No Man Ever Steps in the Same River Twice...

...it's not the same river and he's not the same man.
-Heraclitus.

So many would argue (myself included) that McCain lost in 2008 because he wasn't a true Republican. The people who wanted to vote for a Democrat voted for Barack H. Obama and the people who wanted to vote for a Republican were hosed. Those people would argue that if the Republicans had run a proper Republican candidate, we would have him for our President today.

Add to that the number of people who supported Obama and are now--or will be by 2012--realizing that they got boned.

So flash-forward to 2012. What do you do if you're the GOP? Do you address the reason you lost the last election and risk giving the Dems a chance to run a moderate candidate? Or do you run another liberal in hopes of sucking away disillusioned Obamatons?

 

Your contorted logic would be amusing if it wasn't so tragic.

The People secretly but desperately wanted a paragon of Republican virtue... and went an elected the "Socalist Anti-Christ" instead because the store was out? Can you hear yourself?

 

The choices were there initially, pretty broad based amoungst them all each with a litttle quirk that seemed to catch up with them at some point.
When it came back around McCain was the last one that hadn't been lambasted with some dirt or belief, and we were kind of spoonfed the drivel because they were looking for a moderate to try to keep some face of the party, yet appeal to those middle of the road republicans who were disenfranchised by either Iraq or pick anything from the pork shoveled through or some other item of questionable self serving item during their watch. Pretty wide spectrum, and with the gamble of McCain they came up short.

As much as everyone belittles Palin, it's obvious to anyone with a brain that they are scared of her and feel a threat. Why else would they go to so much trouble to smear her?

Her injection as a VP candidate may have played better under another alpha, as it was it came across to me as an attempt to sell McCain.

If she can withstand the pack of jackels that have been chewing on her and come up clean, that will go a long way with many and increase her chances of being on the ticket.

We need someone with a backbone to stand up for conservative views without compromise or regret. Until that person is nominated and put forth the Republican Party will suffer. Question is, have we already been exposed to them or will they come out of the numerous individuals who have yet to rise to prominence.

I must say, if you told me Joe Biden would be a heartbeat away from the big chair ten years ago, I'd have responded much as Dr. Brown reacted when informed by Marty that Reagan was president.

 

Dems would have attempted to smear McCain's VP choice no matter who it was. It is in the nature of politics to smear the opposition. That his choice was Palin made this smearing a little easier as she didn't exactly cover herself in glory, but whether or not they were afraid of her cannot be seen by whether or not they attempted to smear her.

 

Oh man, this is recent history too. Okay, once more, Obama was riding a tidal wave of popularity, he was a lock, game over, he gave a speech that received roaring approval from all corners of the world.

The next day, the very next day, Palin was announced as McCain's running mate, and she gave a speech.

Everybody forgot about Obama and his speech. And for the first time in a long time it seemed that maybe McCain could win.

So was the reaction a well reasoned refutation of her qualifications? Nope. Couldn't say she was too inexperienced because she had more experience than Obama. Couldn't find any political dirt on her either. So what happened? How could she be attacked? C'mon we all remember the list of insightful criticisms:

• Her daughter was pregnant
• Her newborn was really her daughter's child
• She is neglecting her young family (Just forget about Obama having young kids okay)
• She is spending too much money on her clothes
• People only like her cuz she's pretty
• She said she could see Russia!
• Tina Fey looks like Palin and says dumb stuff
• McCain is gonna die the day after the election
• She's running for president!

You wanna say that behavior wasn't born of fear?



I guess it doesn't really matter, the actions speak louder than any motivation we could come up with anyway.

 

That the VP pick was the sole target of the smear campaign only highlights that McCain never had a chance.

• He pushed for granting eventual amnesty to illegal aliens.
• He flew all the way back from the campaign to vote for giving hundreds of billions away as bailouts.
• He was willing to debate with Obama on how to socialize healthcare.

Couple that with Bush's runaway spending and the overall disallusion with TARP and you have a recipe for disaster among the republican base.

McCain's slogan might as well have been "Diet Barack Obama tastes just like real Barack Obama!"

 

Let's face it. Palin was primarily marketing herself to the small-town Soccer-Moms of America. All these allegations are low-brow and gossipy because of the general interests of this target-audience. Where is the link between this stuff and the emotion fear? why do you place the likelihood of it emerging from fear instead of jealousy or arrogance, for example? BTW, I'm not defending what was said about her. Personally, I think underhand tactics were employed and some of this stuff should not have been exploited, but if you're going to criticise it, at least do so from the correct point of view.

