What will the right do if McCain loses?

I agree, McCain was never really claimed by many on the right so his losing will not bring any great sorrow. It will probably be a relief to many, they will be spared having to justify McCain's actions while in the White House. Most on the right have had enough of putting a good face on faux-conservatism in the past eight years. I don't know how many times I've heard things along the lines of "Well, Kerry (or Gore) would be worse!". In practice, there would be little if any difference between a McCain and an Obama presidency, anyway. Both are owned by the corporations as their votes on the "rescue plan" shows. Elections in this country are by and large a sham, carried on by two factions of what is really one large governing party.

Your suggestion of carrying on at a local level, forming communities and organizations to live in and support each other is also a wise and good one.

I agree. Localism and building communities is the way to go. I wonder, given the coming federal entitlement budget crunch, if centripetal forces will weaken the Union as the federal government can no longer afford to provide services or resources to the state, or conversly, blackmail them into line by threatening to deny funding.

I'm wondering why the right will respond to Obama any differently than it did to Clinton.

The major difference will be that the right won't have the ability to impeach, any more than the left could impeach Bush. But beyond that, the world didn't end with Clinton's election, and Clinton's achievements (not his politics, but his actual achievements) proved far more conservative than what's-his-name who followed Clinton.

The last eight years have been a disaster for conservatism, not the eight that preceded them.

That said, the GOP will respond the way the Democrats did after Gore lost. Lots of finger-pointing and claims that the GOP lost because its campaign wasn't harsh enough, because its platform wasn't pure enough, because its candidate wasn't right-wing (they'll say "conservative" but mean far right) enough.

And the world will go on...and we'll have meals with our friends and holidays with our families and do our best to keep our neighborhoods from falling apart. That is the fundamental optimism of conservatism, that as dangerous as the world always is life goes on.

Redefining conservatism in the aftermath of an Obama victory will be long and arduous, and will ultimately not lead to electoral success. As to the process, there will be no consensus as to what the redefinition should encompass. To date, the movement has been disparate (libertarians, social conservatives, neocons, country club types, etc.), but has held together because of electoral success. Even at that, the movement has comprised only about 51% of the electorate in recent presidential elections. With an Obama victory and a liberal Congressional super-majority, the coalition on the Right will fragment, with no group large enough to represent a coherent voice in opposition. Obama and the Congressional Democrats will have their way in every conceivable respect. The Right will be hit by a tsunami of intrusive government, socialism, a disregard for life, contempt for traditional social values, and infringements on religious liberty. Those of us on the Right will be marginalized in ways that we hardly imagined.

Furthermore, as has been pointed out by others, the country is close to a tipping point with respect to who pays the freight and who collects benefits. If the Obama tax plan is enacted, we will have pushed past that tipping point, viz., those who pay no federal income taxes or who collect more in benefits than they contribute in taxes will have become a majority of the electorate. This constitutes a recipe for maintaining the status quo. Structural change will become impossible because most people will be happy with their lot and won't care about controlling spending, restricting the size of government, or any of the other issues that animate conservatives. In conjunction with the demographic changes that a forthcoming liberalized immigration policy will bring about, the conservative movement will shrink as a percentage of the electorate and in influence.

I am terribly pessimistic about the future. I will seek my solace in my family life, my religious faith, my enjoyment of nature, my love of J. S. Bach, and the like. My pleasures will be private ones. I will pull into my shell and try to disengage from politics and from civic involvement lest I succumb to despair.

Don
October 18, 2008 11:30 AMI can't help but think about how it was in the 1850s and compare it to today. Are the issues(especially abortion)and resulting passions rising to the same level as then?

No. Look up "Bleeding Kansas".

Agreed.

The Republicans didn't really think they could win this year, with Bush making every mistake in the book, a shaky economy, an endless war and the crowning touch of a financial debacle. As in 1996, they threw an old, cranky, wounded war vet into the breach.....I think the result will be similar.

Next time around, the GOP will decide they lost because they weren't ideologically pure enough and will offer up the likes of Palin or worse. I could live with Jeb Bush as president, but no Bush will ever occupy that office again.

