-talking, moderately conservative war hero who is an expert on foreign policy" - Bob Herbert}

A day before 2004 election Intrade called all 52 states right.

The chances of McCain rose to 1/7, but now when a positive Reuters poll was released, his chances fell back to 1/8. Intrade seems to be 2-3 days ahead of polls. Nobody has not yet won, even if McCain is probably losing.

What comes to individual states, North Dakota could support Obama and North Carolina McCain.

If the variance of the poll results increases, the value of McCain option increases, because the likelihood of him losing decreases.

There are a couple things that are going to work very strongly against Palin if she wants to be the future of the party.

1. A lot of money in the Republican party comes from the financial conservative side of the party, not the wacko fundamentalist part of the party. It is completely possible that the evangelical base could become a massive small-donor base like Obama has built, but I really think that that is not going to be enough money to power a primary campaign, let along a presidential campaign. Look at what happened to Huckabee. He never had the money to compete. Romney is going to be a strong 'traditional' Republican candidate and he's going to get a lot of the easy money. I strong doubt that the 'adult' wing of the Republican party trusts Palin, especially given her vindictive nature and their current abandonment of her.

2. Her going rogue right now is going to count massively against her. Half the party is going to blame her for bringing McCain down--they basically already do, but this is hard evidence that she is working against him. If she had played out the campaign as McCain's team asked, then she could point to them as the reasons for failure. By breaking out on her own, she is also assuming some of the mantle of failure for herself. Being tainted with losing is not a good thing in politics.

3. And she's a woman. For Democrats to elect a black man president is not all that surprising. For the Republicans to successfully nominate a woman would shock and amazing me. There are large parts of the crazy base of the party who I just do not see supporting a woman stepping out her place.

She won't be a 'babe' in 8...

She'll be 52 - no longer a MILF - in eight years.

Her voice - partly the accent but mostly that 'nail on a chalkboard' timber is genuinely irritating - I'm not so sure she's got the nine lives you think she has on talk radio.

As Stirling pointed out, she sort of gives center right yuppie types a guilty conscience - they don't really truck with the cracker type rurals. You're not going to get the 'real' GOP - the rich 'bundlers' of the Bush years to really pony up for this hack as long as a pseudo Mitt Romney is around.

Think of the crippling fault lines in her persona - how long will she still be a 'barracuda' while she plays victim too - I'm not sure you can maintain that - even with the 'stupid' cracker type right for years and years on end.

pot meets kettle...again

The Independent, By Rupert Cornwall, October 28

The election hasn't even been lost yet. But as John McCain slides towards likely defeat, the sniping between Republican factions has degenerated into something close to outright civil war – one that presages a wrenching struggle for the future of the party.

In the past few days, the feuding has reached to the very top of the campaign, with the McCain camp accusing Sarah Palin, his own vice-presidential running mate, of acting like a "rogue" candidate, going her own way and defying the instructions of her boss's top advisers. "She's a diva," one unidentified McCain aide told CNN. "She takes no advice from anyone ... she does not have any relationships of trust with any of us, her family or anyone else."

Mutual recrimination is the norm in a losing presidential campaign, as aides position themselves for the blame game after defeat. A week before the election, the McCain campaign seems headed in that direction, trailing Barack Obama by between 7 and 10 points in most national polls, and behind in the major swing states that will decide the outcome on 4 November. But the backbiting this time is of rare ferocity.

"How did we get into this mess?" Newt Gingrich, former House speaker and a driving force behind the Republican dominance for most of the past 20 years, says of the disarray. "It's not where we should be and it's not where we had to be. This was not bad luck."

For the second time this month, Bill Kristol, a leading voice on the party's conservative wing, used his column in The New York Times yesterday to urge the struggling candidate to throw his advisers to the winds. "He might as well muzzle the campaign," Mr Kristol wrote. Senior McCain staffers were now "spending more time criticising one another than Obama, and more time defending their own reputations than pursuing a McCain-Palin victory."

... of mine here really belongs in this thread.

