thebin
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Posts: 3,869
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Post by thebin on Nov 7, 2008 15:34:10 GMT -5
Read more carefully, I said jettison the evangelical brand of the party, not all evangelicals. Let's face it, the evangelicals highjacked the party in the early 90s and have been punching WELL above their weight for too long at the expense of the true small government libertarian wing that came from Goldwater's inspiration. The Evangelicals can and will still vote GOP of course, where else are they going to go, but the time for them to run the party is and should be at an end. You never know, they could start their own party altogether. No chance. If they did that they would be dumber than I thought they were. They would be shut out of the White House for all time. The nature of the party leadership always changes every generation or so. We are seeing a big change now. This was the last dance for a Huckabee, Brownback or Palin to make a national play for decades to come. The nation is about to start getting a lot less religious. It's about time. |
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Boz
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Post by Boz on Nov 7, 2008 16:05:49 GMT -5
There are some ways in which I agree with that sentiment, and others in which I think it is absolutely wrong. I'm very conflicted on that subject, which I suppose makes sense given my own conflicted relationship with religion and faith. But, since I can't quite express myself too clearly on that one, at least not right now, I guess I'll just say....maybe. |
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thebin
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
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Post by thebin on Nov 7, 2008 16:27:30 GMT -5
A sensible agnostic position Boz.
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Post by jerseyhoya34 on Nov 8, 2008 2:02:44 GMT -5
My sense is that the Republican Party has slowly lost people who align themselves in the tradition of a George H.W. Bush. Obviously, New England Republicans are an endangered species, with only a few notable exceptions. In this cycle alone, one can point to Sununu and Shays (and probably others), and there are still others like Jeffords, Chafee, Leach, et al. who have slowly but surely moved out of the halls of the Capitol (to the detriment of the country) and later to the Dem column.
When you look at areas around big cities, notably in some areas of VA, where you have well-educated and white voters who tend to be more pragmatic in nature than many values-oriented/single issue voters (gun control, abortion, and the like), you can begin to see the infiltration of the Democratic Party into this former constituency of the Republican Party.
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EasyEd
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Post by EasyEd on Nov 8, 2008 12:11:17 GMT -5
My prediction on the future of the Republican party is that Newt will provide the message while someone else like Jindal or Palin becomes the messenger. The Repubs must continue their association with social conservatives, return to their roots as true fiscal conservatives and provide a vision for the future delivered by effective communicators.
Some of the issues Republicans could gain the upper hand on are realistic "saving" of Social Security including raising contributions and the retirement age and reducing benefits for future (but not present) recipients; prioritizing what the Federal government should do and comparing it to what it actually does and proposing elimination of whole programs (and departments) where appropriate; being in the forefront in devising ways for illegals currently in this country to achieve citizenship while at the same time streamlining the application process and closing the borders; providing expert assessments of the state-of-the-art in alternative sources of energy and based on that assessment lay out a realistic program to become independent of foreign oil in, perhaps, 15 years - along with the $s required; become pro-active in advancing environmental improvements rather than always being seen as opposing realistic measures. I may later change my mind on some of these. There are other issues but I'll stop here.
