Problem being, the fiscal conservatives cannot win national elections on their own. They need fusion with the social conservatives (see Ryan Sager’s “Elephant in the Room”). What neither of those two factions seem to understand, is that they don’t need the neocons. Exorcise them and replace with renewed commitment to the Constitution, bill of rights, rule of law, habeus corpus, freedom of the press, privacy rights, protections against search and seizure, “live and let live” tolerance for individual freedoms, and keeping the government out of the bedroom as well as the wallet and you’ve got a viable party again.

In the meantime, while fiscal conservatives try to figure out if they have a home in the GOP or need to look elsewhere, it would be prudent to have John McCain in the White House for 4 years to keep some small measure of restraint on Pelosi, Reid, Clinton, Rangel, and Franks.

But the GOP is so far from those supposed principles, having been taken over by neocons and the religious right. We’ve had those people in charge for 8 years, and not only do I disagree with their principles, I can’t even respect them, and the results of allowing them in government are very apparent.

Parts of the Republican party have started to admit that they might have a problem. But more of them need to be convinced before they can fully accept it and then start taking steps to correct it. The voters need to have yet another intervention with the GOP, to help it realize that it needs to change how it lives and who it chooses to hang out with.

So, fine, blame the GOP for all this, give the keys to the democratic party. We’ll see what we get. But riddle me this:

If (when) the democrats can’t deliver all their promises while holding the Presidency and both houses of congress by a substantial majority, what’s our next move?

During the bailout bill show, the GOP tried out the “you guys are the majority, do what you want, don’t ask us for help, and don’t blame us if it doesn’t work” strategy. And they sure seemed to enjoy it.

So we know for sure that we’re going to see a LOT of the GOP hardcore folks simply saying “oh, no, go ahead democrats, it’s ALL YOU!” Hard to argue with that.

I’m not promoting the “scary” argument – I’m interpreting how people feel (via poll numbers) in light of all McCain’s – yes I’ll say it – erratic behavior. One doesn’t need Axlerod to come to that conclusion – Palin, “fudementals of the economy are strong”, suspended campaigns, and “bomb, bomb, bomb Iran” are plenty.

Yes – He missed an opportunity re: divided governement, but it seems to be one a million miss-fires. A better candidate could have ripped Obama to shreds with:

1. Inexperience in a dangerous world (Palin! Whoops)
2. Liberal tax and spend economics (fundemental are strong – grossly out of touch)
3. Divided Government (too little too late)
4. War hero (overused at the wrong times)
5. Maverick (Embraced Bush at the bottom of Bush’s poll numbers – what the…?)
6. Stateliness (bomb, bomb, bomb…)
7. Judgement (All of the above, and then some)

I still think Obama is the man for our time, but McCain really wasted his opportunity. Like Hillary – I think we’re dodging a bullet.

“It is a testament to McCain’s flawed campaign that the “super-majority” scare is not getting much traction.He’s scarier than one-party rule…” -mm

I agree that the lack of traction is due to McCain’s “flawed” campaign, at least to the extent that they have not promoted this argument in any meaningful way. All they have done with this is inject a few quotes from Rick Davis and some surrogates into some msm interviews. They’ve put nothing into promoting it. I am even more surprised that we have not even seen any 527’s hit this in a big way. If they put the level of funding into promoting divided government that they did with the old Ayers story that no one cares about, we might see some real movement in the polls.

Regarding the “scary” McCain comment, you are just parroting the Axelrod Democratic Smear Machine personal attacks. Grist for the partisan faithful. No one buys that bs any more than the Ayers story.

I think people are more likely to trust Obama’s ability to keep his own party in check for the sake of the country, than in McCain’s ability to lead.

Don’t even try to make the equivalence. I’m not happy with either brach of government, but George Bush with a compliant Congress has us engaged in two foreign wars, ran up the largest budget deficient, failed to oversee the credit default swap markets, tortures people, and Republicans are still out campaigning about the difference between Democrats and “real Americans”.

Like I said, don’t even try.

Just look a the current conservatives going out on cable news shows explaining how anyone who is disagrees with their them are un-American.