Although, I'm late to the party and it looks like Numerian has scooped Shipman over at the Telegraph by a day. Excellent work!

Shipman also wrote about a desperate Hillary campaign just before the TX and OH primaries. Desperation looks like his thing. :)

October 28, 2008
Categories: Republicans
Conservatives plan secret post-election strategy session

Two days after next week's election, top conservatives will gather at the Virginia weekend home of one of the movement's most prominent members to begin a conversation about their role in the GOP and how best to revive a party that may be out of power at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue next year.

The meeting will include a "who's who of conservative leaders -- economic, national security and social," said one attendee, who shared initial word of the secret session only on the basis of anonymity and with some details about the host and location redacted.

The decision to waste no time in plotting their moves in the post-Bush era reflects the widely-held view among many on the right, and elsewhere, that the GOP is heading toward major losses next week.

One of the topics of discussion will be how to fashion a "national grassroots political and policy coalition similar to the out Reagan years," said the attendee, a reference to the development of the so-called New Right apparatus following Jimmy Carter's 1976 victory and Reagan's election four years later.

"There's a sense that the Republican Party is broken, but the conservative movement is not," said this source, suggesting that it was the betrayal of some conservative principles by Bush and congressional leaders that led to the party's decline.

more at Politico/J Martin

The right flank is positioning to change the GOP's leadership and direction -- even if John McCain wins the presidency. Some moderates fear such a shift would alienate more voters.

By Peter Wallsten
October 28, 2008
LA Times

Reporting from Washington -- The social conservatives and moderates who together boosted the Republican Party to dominance have begun a tense battle over the future of the GOP, with social conservatives already moving to seize control of the party's machinery and some vowing to limit John McCain's influence, even if he wins the presidency.

In skirmishes around the country in recent months, evangelicals and others who believe Republicans have been too timid in fighting abortion, gay marriage and illegal immigration have won election to the party's national committee, in preparation for a fight over the direction and leadership of the party.

The growing power of religious conservatives is alarming some moderate Republicans who believe that the party's main problem is that it has narrowed its appeal and alienated too many voters. They cite the aggressive tone of the McCain campaign in challenging Barack Obama, who has close to universal support from African American voters; as well as the push by many Republican leaders to clamp down on illegal immigration using rhetoric that has driven away Latinos.

Some moderates argue that the party's top priority must be to broaden its outreach, a caution laid down by retired Gen. Colin L. Powell on national television this month when he broke from the party and endorsed Obama. Surveys show McCain beating Obama among white men but losing with almost every other demographic group.

The fight within the party has been building since voters stripped Republicans of their House and Senate majorities in 2006. It has become especially tense recently, because many Republicans are bracing for McCain to lose the election, leaving the party with no obvious leader with broad public appeal at a time when President Bush is exiting the national stage as a depleted figure.

Bush, now widely unpopular, held his final fundraiser of the campaign season last week and has no additional campaign events for McCain or GOP candidates scheduled in the final days before the election.

A focal point of the GOP fight is the selection of the next chairman of the Republican National Committee -- the party's power center for fundraising and strategic thinking. With various factions already trying to build support for their favored candidates, some conservatives are warning that McCain cannot serve as the party's spiritual guide even if he becomes president. The Arizona senator, after all, has a history of breaking with the party's mainstream on such issues as immigration and campaign financing.

"Committee members want to see our party move forward and be part of a branding process, as opposed to just simply supporting and putting a rubber stamp on the policies of a sitting president," said Robin Smith, chairwoman of the Tennessee state GOP and a supporter of turning the party to the right.

Conservative champion Rush Limbaugh, who often provides the rallying cry to the party's most ardent supporters via his radio program, last week laid out a similar warning, suggesting that a McCain win would do little to deter conservatives from pushing for major changes.

"One step at a time," Limbaugh told his listeners. "We're going to drag McCain across the finish line -- then we start rebuilding the conservative movement. It's going to happen whether he wins or loses, but especially if he wins too."

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Dominionism and Dominion: Establishing the Rule of Evangelical Political Policies

(Agonist compilation thread)