Megan McCain vs Palin&co

Palin is only socially liberal in private. She will only ever be socially liberal in private, until what's private becomes public, of course. But as policy? Who are you kidding?

Republicans at their best,
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com...seful-idiot/

And Ingraham is a useful tool in the rights fight to try and insure America fails.

Just like all the right wing idiots.

As screener notes above, (though I obviously disagree with the conclusions) this stuff happens enough that Republicans have even coined terms for it. Meghan McCain much like her father is a "useful idiot."

California is filled with fiscal conservatives who are socially liberal. Sadly when push comes to shove, they spend just like Democrats, or get blamed for half spending like Democrats (i.e. it would have worked if you had just added that last $100 billion)

The Republican party in California is completely marginalized and that is the result of following the "useful idiot" model.

People like Meghan McCain get plenty of press for being willing to criticize conservatives and for nothing more. As we saw last fall, Daddy McCain thought he would have the support of all those wonderful media people who had been inviting him over on Sundays to bash his fellow Republicans. They did no such thing, and quickly cooked up the caricature of him being an unstable, quick tempered, Luddite. As for why we should listen to her at all, her resume features nothing of distinction. She has been an internist, a blogger, and other than that she is just a famous daughter. She is registered independent, and voted for Kerry.

She shows exactly how biased the media happens to be. She is a woman to be listened to because... well for no good reason other than the media happen to like her liberal views. She hasn't been a mother, a business owner, hasn't even held a real job of any sort. She has run and done nothing by any measure. Yet of course she is SMART because she is in agreement.

Meanwhile Palin is an idiot while being all the opposite of all those things and having the views the media doesn't like.

Also as is par, I'd love to see an interview where M. McCain has been asked anything of depth beyond her disagreements.

California is a state that passed Prop 13 and measures against affirmative action, immigration and gay marriage. It also gave us Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.

I would say that California does start with a bit of a left bias now with regard to presidential politics but the reason that isn't changed is simply due to the electoral college. California like most places is winner take all and it is a ridiculously large and expensive state to flip 5-10% of the vote in compared to many others.

We had a pretty strong tradition of Republican Governors, mostly elected from So Cal and then Gray Davis was elected mostly on a series of lies (much like Obama) those lies were revealed, he was recalled and replaced by Ar-nald who tried to govern, was slapped down in an election by all the public employees and then simply became Gray Davis 2.0 for the rest of his tenure.

So yes I do think a return to a more conservative, conservative would yield something. The RINO's have done nothing but become complacent with the Democratic lies and get all the blame whenever those same ideas yield a bad result because they were done "wrong" by the RINO rather then simply being a wrong or bad idea.

The religious right is actually a pretty large group from what I have read with regard to size basically being the "African-Americans" of the Republican party. By this I mean they are smaller in comparison to the general population but when voting as a large block or almost exclusively for one party, it creates disproportionate outcomes.

In otherwords it would be like telling the Democrats to give up the African-American vote and would cause them to crash and burn pretty bad.

The Republicans can stay unchanged if they fix the damage to their brand created by Bush and RINOs. They need to stop endorsing any entitlement increases, return to balancing budgets and pushing for spending within bills instead of endorsing earmarks, etc. They simply need to return to being reformers. The Contract with America was composed of poll tested measures that attracted 60% support and none of them were religious in any fashion.

Do you think religious folks would support a balanced budget? I think they would.

Do you think religious folks would support a measure than banned earmarks? I think they would.

Could we find several more conservative measures they would support? I believe it very possible, especially if we get into school choice and other matters that are reform minded.

Meghan McCain has her undergraduate degree from Columbia but given her family background and wealth, is that really unexpected?

Her Wikipedia page assigns the following motivations to her via her own quote...

All I am trying to be is a young, cool Republican woman for other Republican women.

So she wants to be a Republican Paris Hilton. That is what all her actions describe to me.

If the Republicans want to get back to the common folk again, they need a mom who has run a business, not a rich girl who has written a blog for her "job."