Catholic To The Core: A possible good news heads-up postscript to your final line, in which you write:
"I will pull into my shell and try to disengage from politics and from civic involvement lest I succumb to despair."
~~~~~
Relax. If you have avoided 'despair' ore the last 8 years, you are officially immune.

What exactly is the "Mainstream Media" anyhow?

Anything but Fox?

"I hope to be part of a constructive, creative group of conservative writers and thinkers who will help create a New Right."

Blessings to you on that project, but it raises a question in my mind: I expect there to be a lot of finger pointing and blame casting, a great deal of trying to lay the blame of the Republican defeat on some part of the conservative movement -- the neocons, the religious right, and the like -- and a consequent emphasis on ideological purity and a hunt for heretics. All of that would seem to be a countervailing force against any creative and constructive thinking and action. How are you going to deal with that?

And here's something I would be interested in seeing: For this project, who would you refer to for ideas and inspiration? In other words, I want to see a reading list for the New Right.

I think the party will drift more in Huckabee's direction -- i.e., still conservative on social issues, more populist/centrist in economic policies, perhaps a slight bit more wary about getting involved overseas, and a little more conciliatory toward political opponents.

Or, the GOP might fall apart completely amidst fratricidal denunciations. After all, much of the party loathed Huckabee.

Acceptance and move on

I will definitely blame it on you and the other "must purge the movement of the commoners, impure, and intellectually nonconforming" conservatives that want a "movement" rather than trying to defend the American way of life from a concerted effort of destruction.

Just Some Guy
For this project, who would you refer to for ideas and inspiration? In other words, I want to see a reading list for the New Right.

I don't know what books you should read in order to guide you, but there's a book you should read:

The Wrecking Crew, by Thomas Frank. It explains how conservative voters got duped into voting for people who systematically dismantled the government, by claiming it was the government that was the problem.

Look, conservatives, I understand that idea that the government should provide less services. The problem is that conservative politicians have, for a long time, used that as an excuse to provide less oversight, and to hire more contractors (Which cost more than just doing it ourselves.) and have no oversight over them, and so on and so on, to the point of rendering many parts, even parts everyone agrees should exist, unable to function at all.

You guys really need to sit down and rethink the whole 'Government is the problem' concept. The government is a tool.

Just because you guys think us people on the left have a hammer called government and think every problem is a nail, doesn't mean there aren't some actual nails and we don't need a working hammer.

Heres another question. What if the GOP falls apart for the forseeable future. What happens to the Dem's coalition if there is no bogeyman? Environmentalists, socialists, labor unions, blacks, feminists, etc, etc, etc... How are they held together when their interests conflict? Who gets thrown under the bus? The only thing holding either side together was fear of the other. What happens when the power elite can't hold their base together?

Jim R: Thank you for your thoughtful reply. I actually WAS a Republican back when the GOP welcomed moderates and even had a "liberal" wing (i.e. Nelson Rockefeller). I'm a 65 yr old grandmother who cast her first vote for Barry Goldwater, but Nixon's "southern strategy" and Watergate soured me. I voted for Reagan in '80, but not in '84, and would have voted for McCain in 2000. What have you (conservatives) done to be thought of so harshly? Well, you elected the likes of Tom DeLay and GWB, and stood by silently when the "agents of intolerance" took over the party. I support the abolition of the Dept of Education and HUD for starters, but I don't know whether I'll ever be able to vote Republican again. Certainly not until you've "cleansed" the party of its very mean far right social conservative fringe.

I didn't leave the Republican party--it left me.

Sorry, Rod, but I'm not going to take the bait on this one. It's far too early to predict who's going to win. Obama is ahead in the polls, but McCain has a track record of coming from behind. Everyone keeps looking to 1980 for an historical analogy and claims that Obama's challenge is the same as Reagan's was that year (reassuring voters that he's no radical). But it's the 1976 election which provides the more apt comparision (when Ford came from 33% behind to close within 2% of Carter on election day). Obama is not the "Democratic Reagan." He's just another Carter -- another inexperienced unknown with vague and impractical promises trying to ride the tiger of discontent.

