The GOP dilemma is one I’ve mentioned here several times already in the past couple of weeks: It needs to keep not one, not two, but three big groups of voters on board in order to have any chance of winning nationally: the two dominant factions in its base (libertarians and social conservatives) and independent swing voters. Lose any significant portion of even one of these blocs and the show’s off. The root of the dilemma, obviously, is that it’s next to impossible to appeal to all three of these groups simultaneously; their interests and agendas are just too far apart. Even a “pick-any-two” proposition would be tricky, and it wouldn’t be enough to win.

The general conservative dilemma is even more fundamental. If you strip away all the factional and ideological distinctions among conservatives, the bare essence of conservatism is nothing more than the notion that stability (read: the social status quo) is valuable in itself and ought to be preserved as completely as possible for as long as possible.

By this definition, neither libertarians nor socons are really conservative at all – they’re reactionary, looking to restore their respective ideas of the “good old days” when the government was small and/or the culture promoted virtue. Literal conservatives seek to preserve the nation just as it is, warts and all – even including stuff they and/or their predecessors once fought in vain to oppose. Their dilemma is that this amounts to a perpetually losing battle, which is a lot harder to get people excited about than, say, a movement about “Hope” and “Change” whose motto is “Yes, we can.”

The Republicans, in their greed and thirst for power, decided that conservative views no longer gave them the return that they were seeking. I say good riddance. Conservatives (and to a lesser extent Republicans) should take this clear-cutting of Republicans as a golden opportunity.

http://thenewrepublicans.net

Twenty years ago George H.W. Bush was elected almost solely because his opponent a. belonged to the ACLU and b. thought it silly to jail school teachers who refused to lead the pledge of allegiance.

I would have gone with “because his opponent looked foolish driving a tank, supported a furlough program that led to a murderer murdering again, and neglected to concede that he might feel more inclined towards capital punishment if his wife was raped and murdered.” Or something like that.

I would also avoid making such sweeping foreign policy judgements. For at least the next 25 years, America will ALWAYS be one moderately substantial domestic terror event away from slipping right back into knee-jerk adventurism. This has VERY LITTLE to do with party ideology.

And I would be SHOCKED if, during an extreme economic downturn, immigration and crime ceased to be issues of importance. Poorer people steal more, and unemployed people resent immigrants. That’s God’s rule, not mine.

The issue of governmental financial policy will continue to be a good one for Republicans for as long as democrats deny to acknowledge the components of it that the GOP understands. It may well be the case that simple support for cutting taxes has run its course as an election winner. Some economists will concede that with tax rates and economic growth it’s a matter of rightsizing, not always trying to make taxes less. So sure, Republicans may not be able to get to 50% + 1 by promising tax cuts, but they will continue to be able to criticize wasteful spending and ineffective programs, and as that they want Americans to keep more of their paycheck and give the government less. Think what you want, but I’m telling you right now that this message is fundamentally appealing to most Americans who have paychecks.

We’re in a huge downturn right now, and Obama is about to go on the clock. He best choose policies that will work, because we won’t spend our way out of this mess via additional expensive entitlement programs. If the gov’t just throws huge piles of money at job training programs but unemployment does not go down appreciably as a result, Obama will take the blame.

The length of his honeymoon will be directly connected to American fears about our economic future. So I find the current trumpeting about this election being some sort of liberal revolution to be just so much whistling through the graveyard. As a moderate and a longtime watcher of American politicians, I know how much easier it is to criticize the government than it is to govern.

So now it’s the democrats turn to be blamed for all the negative side effects of every action they undertake that doesn’t work out. Aint that a B?

I would give the democrats no more than 12-18 months worth of blaming the previous administration for the fix we are in. After that, it will all be on them. If things aren’t getting better by the spring and summer of 2010 and are in fact still deteriorating, Americans will conclude that the democrats have as little clue as the GOP did. This IMo is one of the best features of a democracy. Self-correction.

Given the right circumstances and leadership, the Republicans could come back with a vengeance.