What Next for the GOP?

[Spino]

What's next for the GOP? Self reflection? Soul searching? Re-evaluation of principles? Yes. Maybe. No. More importantly... why bother?

The Democratic party has done nothing to change since its landslide losses to Reagan and its minority years during the GW Bush administration. It learned absolutely nothing from its losses and if anything, has become more stubborn and arrogant and moved further to the left than ever before. One could say that the Democrats are back in power due to nothing more than a cyclical change of events. The Republican party has had enjoyed a great deal of momentum for a very long time now and was due for a fall. Now add GW Bush & the Neo-Conservative movement and boom, fall from grace and we're back to a pre-Reagan Democratic dominated political landscape.

Correction. The Democratic party did learn one thing from those lean years... they learned to move hard to the center/center-right during an election year... only to snap back to the left once elected. Such a strategy worked wonders for Clinton & Obama, no?

Should the Republicans change? Yes, absolutely. Will they? Probably not. Once again I fall on my tired generational argument. The generation currently running the country and dominating both parties possesses neither the will or the ability to engage in true self reflection and re-invent itself. As they saying goes, 'You can't teach an old dog new tricks' and for the controlling generation whose oldest members are in their mid-60s it is a tall order to expect them or their leaders to change their ways. So look for the Republicans to do exactly what the Democrats have done; bide their time until a major factor like the economy, terrorism, etc. takes its toll on the American people thus compelling them to look for new blood and new answers. Once in power it will be more of the same. Wash, rinse, repeat. Same old .

MCain bet his campaign on the extremist block of the Republicans. Maybe he didn't have a choice, but lose he did.

I still wonder what the outcome would've been if McCain had moved to the centre. The 'Clinton Democrats' didn't automatically rush to Obama. Independents and centrists, states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana were up for grabs for a centrist Republican.

I am not a poll God like CountArach, so I am not sure if McCain could've won by moving to the centre like Obama did. But from anecdotal evidence, and even personal preference, I say there were a lot of centrists up for grabs, who were open to a McCain presidency until they were driven away by Palin, by McCain's pandering to the extreme right, by flag waving and 'country first' signs, by a dirty campaign, by McCain ditching his reputiation as an independent Republican.

Those are old answers to yesterday's problems. For example, 'National Security' candidates work best when there's a fearmongering president in power.

Besides, it's the economy, stupid! This decides the fate of Democratic candidates.

Well McCain's history of being a moderate Republican didn't help. He lost but it wasn't a landslide. He had the political misfortune of being associated with a party whose brand had been damaged by an unpopular war, an unpopular president and a massive, global mortgage/credit meltdown that they had very little to do with (and in fairness, did not do enough to stop when they had the chance). I'm pessimistic enough to say that even if McCain had selected a strong running mate like Romney, Giuliani, Thompson or hell, Huckabee, he still would have lost albeit in a much closer race. However you can bet your buttocks that without Sarah Palin the media would have then relegated the VP selection factor to the traditional back burner as it has in the past. Seriously, the media went positively postal on Palin even though she was no better or worse than Quayle or Gorebot ver. 1.0.

Yes, I also wonder how McCain would have fared had the economy been strong and rolling along at a good clip. As the saying goes, 'people vote with their wallets' and clearly most voters were clutching theirs tight when they stepped into the voting booth.

On the other hand Obama's obscenely well funded hype machine kept harping on the 'four more years of George Bush' ad nauseum. Who knows how many sheeple bought into that and jumped on the Obama bandwagon? Sounds snobbish but talk to any successful advertising/marketing executive and they'll show you tangible proof that effective branding does work.

Beyond the issues Obama's past and personal associations would have sunk most candidates but his campaign managed to beat his party's favorite daughter and kept on truckin'. Credit his hype machine, his political savoir-faire and the fact that never before in our history have black folks been hipper or cooler than they are now. If the last 16 years have shown us anything it is that the average American voter is less likely to take into account a candidate's personal character, let alone their real position on the issues than ever before.

Them post-war generation chickens have come home to roost...