An Obama victory would be terrible for the country but terrific for the Republican party. The patriot (and orthodox Christian) in me prays for a McCain victory, but the partisan in me could easily perceive political opportunities were the opposite to occur.

An Obama mandate would be a mandate for things he can NOT and will NOT deliver on (like a tax cut for 95% for all Americans). Instead he and the Democrats in Congress will push for things that will forever alienate those moderates and conservatives who cast an Obama vote. What's worse, the tax hikes and trade restrictions the Democrats will put into place will push our country from a recession into a depression. The ensuing pain and misery will bring new life to an old name in American politics: Herbert Hoover.

In the event of an Obama '08 victory, 2012 would be such a sweet year for Republicans, though it would have come after four years of great suffering to the country. That's why I hope for an Obama loss this year.

Maggie, I find your comments interesting, but I'm having a hard time getting a grip on where you're coming from. It sounds as if you're a socially-liberal Libertarian. Am I wrong? Anyhow, it seems to me that your suggestions/wishes would make the Republican Party "an echo, not a choice" (to play with the words of a well-known Republican).

I don't understand how you could vote for Goldwater but seem to miss the wing that included his old enemy, Nelson Rockefeller. The Republican Party was going nowhere under people like Rockefeller.

I also don't understand how you could have voted for Reagan in 1980, because it was his repackaging of the Republican coalition to include the "religious right" (which had been owned by the Democrats, especially under Jimmy Carter, but was disgusted with the Democratic Party's impotence in the face of militant Communism and its drift into abortionism) that made the Republican Party competitive again.

Are you saying that religious conservatives are the "very mean far right social conservative fringe"? Are they your "agents of intolerance"? Why? Is it their opposition to abortion on demand? If so, how are they any more mean and intolerant than, for instance, the Democratic icon Sargent Shriver? Is it their opposition to homosexual marriage? If that's the case, how are they more intolerant that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton?

I don't get this. It seems as if McCain is becoming a whipping boy and scapegoat for disappointed Republicans. His loss will be our loss, and the nation's loss. I'm proud of Joe Lieberman. Unlike so many fair-weather Republicans, he sees the light.

Joe Lieberman!!!???

Lieberman knows that McCain is about the sole hope for the continuation of the Cheney/Bush/Kristol policies that favor a push into Iran for the sole purpose of punishing Israel's enemies. Invading a country just for saying bad things about Israel is insanity.

It's far too early to predict who's going to win.

Reaganite's right, and as an Obama supporter I really hope that the campaign isn't getting too complacent. Next week he's passing through where I live-- Madison, WI! I mean, it's great to have him and all, but why's he wasting his time here? He's got this place sewn up!

I kind of think there will be a knee-jerk reaction from parts of the right that is going to look like the Arkansas Project all over again--"authors" writing books with the looniest conspiracy theories about Obama etc. However, it seems quite possible to me that this part of the right will be more marginalized in favor of a stronger philosophical realignment. (Why do I say this? Mostly from the thoughtful and provacative writing I see on this blog! :-) )That would be more stimulating and most welcome. I really don't want to relive the Clinton years.

He said he enjoys the business but if this Act passes, he plans to close the company, as it would just not be worth the hassle to keep going.

Man, I Republicans were supposed to be smart about business.

I keep hearing these scare stories...I mean anecdotes...from small business owners threatening to shut down their profitable businesses when Obama is elected.

If they really don't want to deal with higher taxes or increased regulations, have they ever considered selling their businesses?. Heck, I'd gladly serve as a business broker for your friend looking to sell his 50 employee trucking company, for a modest commission. I'm sure there are lots of folks who would love to buy it...even if taxes bump up a bit on their profits over $250k and they have to buy health care for employees and fill out a few extra forms.

In any case, don't worry about the employees. They'll be fine. If your friend has work to be done and needy customers, someone will step in to serve them...and they'll need your friend's employees.

In any case, don't worry about the employees. If your friend shuts down, there's no lack of enterprising Americans

Jim, your following comment leaves me speechless: "Lieberman knows that McCain is about the sole hope for the continuation of the Cheney/Bush/Kristol policies that favor a push into Iran for the sole purpose of punishing Israel's enemies. Invading a country just for saying bad things about Israel is insanity."