You are a supporter of Palin. You have no credibility to suggest what kind of woman the Republicans need. One thing is for sure. They don't need trailer trash who preach abstinence-only, and are too stupid to see it doesn't work even after it fails in her own family. They don't need a politician who claims to cut pork and political corruption, then proves to be the most porky and corrupt of them all.

It's women (and men) like Meghan McCain who might just save the party. It's women like Palin who will continue to kill it.

I have no credibilty? I could have sworn I was the guy who is registered Republican, donated Republican, voted Republican and at various times has attended state and national Republican conventions. I'm not sure I would earn a 100% rating by some conservative groups, but I certainly have plenty of credibility and ability to pick who should represent ME within the party.

Please explain why the party should listen to you? It isn't like they would ever get your vote.

As for being trailer trash, name a trait and I can name the Democrat for it. Apparently John Edwards as an example, never learned about condoms in his graduate law studies because it didn't stop him from screwing around and popping out a kid. How about Al Gore's son having a few legal issues? Anyone recall that? The list on the Democratic side is quite long and as usual the standard is double. Bill Clinton can fuck and intern and be fit for president but because Palin didn't put a chastity belt on her daughter, she is a fuck up.

That is just brilliant. Meghan McCain, she should go star on The Hills or something like that. Maybe she should have a reality show and tell us all who is "hot." I'm sure it would go over well with those who inform themselves via Stewart/Colbert and the View.

I do believe that is exactly tonton's point: republican's are on the precipice of a vicious cycle, becoming their own echo chamber, and going further and further right (especially on social issues) of where the electorate is as they become progressively more unpopular. Ergo, republicans representing YOU is entirely pointless, because there aren't enough "yous" to be nationally relevant.

I like it.

The split in the Republican Party started some time ago.

They are losing votes because they are moving towards the "center", not because they haven't moved far enough.

The Republican Party will continue to implode unless true conservatives emerge to lead them and bring the party back to its roots.

The current leadership of the GOP has no intention of letting that happen, however. They will attempt to move further and further towards the "center" in the hopes of appealing to more people. In reality, they will alienate more people than they gain.

I would suggest that Canada has been able to do it in part by being fully willing to drill and exploit their energy reserves. Canada is willing to explore and drill for new oil and even use oil sand and shale projects. We tolerate none of these things happening in the U.S. Canada is a net exporter and excise taxes are something we used to have quite a bit of in the U.S. As a paleocon I favor fair trade over free and suspect that if elements of the Republican party did they would gain many votes as well.

That would be another strong leg that would move and excite Republicans again. We could a president that said they were bringing our troops home to within our borders and and thus could half our defense budget and likewise were investing or encouraging investment in many nuclear power plants as part of a national energy policy that also encouraged much more domestic drilling and exploration would have my vote and even my money as a donation.

So let's add to the list...

fair trade
energy independence via conventional and forward looking energy production (especially nuclear)
stop Pax Americana and use the savings to pay down debt

With regard to the thread topic, Palin very much excited the Republican base because she was very strong on energy production. As people loved noting, in her state they were handing back checks due to oil production. Oil production is a huge source of wealth and likewise our unwillingness to dirty our hands in our own energy production is a great cause of wealth transfer, often to elements that desire to end or fight us.

Who says any of us want the Republican Party saved? I'd rather it fade into history. Continuation of a political party is not guaranteed. See: Whigs.

AFAIC, neither party has credibility. Both are corrupt to the core and need to have holes drilled in them to let them sink to the bottom of the ocean.

I wholeheartedly agree.

Hello, Bay of Pigs anyone? There is a reason it is NEO-CON. This is because it is OLD-LIB.

What we have today is still the Truman Doctrine. We have simply replaced Communism with Terrorism.

I actually think Obama can hasten the end of Pax Americana by showing how that regardless of how many platitudes you put out there and regardless of how high minded and eloquent the appeals, the world is going to ignore us and do what it wants. The U.N. has been a waste and creates as many problems as it claims to solve. Obama has gotten exactly nothing out of the G20 and latest summit. We can spend billions and in the end we can't police or control the world. It is a fear minded delusion we have been acting not just since 9/11 but since Pearl Harbor.