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Post by HoyaLawya on Nov 8, 2008 17:30:55 GMT -5
"We need to jettison this southern evangelical brand of Republicanism which will fight nothing but rearguard actions for the rest of it's limited days, all the while ensuring more and more disasterous big government socialism as it does so." If you jettison the evangelicals from the Republican party you will end up with no Republican party. Look at the makeup of the party. Read more carefully, I said jettison the evangelical brand of the party, not all evangelicals. Let's face it, the evangelicals highjacked the party in the early 90s and have been punching WELL above their weight for too long at the expense of the true small government libertarian wing that came from Goldwater's inspiration. The Evangelicals can and will still vote GOP of course, where else are they going to go, but the time for them to run the party is and should be at an end. The make-up of the party has dwindled because of the rising dominance of the "political Jesus horse" types and the adopted-during-the-1980's Neo-Conistas with their push of "Hey gang! Let's try to forcibly transplant democratic values to non-adaptive cultures still living in a Jihadistic Alternative Reality! After all, democracies don't go to war against each other! Right?" Given how the bailout vote went, I'd say that much of the sentiment of the electorate (focused on It's the ECONOMY, Stupid! issues) had nowhere to turn as to either major political party in casting their votes in 2008. Gone is the party of "Mr. Republican" Taft (avoiding intervention, much less a "combine" of American military + American corporate multinationals mutually engaged in global empire-building) and gone is the party of Western "classic liberal laissez faire thinking" of Goldwater. We have essentially a ONE PARTY SYSTEM on economic preachments (one predisposed to government involvement and deficit/debt financing and Too Big To Fail corporate-donor toadying) in which the only differences are marked by extremes of Left (Democrats) and Right (Republicans) on the Social Issue "culture wars". I went out to dinner with old friends last night from the neighboring state (Pennsylvania) who'd been lifelong GOP, but voted Obama out of utter DISGUST with Republicans recent track record, and reported that PA ought to be regarded as a "lost cause" state for GOP purposes unless and until the FISCAL SANITY ISSUES get revived as the front-and-center plank of platform. The GOP ought to get that part straight, reclaim the legacy of Taft in being a "peaceful trading partner" (leading by example) but not a military adventurist abroad, and shuttle all the "culture war" issues into the file drawer marked "States' Rights" for resolution outside the Beltway. As far as Palin, I sincerely believe (after watching hours of video of her in interviews and on the campaign trail) that she might be very bright (latent raw IQ) but suffering from Asperbergers' Syndrome (no joke) with the dead giveaway being a marked tendency toward perseveration. ("Feeding hungry markets" being endlessly repeated 12 times within 8 minutes in one low-pressure interview which occurred before she was even chosen as VP running mate was the tip-off.) If she wants to ride her political Jesus horse off into some Northern Lights sunset-to-eternity, it would be fine by me. She has an interesting-to-colorful Life Story, she schmoozed well ( up in Alaska) with the Bill Kristol Brigade of plotters (Dick Morris ... puhLEEZE), and she had utterly no place on a national ticket which needed to be taken seriously. After literally decades of voting GOP, and working on the Hill during GULC for a libertarian-leaning GOPer at a time when that was a pre-Reagan novelty, I found myself unable to stomache voting for the GOP Presidential ticket due to Palin (absurdly unqualified) and the past 8 years ("Descent into Hell" territory). Obama was out of the question (obviously). I ended up voting Third Party for the first time in my ever-frickin'ly-extending-into-despairing-older-age-life as an American voter in the "hope" that my vote, and others like it, would not get lost in the morass of Obama voting patterns but rather, show up as part of the tally of the DISAFFECTED. People who once had a comfortable "home" in a major party like the GOP -- back when the GOP was the voice of the SANE, the PRINCIPLED, and the GROWN-UPs of society. Now, instead, we find Democrats or their significant factions have co-opted the non-interventionism abroad stance. Ditto on some of the "leave people alone" social issues - although I do profess to have "problems" with one aspect which is gay marriage due to the way the conferring of that "right" seems to then have seepage issues which find gay-weddings-are-good "diversity education" socialization classes taught in public elementary schools, and loss of tax exemptions to some church groups whose religious tenets required that they decline to allow their property to be available to staging same-sex