First, I don't know anyone (including Cheney, Bush, or Kristol)who favors pushing into Iran--except as an absolute, desperate last resort. Our military is just too over-extended, and everyone knows it. The reduction of forces in the 1990s makes it impossible unless, I guess, we just marched out of Iraq into Iran.

Second, an Iran with nuclear weapons is feared by countries such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, not just Israel. Achmadinajad's Shiite apocalypticism is a threat to the entire world. Comparing him to Hitler is not fanatical.

Third, the Islamic regime has almost destroyed Lebanon through it's proxy, Hezbollah, and has led to the death of many of our soldiers in Iraq due to its support of insurgents there.

What are your beliefs about Israel? I haven't heard comments like yours out of anyone except people who have a visceral dislike of that country.

Pakeha: Thank you for your thoughtful post. Your characterization of me as a socially liberal Libertarian might be about right. I voted for Goldwater because I was an ignorant (sorry) 21 years old and had grown up in Indiana, where all things are Republican (well, were). I voted for Reagan because I was busy with other things and he was charming and non-threatening--kind of like Bush in 2000, the guy you'd like to have a beer with.

I really started paying attention when I was around 50, and my views have been largely formed by reading-history-for-fun and 35 years of working as a RN, caring for all strata of our society. I never met a welfare queen driving a Cadillac, but I met a lot of hard working men and women--black and white--who were beaten down by multiple adversities, some of which were of their own making, but more often, they weren't.

By agents of intolerance I mean Jerry Falwell, John Hagee, James Dobson, and their ilk. I don't advocate gay marriage, and I think abortion is a tragedy--but I abhor intolerance of any stripe, and I resent anyone telling me I'm going to hell because I haven't been "saved". C'mon, live and let live, and don't demand that our beloved Constitution enshrine religiously-driven ideology. Just as much, though, what completely turned me off has been the conservative spokesmen who positively demonized Democrats as the anti-Christ, and illegitimate governors when in office. Ann Coulter comes to mind, along with Tom DeLay and Grover Norquist, among many others. I don't want to re-live the Clinton years, either, Dianne, and Sarah Palin's crowds cause me to fear that if Obama wins, we will.

Let's all of us just get along, okay? Life is hard enough without demonizing each other. I would like to see a forum in which thoughtful and sincere citizens of all stripes--left/center, right/center, Libertarians, could talk together. If we don't reach out to each other and listen, really listen, and COMPROMISE now and then, I'm very afraid Scott R. may not be too far off the mark. I've returned to Indiana to be with my very Republican family in my (ha ha) golden years, and I'm sorry to say that I see that racism is alive and well in the Hoosier state.

Peace be with you.

.

6 lines of text that convince me that the right will have a choice between a Carthegenian Peace and civil war.

Damn Cynical: You are what drove me, and many like me, out of the Republican party.

Maggie,

DamnCynical sounds like a leftist conspiracy theorist, not a conservative or Republican.

Maggie, I have had the opportunity through work in a service industry to see many people who were suffering hard times. I used to be in a career where I got into lots of peoples homes every day, and one thing I noticed was there were a lot of folks within blocks of the church I attended who had a lot if issues.

I have also served on city council and school board, and saw how hard it is to remember you are spending someone's hard-earned dollars every time you approve a purchase or contract. I think this experience has made me very sensitive to some of the more ridiculous examples of waste in Washington.

It's crucial to the future of the Republican party that we find leaders who are concious of the fact that when they spend money, it's money that I have to work hard to earn. They have to be smart about it. That's a driving part of the liberty discussion I started earlier. We need leaders, whatever party they are from, who realize that government SHOULD NOT try and relieve any or all suffering. The government CANNOT accomplish this, and by trying will only bankrupt us. It also leads to the kind of class warfare that is destructive, as more and more people look to the government for relief. We need to di what we can for those who need it most. I am more than willing to support realistic help, but we cannot be all things to all people.

One example: I hear a lot of people using the present market downturn as a reason why privatization of Social Security is not safe, too risky for us. As a baby boomer, I always ask whether these people think my benefit is more secure since it is held by the government, as part of a national debt of more than $10 trillion. Where is the money going to come from when I retire to pay that back?