There is still a very strong streak within America for minding our own business. When it tries to exert itself the Neo-Cons and Old-Libs band together and call anyone who doesn't want to police the world a racist.

If you think Obama is different just consider how he would (or may have since my memory seems to recall something similar being answered) answer a question about a drone spotting Osama Bin Laden and how he would respond to that or at least claim he would respond.

The only thing that could revive the GOP would be a complete disavowal of the past 8 years of phony conservatism and a cleansing fire that would include a public "kicking out" of the neo-conservative bacteria that infected and ruined the small government, low tax, non-interventionist philosophy that used to be in vogue in the early Reagan years.

An unholy alliance!
That's why I didn't vote republican, even though I'm a small government libertarian-conservative, and NOT religious, not the slightest!
The Republican party is being overrun by religious zealots. The moment Palin was chosen as VP is when I wanted McCain to fail and Obama to win.

Considering the thread's first post, it is ironic that most of the credit goes to Canada's Reform Party, who were led by Evangelical Christian Preston Manning.

Reform's rapid rise in the Canadian West during the 80's to Official Opposition party in the 90's pushed the country's ruling Liberal Party into adopting a rigid debt reduction scheme. The Liberals also had the benefit of revenues from the GST (a nationally despised value added tax introduced earlier by the Conservatives.)

You're right, McCain's sealed his own coffin when he picked Palin. I'd rather Republicans be out of power for 4 to 8 years than let the disease that they've become spread any further, despite the damage Democrats may do.

Nonsense. McCain had absolutely no chance before he picked Palin.

After the pick, his chances increased a bit to 'unlikely' status.

Remember, Democrats had been dithering between Hilary and Barack for many months prior to McCain choosing Palin, and once Barack had the convention sewn up McCain's camp knew how they would play things. They irrationally chose her as a lame attempt to woo women voters... a hugely insulting move that all the spin-meisters in the world couldn't make right.

If the GOP had any strategic thinkers (I know, a bold assumption on my part), they would have selected Ron Paul instead of McCain, especially if they had a sense that "change" was upon them and they could not avoid it. Tthe wind would have been stolen from the Democrat's sails and the only distinctions between Obama and Paul would have been age and race. Paul would have siphoned off middle of the road Democrats with his anti-war rhetoric.

I liked Manning as far as I can remember.
Maybe he didn't carry his religious beliefs on his sleeve like so many do.
Then again I despised Treudau. Did I spell it right?

Until it was revealed to be crap,
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandinghe...aganomics.html

You can have a philosophy, but implementing it has all kinds of pitfalls, like reality.

Someone should tell Obama.

You beat me to it.

Wouldn't matter what your political stripe, reality always throws up roadblocks, how you negotiate them is what makes your legacy.
Like Bush, it's understandable your disdain for those that were repulsed by those that elected him, four years, and yet, you elected him again, and here we are.

Seems to me, we, who went, WTF after the second time, should get the benefit of the doubt this time.

Jesse Ventura for president?

Now that would be interesting.

I'd be willing to give you the benefit of the doubt if the Dems had actually put together a decent ticket. But considering the ticket the Republicans put together, it was pretty much the Democrats' election to lose.

So rather than have good ideas that people want to vote for you'd rather your political opposition implode so that voters have no choice but to elect candidates that can't win otherwise.

Brilliant!

Looking at the bell curve of political philosophies held by registered voters, the center has the largest representation of those voters, so your assertion that catering to the majority causes lost votes lacks any supporting evidence.

GOP conservatism is a compelling argument when presented to the majority as a contrast to Democratic fiscal socialism, but my opinion is, the GOP was hijacked by the "moral majority" in the mid 70's. This highlights the strength of the 2 party system - the capability to adopt political positions of minor factions to create a political majority. The GOP is now fractured though, with religion being the line of demarcation between factions. The GOP is too "religious", and that alienates the centrists like myself who prefer less "bible" and more "constitution" in our government.