ceremonies, and Catholic Charities shutting down adoption services in MA due to being caught between rock (Vatican) and hard place (state of MA) in how it placed children in need of homes. Once a state confers a "right" then "public policy" comes knocking around, demanding strict scrutiny of lots of areas of endeavor, it seems. Including what MA apparently regarded as a "discriminatory" preference to place babies in traditional-marriage homes with mother and father figures defined by actual biologic gender. Meanwhile, neither major party is raising a banner for true middle class "relief" issues which would consist of - no taxpayer dollars going to bailouts of the TBTF power-brokers who dictate too many terms to the FED and Congress (with Goldman-Sachs having an uncanny knack in where its alumni land in the administrations of both major political parties),
- job-growth-enhancing tax cuts (now more important than ever as the rest of the world has "caught on" to how those work, with the European averaged corporate income tax now down to a low-low 23%, and China and India and other Asian emerging engines aware of "Cowboy capitalism"),
- serious pruning or total elimination of non-essential federal agencies and departments, toward achieving a balanced budget
- no-more neglectful head-in-the-sand attitude of business-as-usual pork-barrel prone Congress people about the looming delayed-reckoning on our $53 Trillion unfunded liabilities for entitlement programs
If the GOP doesn't find its leadership recaptured by some sober-sided fiscal actors-not-talkers, and "party of ideas" problem-solving economic theoreticians, and "party of classic stance" historians with long memories (hint: Taft), then it will consign itself to a well-deserved dust heap as the vast voting army of the "overlooked" -- the some 80% of the public who opposed bailouts/handouts as wrongheaded "socialism for the Titans" funded by the overburdened middle class, and the some 67% of the public who voiced summer of 2008 opposition to the war in Iraq, and the some 70% who recognize that neither households nor nations can live off credit card charges forever -- find a new home. modernwhig.org/Here's an interesting take on where America currently stands in its historic trajectory. www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=bubble_and_bail |
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DFW HOYA
Platinum Hoya (over 5000 posts)
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Post by DFW HOYA on Nov 9, 2008 14:29:37 GMT -5
To thebin, I think McCain was the conservative you were looking for. He remains a good man, and it is a tragedy that he had to go down like this given that I think he would have won back in 2000. Also, Palin may just want to kill Tina Fey now (maybe with a gun from a chopper). I honestly think Tina's portrayal of Gov. Palin was material to her undoing. McCain's greatest mistake in this campaign was in not staying true to his convictions and caving into elements who were content waving the red flag of "socialism" at Obama when that has about as much relevance to the under-40 voter as calling someone a Wobbly. As to the GOP, it has to evolve. This isn't the party of Reagan or Goldwater anymore inasmuch as it isn't the party of Lincoln or TR or Willkie or Taft anymore, either. The Democrats wandered in the electoral wilderness for years with candidates like Humphrey, Muskie, McGovern, Ted Kennedy, Mondale, Dukakis, etc. trying to rebuild the FDR machine--it was gone. The Reagan Revolution was born in an America which has changed; and with it, the GOP must adapt. So unless Obama is channeling the James Monroe administration and the Era Of Good Feeling returns, there will still be a need for a viable opposition party, but one which has a set of definable goals and sticks to them. It was said that the best thing Bobby Jindal could do for his future was to stay far away from the 2008 race, and that was 110% right. When the GOP returns to form, the names and faces from 2008 will be on the outside looking in. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Nov 10, 2008 9:10:02 GMT -5
I've said this before but people are missing the difference between smart and informed. Palin finished the campaign much more informed than when she started it and her interviews and chats with the press showed this. I think you will find she is smart and will continue to become much more informed. easyed - you can stop drinking the Palin Kool-Aid now. It's over. Some of this may be sour grapes on the part of McCain's people, certainly. But if there's even a chance that she thought that Africa is a country as opposed to a continent, or that she couldn't name the members of NAFTA, she is both dumb and uninformed. I'm not okay with the dumb and uninformed running our country, and you shouldn't be either. You've talked about her strong conservative values appealing to you, but there must be some intelligent, informed individuals who share your values as well. |
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Boz