We need some grown ups who exhibit common sense. The only way we will get them is if voters decide to elect them. I would love to hear someone tell me why I should be hopeful this may happen.

"Redefining conservatism in the aftermath of an Obama victory will be long and arduous, and will ultimately not lead to electoral success."

Conservatism doesn't need redefining, it needs implementing.

As I've said before, McCain is not a conservative, and none of the Bushes are.

Something weird happens when conservatives go to DC. The air there is poisonous to our beliefs, so the people we send there generally turn bad. We have no business being where the power is. Conservatism and big government don't mix, that's all there is to it. This need not mean capitulation and accepting helot status from the victorious left. By mass self-deportation to more congenial regions of the country, we can turn the red states redder and redder, until entire regions of the US become no-go areas to a government run by people we don't like and never will. I'll miss the East Coast but maybe there will be mountains in our Waziristan.

Presumably the Buckleys, Brooks, etc will prefer to stay put and be court jesters.

Since my above post, I've been reconsidering my aversion to and impatience with conservative heretic hunting. I think I've romanticized the early years of the conservative movement and its high caliber of thinkers -- Russell Kirk, Harry Jaffa, Frank Meyer, Richard Weaver, Bill Buckley, and on and on. Then I remembered that very few of these people got along and were often trying to drum each other out of the movement. So maybe things have always been this way, and maybe that's the route back to a thoughtful conservatism, though I still can't say I have a taste for it.

Steve,

You clearly misunderstand patriotism. I assume that everyone who votes with the welfare of the country SOLELY in mind is voting with patriotic intent. That would include both McCain and Obama (and Nader and Barr) supporters for whom the nation's welfare is their SOLE criteria. My original point (which you have ignored in both of your comments) was to distinguish between the determination of partisan gain from an electoral outcome and placing patriotic concerns before all other concerns in shaping an electoral outcome.

Steve: "Voting is a patriotic act. Everyone should vote."

The first statement is correct. The second statement is not.

Purposefully not voting is a patriotic act if one views the ballot alternatives as equally dreadful and one does not wish to gave any of them an endorsement.

Steve: "Voting is a patriotic act"

Doesn't that depend on the motive of the voter?

If a person votes out of selfish intent, is that patriotic? If someone votes out of greed or to "get one of my own kind" into office, is that patriotic?

Steve: "Actually, I do not express this very well. Go listen to Colin Powell's interview. I am sure he will also now be branded as unpatriotic."

No one here has "branded" Colin Powell as unpatriotic. Why even raise this strawman? As for not expressing yourself well, perhaps you're being a bit hard on yourself. As far as I'm concerned, you're doing a good job of expressing yourself. It's your ideas that are problematical.

If patriotism is, to use the definition you supplied, "love for or devotion to one's country," then patriotism would be something that can be measured in gradations. Using the definition you supplied, it is NOT something binary as in pass/fail, solvent/bankrupt, black/white or patriotic/unpatriotic. In this sense, one make judgements about some act or another (including a particular voting choice) as being more patriotic or less patriotic.

After all, was it not Joe Biden who recently applied this use of the word "patriotism" in describing the willingness of citizens to be taxed?

If anyone in this campaign has questioned anyone's patriotism, it has been Joe Biden who has questioned the patriotism of voters reluctant to part with their money to fund government boondoggles and inefficiency and questionable programs and groups (including ACORN).

Obama will never become president.

The Neocons already have Yigal Amir warming up in the bullpen.

Sad, but true.

I've been telling both Obama and McCain supporters that Obama, if elected, will more closely resemble Eisenhower than some fantasy leftist in leadership style and policy priorities. (Interestingly, the Obama supporters are the most resistant to the idea.)

For those of you too young to remember, Eisenhower's signal domestic accomplishments were the last major infrastructure initiative, the interstate highway system; greater emphasis on education, mainly scientific in response to the Soviets' launch of Sputnik; and marginalizing the extremist Joe McCarthy wing of the GOP. On foreign and security policy, Ike got us out of a quagmire war, which Korea had become by 1952, and promoted containment and alliance-building over military adventurism. Obama's stated goals and probable strategies are quite similar.

