A lot of people who were upset about Bush's decisions and the party's craven religious pandering and blatant hypocrisy distanced themselves from the party, but I expect many will come back now that Obama is the one who will get the blame for anything that goes wrong.
Interesting nugget in the last polling, 25% of GOP Conservatives(!) support the President, even with the ballouts and closing Guantanamo, trying to thaw relations with Hanava and Tehran, and other shit. If anything, I'm reminded of the late 1970s and early 1980s when the last vestages of the New Deal Coalition within the Democratic Party collapsed. You had the liberals left, but many moderate and conservative Dems would cast their ballots in subsequent national elections for Reagan and Bush Sr.
Yeah by 2012, a few of those disgruntled GOPers will return to that fold, but the real question I see at this rate isn't how strong or weak Obama will be heading into that re-election fight, but of his oppositional GOP opponent. To put it another way, if its Palin especially, don't be shocked if the Obama Republicans return to the news.
I mean its like that 2004 cartoon I remembered where Kerry is at a rally, and everyone of his supporters were holding signs saying:
"Not Bush!" Simply being against the incumbent isn't just enough. You need a good disciplined candidate with a clear, concise message of clarity that hits a nerve with the American public.
Palin aint disciplined (among other problems), Huckabee isn't as bad but do you see him taking an Oath of Office? Romney has the same problems he had last year, which was that he comes off as an arrogant sack of shit that'll say anything to win (which accurately describes most politicians, but we don't seem to like our politicians being politicians.)
Sanford won't get the nod, and already Jindal is making noise of maybe running for the Senate next year instead of a '12 run, and wait for 2016 for his national campaign like Charlie Crist. So who is there in the GOP to take up the flag and stand toe-to-toe with Obama, maybe the Reagan of his generation?
And if the GOP stops offering apologies to Mr Oxicotin Rush then I will think the Republicans will have a chance to come out of the wilderness.
It would be a start, at the very least, but it wont happen anytime soon. I mean how the fuck can you respect a party where its Chairman looked like a bitch when he got "disciplined" by Rush? Its like if Howard Dean years ago bowed down to Al Franken. It's humiliating.
If you look at voting trends and what legislation has actually passed in the last 15 years or so, I'd say that Americans are becoming more socially tolerant, which probably translates into a liberal shift. But regardless of what's going on today the Pubs have too many institutional advantages locked in place -- and too many wealthy backers.
Even the Dems in their dark days in the 80s still had many supporters and institutional advantages (the House) and plentiful of rich backers (like Hollywood, for example). But none of that helps much if you pick a poor candidate, and don't have much of a message besides
"I aint him!" like McGovern in 1972 or Mondale in 1984.
And countries often go through phases of liberalism, followed by phases of conservatism. [ swarzenegger ] They'll be back [ / swarzenegger ], but I HOPE the old Republican party that was an alliance of the religious right, hawks, and corporate types is finished.
(EDIT: Nevermind about some other stuff)
If I am to return to the GOP, it would only be if...
(1) the Evangelical Religious Right, the kingmakers of the party today, shut the hell up and take a seat like the liberals did within the Democratic Party with Clinton. A good Mondale-esque record electoral landslide with Palin would do a good job.
(2) They actually get serious and enact seriously fiscal responsibility in the Congress (when they take it back), which they never really have done outside of when they and Clinton balanced the budget. If anything, I think Sec of Defense Gate's recent war budget re-structuring is fiscally responsible, or at least looks so on paper.
(3) Quit wanting to free everyone in the whole world. Those silly Evangelicals in the Dubya White House are the "native" Hippies of our time.
(4) Quit with the Anti-Gay nonsense. 30-40% of American Gays are natural Conservatives/Republicans on many issues, and yet a large and larger portion are saying fuck it and either not voting or simply going with the Dems, if because the GOP is giving no ground or conciliation of any kind on such issues.