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Post by Boz on Nov 10, 2008 11:44:49 GMT -5
Look, I don't have any problem with people who oppose Palin for any number of reasons, some of which I agree with, some of which I don't. I also don't have any problem with those who think she wasn't ready for the national stage. I think that is a fair assessment, but ed's assessment of her progress during the campaign is also fair. I realize most people just stopped listening after the Katie Couric interview, but if you're basing your judgment on that, that is unfair because it is incomplete. And if you're basing your judgment on a post-election Newsweek article that hinges entirely on "anonymous sources," (which is looking more and more like actually only one anonymous source) that is not only unfair, but dishonest. There are countless Republicans in and out of the McCain campaign who are GOING ON RECORD to dismiss some of the absolutely ridiculous charges that have been made post-election (NAFTA and Africa being the least credible of them). www.redstate.com/diaries/redstate/2008/nov/10/the-palin-push-back/www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2008/11/most_implausible_palin_smear_y.aspHonest opposition to Gov. Palin is fine. Pulling out, as examples of your opposition, these charges most of which are absurd on their face is not. Let me phrase it another way: "Oh my GOD! Barack Obama said there were 57 states, does not know what language they speak in Afghanistan and told everyone in Israel that he is the chairman of a Senate committee on which he doesn't even serve. The man is completely ignorant, dumb and unqualified." (Or, alternatively, would you like a list of about 1,000 Joe Biden gaffes too?) Credible? You tell me. |
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EasyEd
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Post by EasyEd on Nov 10, 2008 11:50:56 GMT -5
I've said this before but people are missing the difference between smart and informed. Palin finished the campaign much more informed than when she started it and her interviews and chats with the press showed this. I think you will find she is smart and will continue to become much more informed. easyed - you can stop drinking the Palin Kool-Aid now. It's over. Some of this may be sour grapes on the part of McCain's people, certainly. But if there's even a chance that she thought that Africa is a country as opposed to a continent, or that she couldn't name the members of NAFTA, she is both dumb and uninformed. I'm not okay with the dumb and uninformed running our country, and you shouldn't be either. You've talked about her strong conservative values appealing to you, but there must be some intelligent, informed individuals who share your values as well. According to eyewitnesses accounts, Palin was being prepped for the VP debate and they were covering McCain's policies on Africa and the problems existing there when Palin said something to the effect of "yes, that's a country with lots of problems". From the eyewitnesses accounts, Palin had participated in discussions of the problems in the various countries in Africa and her response was nothing more than a slip of the tongue. Kinda like Biden mistaking a three-letter word for a four-letter one, to name but one of his "mistakes". As for the NAFTA reference, do you honestly expect anyone to know every detail of every items she's asked about? I'm not drinking Kool-Aid for Palin but I am reacting to a concerted effort to destroy her because she was not fully informed on the details of some important issues. You sound like someone gloating after the election went your way. When I, along with my wife, was raising four children while working and doing my share of the chores around the house, I didn't even have time to listen to the news on TV nor to follow the Hoyas like I would have liked. Does that mean I'm not intelligent? Okay, don't answer that. Give Palin a break; she's got five children and she's Governor of Alaska. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Nov 10, 2008 12:14:51 GMT -5
As for the NAFTA reference, do you honestly expect anyone to know every detail of every items she's asked about? If she is aspiring to be my Vice President, I expect a baseline that's a little higher than this. And as for "giving her a break" because she has 5 kids and is the Governor of Alaska...seriously? If she can't multitask, she's not ready to be Vice President. As far as I can tell, she's well-versed on energy issues, special needs child care, and being mavericky. I would hope that we would all want a VP who could be at least conversant on a few other issues. |
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SoCalHoya
Golden Hoya (over 1000 posts)
No es bueno
Posts: 1,313
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Post by SoCalHoya on Nov 10, 2008 13:23:49 GMT -5