IF someone comes along - like Regan did - and unites the factions, it'll once again take the majority of the elections and then assume power again. It'll happen - it's just a matter of time. Carter's political machinations gave the power to the GOP, and Obama's policies are extremely similar to Carter's. Carter was a 1 term president - I strongly suspect Obama will also follow that path. I believe Carter is a good man, but he was seen as a weak president. Again, I suspect Obama's overtures to Venezuela, Iran, and Cuba will allow those nations to take advantage of his inexperience and he'll get the same reputation as a weak president.

Obama is a good man, and, unfortunately, it's easy to take advantage of good men.

Any shred of credibility went right out the window with your " Thought experiment ".

Not an attack just the facts.




It's because they don't listen that they didn't get the votes last time. And that wasn't just Democrats.



One's a grown man the other is a child rearing issue.

{Deleted by moderator} Feel welcome to do so in that thread as opposed to spamming all the others. Yes it is an attack because this is your opinion and not a fact. If you want to spam the forums with your personal opinions of me and think disclaimers excuse you from the rules by claiming it isn't an attack, try your luck.


It is because of me personally and not say, their message or the candidates they ran. The Republicans weren't going to win last year once they settled on McCain. It was like an 8 seed playing a 1 seed in the playoffs. We had our fun and cheering but the results were well known. There wasn't a person anywhere that didn't concede from the beginning that the election was the Dems to lose. The reasoning were simply that a fair chunk people vote their pocketbooks and have little to no memory of politics or the machinations between elections. The prime example of this is Bush 41 who, as has been noted to you a dozen times, did pretty much everything the Dems criticized Bush 43 and Republicans for and was a one term president.

-Swift U.N. sanctioned actions with our allies to deal with an aggressor that did not break it and thus buy it and left him with a 90%+ approval rating.
-Worked well with his Democratic Congress and even went along with the tax increases they wanted to keep the budget deficit under control.
-Started as more moderate than Reagan and stayed that way even appointing the very (now know to be )liberal David Souter to the Supreme Court.
-Signed American w/Disabilities act.
Etc. etc.

I've brought him up before and you've not addressed it. You can repeat your mantra again (we won, you lost, get over it)

In fact if there were ever an argument against RINO's it is Bush 41. The guy was pretty close to the perfect centrist president. You don't even see any leftist groups harboring any hate for him. No one appears to have various alcohols chilling in their fridge awaiting a toast to his death. He wasn't overtly religious nor did he serve religious factions in any great manner. He is a New England Republican but came from Texas.

Yet the economy cycled down and the man couldn't even muster 43% to beat Clinton.

This thread essentially says go be Bush 41 and all that got us was a candidate that couldn't carry the coattails on from Reagan. Obama won the election 53-46. It should be noted that Bush 41 won the 1988 election 53-46. If the economy is not rebounding by the next term, especially after spending trillions, Obama will be gone. People will vote their pocketbooks not the partisans of course but those in the mushy middle who start paying attention after the conventions and who have short memories.


I see so kids are just going to do it anyway so we are told but Palin's daughter shouldn't because supermom should be able to lock those knees together. Can you explain that double-standard of reasoning?

Palin actually used her daughter as a defense shield against "attacks" on herself, a deplorable act that showed her core principles and thereby why she is unfit for public office.

"It's my kid and not hern becuz she's knocked up!" It was good -ole Sara who put Bristol in the hot seat. Oh, and where are those amazing family values we were suggested existed? The couple broke up after being used as props for the Godliness of conception out of wedlock (yeah, kids, premarital intercourse is wrong, unless you get pregnant in which case it was sanctioned by God) and now the family is feuding like drunk hillbillies.

Kids were supposed to be off-limits. Palin either didn't get the memo or didn't give a hoot. I think I know which one..

Hey wasn't just a few threads ago that were saying we should let bygones be bygones with previous presidents? Besides one is a grown man who should know better. The other is an issue with a grownup rearing a child. In which the grown up should have done a better job.