Conservatives of the time were highly dissatisfied. The John Birch Society went so far as to characterize Eisenhower as a tool of the communists.

Leftists of this time will be almost as dissatisfied with Obama, who will govern as a realist. He will have no choice. (Neither would McCain.) The condition of the federal budget and the economy as a whole preclude far-reaching and expensive domestic policy initiatives. State-run single-payer healthcare will not happen. Widespread tax cuts will not happen. More troubling, the military will not be rebuilt and upgraded as quickly as we may need it to be. The money simply isn't there.

So, I doubt that conservativism will have an easy time rallying its disparate components in simple opposition to Obama, or even to congressional Democrats. Most of the new members that produced a majority in 2006, and most of those who will enlarge that majority this year, are populist and/or technocratic centrists, not hard-leftists. There are big differences between the Russ Feingolds and Bernie Sanderses and the Jon Testers and Mark Warners.

The surviving Republican congressional rump will be populated overwhelmingly by hard-rightists -- hopefully not as far gone as Maria Bachmann, the Minnesota congresswoman who recently demanded wholesale investigation of congressional liberals as "anti-American," but still highly unlikely to join coalitions to moderate legislation. In the near future, the congressional GOP's role will be pure opposition, similar to the role played by the McGovernite Democratic rump during the early Reagan years and the period in which Clinton compromised with the GOP on welfare reform and NAFTA.

So, any constructive new conservatism is going to have to develop at the state and local level, where ideological purity inevitably gives way to realism on policy and the strictures of keeping budgets in balance. It's going to be a long rebuilding process -- there are no more than two or three Republican governors of any distinction at present -- and it won't be helped by the Texas-style gerrymandering of state legislative districts, which has loaded so many GOP statehouse caucuses with hard-right ideologues and purged moderates over the past 10 years.

The Republican Party will not regain majority status until it moves closer to the center. Cosmetic "Sam's Club" populist gestures masking hard-right core policies won't cut it, because the GOP will be facing too many genuinely centrist incumbent Democrats.

Bottom line: Liberals will not get their fantasy leftist in Obama. Conservatives need to get over visions of a fantasy rightist a la Palin. As always, the party that holds the center wins.

I see a future for a libertarian / conservative hybrid but the damage done to the term "conservative" by President Bush is at least on par with the damage done to the term "liberal" by President Carter and Gov. Dukakis.

Can one be patriotic and vote for a Democrat? Can one be patriotic and vote for Obama?

Steve

Reaganite - No one here, maybe. But hie thee over to Michelle Malkin's site and take a gander.

I'm afraid the "Bush stole the election" nonsense we saw from large segments of the left in 2004 will find its match with what we will see from the right after this election. The pump is being primed with the ACORN stories, just as in 2004 their pump was primed with the vacuous stories of 'voter purges' and crooked Diebold machines.

"just as it did in some precincts of the left during the Bush years"

And did with even more niches and greater vigor on the right during the Clinton years. The extremes always have this problem, but it's especially strong on the right.

Your post is so welcome and refreshing. I'm on the left, and I believe that over the next four years both parties are going to come closer to the center - at least in terms of being more willing to accept the other side's point of view. I only worry that those on the extremes of each side have a good chance of derailing that process.

Let's fix the mistakes in our past, and move on. :-)

Rod, "hysterical spite...in some precincts of the left during the Bush years." Wellll, the president did sell the public a lie, started a war that cost us a trillion and forever destroyed tens-of-thousands of lives. If the left was hysterical and/or spiteful toward Bush, perhaps they had good reason and even moreso a perfect role model for selective outrage, namely, the way the GOP lost the plot in the 1990s by telling the American tax-payer that Monica Lewinsky was the most pressing issue of the age. Where did that get us?

As an independent, I'm hoping that the present Republican party is completely destroyed this year. Then from the ashes, rebuilds itself with people like you -- wiser, more good-hearted, more focused on the things it used to value, like knowledge and justice. I cringe when I hear this word used, but lately I've just seen too much pure evil emanating from Republicans.