easyed - you can stop drinking the Palin Kool-Aid now. It's over. Some of this may be sour grapes on the part of McCain's people, certainly. But if there's even a chance that she thought that Africa is a country as opposed to a continent, or that she couldn't name the members of NAFTA, she is both dumb and uninformed. I'm not okay with the dumb and uninformed running our country, and you shouldn't be either. You've talked about her strong conservative values appealing to you, but there must be some intelligent, informed individuals who share your values as well. According to eyewitnesses accounts, Palin was being prepped for the VP debate and they were covering McCain's policies on Africa and the problems existing there when Palin said something to the effect of "yes, that's a country with lots of problems". From the eyewitnesses accounts, Palin had participated in discussions of the problems in the various countries in Africa and her response was nothing more than a slip of the tongue. Kinda like Biden mistaking a three-letter word for a four-letter one, to name but one of his "mistakes". As for the NAFTA reference, do you honestly expect anyone to know every detail of every items she's asked about? I'm not drinking Kool-Aid for Palin but I am reacting to a concerted effort to destroy her because she was not fully informed on the details of some important issues. You sound like someone gloating after the election went your way. When I, along with my wife, was raising four children while working and doing my share of the chores around the house, I didn't even have time to listen to the news on TV nor to follow the Hoyas like I would have liked. Does that mean I'm not intelligent? Okay, don't answer that. Give Palin a break; she's got five children and she's Governor of Alaska. I don't think Palin is very bright, but agree with ed that she isn't that dumb either. The GOP is looking for a scapegoat and find an easy target in Gov. Palin. Fox News and other pseudo-news orgs are following their GOP-master's orders and are off to destroy her. I have a feeling the harder they kick her, however, the quicker she'll bounce. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Nov 10, 2008 13:36:38 GMT -5
Put it this way: if I were interviewing a 17 year old high school senior for admission to Georgetown and asked: "What news sources do you read?" and that kid answered, "Um, well....you know...all of them", game over. No Georgetown for you, kid. I would hope that we as a country would hold a Vice Presidential candidate to a higher standard than that, regardless of that person's values, folksiness, maverickyness, hockey momability or other appeal.
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SoCalHoya
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No es bueno
Posts: 1,313
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Post by SoCalHoya on Nov 10, 2008 14:24:21 GMT -5
Yeah, but Cam, I would say many if not most students accepted at GU would do a pretty good job at VP. Better than most VPs, probably.  |
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FormerHoya
Golden Hoya (over 1000 posts)
Posts: 1,262
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Post by FormerHoya on Nov 10, 2008 14:35:09 GMT -5
Read more carefully, I said jettison the evangelical brand of the party, not all evangelicals. Let's face it, the evangelicals highjacked the party in the early 90s and have been punching WELL above their weight for too long at the expense of the true small government libertarian wing that came from Goldwater's inspiration. The Evangelicals can and will still vote GOP of course, where else are they going to go, but the time for them to run the party is and should be at an end. The make-up of the party has dwindled because of the rising dominance of the "political Jesus horse" types and the adopted-during-the-1980's Neo-Conistas with their push of "Hey gang! Let's try to forcibly transplant democratic values to non-adaptive cultures still living in a Jihadistic Alternative Reality! After all, democracies don't go to war against each other! Right?" Given how the bailout vote went, I'd say that much of the sentiment of the electorate (focused on It's the ECONOMY, Stupid! issues) had nowhere to turn as to either major political party in casting their votes in 2008. Gone is the party of "Mr. Republican" Taft (avoiding intervention, much less a "combine" of American military + American corporate multinationals mutually engaged in global empire-building) and gone is the party of Western "classic liberal laissez faire thinking" of Goldwater. We have essentially a ONE PARTY SYSTEM on economic preachments (one predisposed to government involvement and deficit/debt financing and Too Big To Fail corporate-donor toadying) in which the only differences are marked by extremes of Left (Democrats) and Right (Republicans) on the Social Issue "culture wars". I went out to dinner with old friends last night from the neighboring state (Pennsylvania) who'd been lifelong GOP, but voted Obama out of utter DISGUST with Republicans recent track record, and reported that PA ought to be regarded as a "lost cause" state for GOP