 

The only one who sounds like an idiot in this thread is you. Volpone is right.

 

Ahem.....

*Does a couple neck rolls to loosen up*

LYYYYEEEEEEEEBRUUUULLL MMYYYYEEEEEEDDYYAAAAAA!!!!!!!

 

The Republicans lost because they were presenting themselves as Democrat-Lite. Bush did huge damage to their cause and McCain was absolutely the wrong guy to run in 08. Problem was, there were no real strong candidates in the Republican field. Mitt Romney? Mike Huckabee? Please.

The Republicans had all the momentum in the world after the "Republican Revolution" back in the 90s and they squandered it, year after year. Now it seems finally to have dawned on a lot of people that the two main parties are almost interchangeable and it's basically Obama's personal charisma that led to the big Dem victory last year. In 2012 the Republicans' slogan should be "So how's that hope and change workin' out for ya?", but so far I don't see anyone emerging from that party who would be a decent candidate for President.

We are beset on all sides by mediocrity.

 

Lose the "fear, smear, and queers", strategy, stop condescendingly dangling car keys at the Joe The Plumber demographic, and talk about some real goddamned issues.

Don't look for it to happen.

 

I like Mark Sanford. I don't give a damn about him cheating on his wife, he was the only Governor that I heard of that tried to turn down bailout money. It is nice to see someone from the "conservative" party acting conservative.

 

Okay, here's a premise, and maybe it's kooky, but let's try it on for size, see how it goes...

...maybe..just maybe now....hear me out...

Maybe the "Republican revolution", fell apart because....their ideas were wrong, and sucked?

Ah, ah, don't snap, just roll it around for a second....

 

How would we know? They never tried any of them.

 

I thought about it, but then the facts got in the way.

Simply put, they didn't STICK to their "ideas".

 

Really? So in '04 Bush won by going after John Edwards? In '00 he won by smearing Joe Lieberman? Clinton got reelected by attacking--what was the name of Bob Dole's running mate, anyway?

Yeah, the campaign will usually make a jab or two at the running mate. Kerry said Edwards would bring balance to the ticket and at least one source pointed out that Edwards was almost as liberal as Kerry. Back in '92 people pointed out that Dan Quayle misspelled "potato" (actually the flash card he had been provided had it misspelled on it but a story about shoddy public education wasn't as entertaining as one about a stupid Republican VP), but in no election I can think of has the opposition and the media joined ranks to attack the running mate 24/7. If you have an example, Dave, I'm willing to hear it.

Ah, right. I forgot how Democrats think. Tell women that they are important, can't be discriminated against, and deserve everything a man does, but secretly believe they are too stupid to care about anything but hair and makeup tips and what was on the latest episode of "Desperate Housewives."

Stay classy, Democratic Party.

 

Like true Communism, eh?

 

So, the things I've been hating on most of my life aren't actually Republicans.
Well, good, then no one here should ever get offended.

 

Hey hang it on jealousy or arrogance if you want, like I said it doesn't really matter, the actions speak for themselves.






OT - I must admit I feel like I'm manipulating Ancalagon a bit whenever I debate with another member because I know Ancalagon will be forced to agree with said member.

He's kinda snarky like that.

 

I don't have to try it to know it would suck having my money stolen from me and redistributed evenly throughout the population.

 

Hey man, why do you always have to be down on the media, sure a good chuck is nothing but partisan slop but you can't just blame the liberals.

Wait, it isn't just the liberals is it?

 

Hey, just saying, Commies make similar excuses.

 

Hey I didn't say that, I don't think you've completely abandoned all objectivity and chosen instead to worship upon the altar of all things donkey.

Not completely, no way.

 

True communism has never been tried on a large scale - national level - anywhere in the world, so the experiment has not been done. What's been marketed as "communism" has generally been of the Marxist-Leninist bent, or Maoist, both of which use communist trappings to justify totalitarian governments.

But in any event, true communism is contrary to human nature and would not work over the long term.

 

Name me a policy you think I'm in favor of.

 

Oh please. BULLSHIT.

The announcement of Palin and her subsequent stealing of Obama's righteous thunder was tantamount to 'Democrats Gone Wild'.

 

I will not! I might be willing to throw out a few examples from the long list of things you are against but the way you're acting I doubt it.

 

You know, if we don't acknowledge Diacanu, he probably won't spam up as many threads.

 

I'm for mega-massive bailouts, taxing the rich until they are dead, organ harvesting the partially born, mandatory gay marriages, and some weird scary version of health care you've never even heard of, but you just know it'll be awful.