A few excerpts...
the Clintons are tearing the party apart. It will not be the same after this. It will not be the same after its most famous leader, and probable ultimate victor, treated a proud and accomplished black man who is a U.S. senator as if he were nothing, a mere impediment to their plans. And to do it in a way that signals, to his supporters, How dare you have the temerity, the ingratitude, after all we've done for you?...
Mr. McCain is in the middle of a shift. Previous strategy: I'm John McCain and you know me, we've traveled through history together. New strategy: I'm the old vet who fought on the front lines of the Reagan-era front, and I am about to take on the mantle of the essentials of conservatism—lower spending, smaller government, strong in the world. He is going to strike the great Reagan gong, not in a way that is new but in a way that is new for him.
In this he is repositioning himself back to where he started 30 years ago: as a Southwestern American conservative veteran of the armed forces. That is, inherently if not showily, anti-establishment. That is, I am the best of the past.
Mr. Romney, on the other hand, is running as I Am Today. I am new and fresh, in fact I'm tomorrow, I know all about the international flow of money and the flatness of the world, I know what China is, I can see you through the turbulence just as I saw Bain to success.
It will all come down to: Whom do Republicans believe? Mr. Romney in spite of his past and now-disavowed liberal positions? Or Mr. McCain in spite of his forays, the past 10 years, into a kind of establishment mindset that has suggested that The Establishment Knows Best?
Do conservatives take inspiration from Mr. Romney's newness? Or do they take comfort and security from Mr. McCain's rugged ability to endure, and to remind?...
George W. Bush destroyed the Republican Party, by which I mean he sundered it, broke its constituent pieces apart and set them against each other. He did this on spending, the size of government, war, the ability to prosecute war, immigration and other issues.
Were there other causes? Yes, of course. But there was an immediate and essential cause.
And this needs saying, because if you don't know what broke the elephant you can't put it together again
2 comments:
It is time to start wondering what the American political party system will look like at the end of 2008. Right now the GOP is splintered into Economic Conservatives and, Social Conservatives. The Democratic Party may be splitting into a Pro and AntiClinton factions. If these trends continue, both political parties may find themselves at the end of the day having politicked themselves out of existence. is it time for a new set of coalitions, where "religious" Conservatives like Mike Huckabee and "religious" Liberals like Barack Obama form a single party, and where Internationalists like Hillary Clinton and George W Bush form the other?
I am vastly oversimplifying, but it makes you think. We could be on the verge of a complete reshuffling of both parties, and the possiblility that in 2012, we will have one or two new major parties running the show.
We could end up with a multi party system.
I think though, that we will end up with the same 2 parties. It seems that for the last 150 years both have gone through huge changes, but a third party never seems to take off. The make up of the parties may be drastically different however.
We'll see.
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