purposes unless and until the FISCAL SANITY ISSUES get revived as the front-and-center plank of platform. The GOP ought to get that part straight, reclaim the legacy of Taft in being a "peaceful trading partner" (leading by example) but not a military adventurist abroad, and shuttle all the "culture war" issues into the file drawer marked "States' Rights" for resolution outside the Beltway. As far as Palin, I sincerely believe (after watching hours of video of her in interviews and on the campaign trail) that she might be very bright (latent raw IQ) but suffering from Asperbergers' Syndrome (no joke) with the dead giveaway being a marked tendency toward perseveration. ("Feeding hungry markets" being endlessly repeated 12 times within 8 minutes in one low-pressure interview which occurred before she was even chosen as VP running mate was the tip-off.) If she wants to ride her political Jesus horse off into some Northern Lights sunset-to-eternity, it would be fine by me. She has an interesting-to-colorful Life Story, she schmoozed well ( up in Alaska) with the Bill Kristol Brigade of plotters (Dick Morris ... puhLEEZE), and she had utterly no place on a national ticket which needed to be taken seriously. After literally decades of voting GOP, and working on the Hill during GULC for a libertarian-leaning GOPer at a time when that was a pre-Reagan novelty, I found myself unable to stomache voting for the GOP Presidential ticket due to Palin (absurdly unqualified) and the past 8 years ("Descent into Hell" territory). Obama was out of the question (obviously). I ended up voting Third Party for the first time in my ever-frickin'ly-extending-into-despairing-older-age-life as an American voter in the "hope" that my vote, and others like it, would not get lost in the morass of Obama voting patterns but rather, show up as part of the tally of the DISAFFECTED. People who once had a comfortable "home" in a major party like the GOP -- back when the GOP was the voice of the SANE, the PRINCIPLED, and the GROWN-UPs of society. Now, instead, we find Democrats or their significant factions have co-opted the non-interventionism abroad stance. Ditto on some of the "leave people alone" social issues - although I do profess to have "problems" with one aspect which is gay marriage due to the way the conferring of that "right" seems to then have seepage issues which find gay-weddings-are-good "diversity education" socialization classes taught in public elementary schools, and loss of tax exemptions to some church groups whose religious tenets required that they decline to allow their property to be available to staging same-sex ceremonies, and Catholic Charities shutting down adoption services in MA due to being caught between rock (Vatican) and hard place (state of MA) in how it placed children in need of homes. Once a state confers a "right" then "public policy" comes knocking around, demanding strict scrutiny of lots of areas of endeavor, it seems. Including what MA apparently regarded as a "discriminatory" preference to place babies in traditional-marriage homes with mother and father figures defined by actual biologic gender. Meanwhile, neither major party is raising a banner for true middle class "relief" issues which would consist of - no taxpayer dollars going to bailouts of the TBTF power-brokers who dictate too many terms to the FED and Congress (with Goldman-Sachs having an uncanny knack in where its alumni land in the administrations of both major political parties),
- job-growth-enhancing tax cuts (now more important than ever as the rest of the world has "caught on" to how those work, with the European averaged corporate income tax now down to a low-low 23%, and China and India and other Asian emerging engines aware of "Cowboy capitalism"),
- serious pruning or total elimination of non-essential federal agencies and departments, toward achieving a balanced budget
- no-more neglectful head-in-the-sand attitude of business-as-usual pork-barrel prone Congress people about the looming delayed-reckoning on our $53 Trillion unfunded liabilities for entitlement programs
If the GOP doesn't find its leadership recaptured by some sober-sided fiscal actors-not-talkers, and "party of ideas" problem-solving economic theoreticians, and "party of classic stance" historians with long memories (hint: Taft), then it will consign itself to a well-deserved dust heap as the vast voting army of the "overlooked" -- the some 80% of the public who opposed bailouts/handouts as wrongheaded "socialism for the Titans" funded by the overburdened middle class, and the some 67% of the public who voiced summer of 2008 opposition to the war in Iraq, and the some 70% who recognize that neither households nor nations can live off credit card charges forever -- find a new home. modernwhig.org/Here's an interesting take on where America currently stands in its historic trajectory. www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=bubble_and_bailAre you running for office, and can I vote for you? Agreed, agreed, agreed. |