This country needs two strong parties to function well, as we know, so please hurry. But start by correcting the too-true quip I heard on the Daily Show: "Republicans love their country; they just hate half the people living in it."

Republicans have brought this on themselves. Think about this for a second. You have created the conditions that have allowed for the election of a Black man President at least a generation ahead of time. Thanks by the way. Had not Bush so irresponsibly run this country, and had not the Republican Party so hatefully attacked Clinton, had you not played the game of exploiting our differences, had not voter suppression become a primary election tool for you, then you would not be finding yourselves in this wilderness. MC makes the point well. Republicans have forfeited the right to govern.

Americans are extremely pissed at what the Republicans have done to this nation. That's why we have chosen to buy the Presidency for Obama. We The People bought this election. The government will very soon be ours again.

You need to get rid of your hate filled losers like Limbaugh, Palin, Bachmann, Giuliani etc. There's a bunch of wannabe fascists that need to go. Until you clean house, we aren't going to give you another shot. Oh, and one more thing. No more nominating morons for President or Vice President. That foolishness will no longer be tolerated.

The thing is, had the GOP been listening to its opponents for the last few years when we BEGGED you to stop Bush, you wouldn't be in this position. Instead, full of hubris, you went all tribal and closed ranks. Big, big mistake.

Now, many sensible folks in both parties may have some advice on how to get beyond this point in your party's history but, frankly, I'm not sure you deserve any advice... yet. The party of personal responsibility needs to take some time to reflect on party responsibility.

I will make one suggestion, though. There's a Frontline special profiling both Obama and McCain. I suggest you watch it. It points out Obama's willingness, indeed eagerness, to reach out to the other side and hear their ideas. He has demonstrated in his work at the local level a sincere willingness to try to find common ground. That's not a sentiment that only he shares. Don't give up on working with him before you even try.

And one other suggestion. Tell your "leaders" who have tried to hard to make "liberal" a dirty word to put a proverbial sock in it.

Scott is saying that many of the people voting for Obama harbor racial animus, that sans the current military and financial crises, would lead them to vote against the black candidate.

On the racism front, things have slowly been changing for the better in our nation. Many of us figured that in 50 years or so, racial prejudice would have reduced enough to allow a non-white to run successfully for president.

BUT, Bush has screwed us so royally that a significant portion of the electorate is actually voting on their perceived interests as opposed to their prejudices. That's why a Wright, Ayers or any nativist/fearmongering attack has floundered this year.

Bottom line: without Bush, there could be no Obama.

To William:

I live a fact based world. Maybe its a liberal thing. You conservatives should give it a try. You would be surprised how well it works.

I stated a simple conclusion based on observation of the way the generations are voting this time around. Under 30's heavily favor Obama, I think because they see his talent and not his skin color. Over 60's up until the economy melted down heavily favored McCain, I think because they see his skin color and were willing to gamble on the erratic McCain, up until they decided they could no longer afford their racism. Were it not for way the Republicans having f**ked this country, racism would have won this race for McCain. Hence my observation.

The obvious corollary is that the next Black candidate will have a lot less racism to combat because many of the racists will be dead, may they RIP. Thus, the Republicans have created conditions that enabled a Black man to be elected in part by racists because of his considerable merits. Their racism suspended by their fear of being mauled yet again by Republican fools.

Hey Will,

Please accept my humble apologizes. Nothing is a greater breach of etiquette than accusing a fellow liberal of being a conservative ;-). I hope you can forgive me. From your original critique it was not entirely clear from which direction your comment came. It will be nice to vote on the winning side for a change.

I’m not going to lie to you: I think we’re a deeply divided country. As long as people, with no sense of irony, write absolute dogma such as, “The Democrats always do this,” or “The Republicans only say that,” we’re in a lot of trouble. Thanks Crunchy Con, for the only right-leaning viewpoint that hasn't involved hate in the last 9 months. I'm almost proud to be an American. There's no irony intended there.

If elected, Obama will strengthen our nation's schools so that the children of Ted Pratt, if he has any, will know how to spell words like "destroy," "everyone," and "running," words that the average 5th grader knows how to spell.