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Boz
Blue & Gray (over 10,000 posts)
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Post by Boz on Nov 10, 2008 14:58:50 GMT -5
Of course, the real problem is, much like in 2000 when probably the wrong Bush was nominated (Jeb should have run), in 2008, we probably nominated the wrong Palin. Piper is a force to be reckoned with! www.bobandmark.com/node/2449 ;D |
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hifigator
Platinum Hoya (over 5000 posts)
Posts: 6,387
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Post by hifigator on Nov 10, 2008 16:19:34 GMT -5
My sense is that the Republican Party has slowly lost people who align themselves in the tradition of a George H.W. Bush. Obviously, New England Republicans are an endangered species, with only a few notable exceptions. In this cycle alone, one can point to Sununu and Shays (and probably others), and there are still others like Jeffords, Chafee, Leach, et al. who have slowly but surely moved out of the halls of the Capitol (to the detriment of the country) and later to the Dem column. I have a different take on that issue. I think that it was Bush the first that aligned himself differently. Granted, there was always a bit of tension between Reagan and Bush, but at least until after Bush was elected in '88, he was more aligned with Reagan and had support among the so-called "Reagan democrats," as well as with the conservative base. But when HW went along with the democratic congress and signed the largest tax increase in history, he sealed his fate and doomed many after him as well. Clinton was the perfect choice to run against him in '92, and for all the animostity that was bantered back and forth between the aisles, the bottom line is that those 8 years worked out fine domestically. As we all know, the tech boom and the .com boom certainly were large contributors to our success. It is also impossible to deny that the expansions of the fannie mae and freddie mac, occurring under his watch, are coming back to bite us on the a$$ now. There's also no denying that he should have paid much more attention to international issues -- most specifically, radical islam and al-Queda in particular. That mistake too came back to haunt us in spades. But still, the point is that I don't think that the "conservative base" has run off and left HW, as much as he alienated many of them, and most specifically with his signing the tax bill. Boz wrote: Of course, the real problem is, much like in 2000 when probably the wrong Bush was nominated (Jeb should have run),I don't argue that he wouldn't have been a better choice, but I don't think he was ready in 2000. The real question is whether the past 8 years of his brother have forever doomed him. To most of the Country that don't really pay a lot of attention to individual states' politics, I think it is very important to remember that Jeb was very popular and his support was specifically bipartisan. He had some controversial issues -- the Schiavo incident, the FCAT, off-shore oil ban, anti-gambling stance etc -- but overall he had surprising popularity. And the fact that for much of this period, his brother was the President and one having incredibly low support numbers only further praises the job that he did. |
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Post by *HoyaFan* on Nov 10, 2008 18:55:07 GMT -5
Forget Stevens' senate seat or a presidential run in 2012. I think Palin's angling for an appointment to US Ambassador to Africa.
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Post by jerseyhoya34 on Nov 10, 2008 19:49:32 GMT -5
I think Palin is making a huge mistake in staying on the circuit after the dramatic loss on Election Day. Although conservatives liked her, very few others did. She failed to deliver the PUMA's, as was once expected, and managed to unify a well-meaning group of conservative intellectuals against her ticket by virtue of her apparent lack of preparation. For all of the talk of her understanding of small town America and "Joe Six Pack," I am hard pressed to name a debate about a single issue that received a substantive contribution from the Governor.
She's better off trying to take some time off, focus on governance and policy for a year or two, and come back to Iowa around midterm time with a beefed up resume and policy approach that resonates substantively as well as rhetorically.
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TC
Platinum Hoya (over 5000 posts)
Posts: 9,480
Member is Online
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Post by TC on Nov 10, 2008 22:55:43 GMT -5
She's better off getting a FOX News gig and cashing in. She'll never be President - she was undercooked on the national scene and no one is going to go back for seconds.
Republicans would have a much better shot if they got Jindal to propose some GHG reduction legislation in LA to greenwash his environmental record, and then try to run him.
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