Line.

Are they going to accept the Demcrats’ [sic] agenda?

I expect Obama to be far more disciplined and cautious than Clinton 1993-1994 (admittedly a pretty low bar for discipline and caution), and I expect the Congressional Democrats to defer to him far more than they did to Clinton.

However, Clinton inherited a pretty well running country all in all, and not anyway near as polarized an environment (credit to Perot for doing a lot to make it a fairly grown up election), for all that a significant chunk of the right had him in their sights from day one.

I have pretty high regard for Obama and have voted for him, but I expect most of his agenda will be overcome by events, namely at least a severe recession and quite possibly one or more internaltional events.

So while no doubt there will be a Democratic agenda at any given moment between now and 2010, I really question how much they’ll be able to implement. Strange as it may sound, I really do think who loses (and in what manner) in the upcoming GOP purge will matter nearly as much to the correlation of forces come Nov 2010 as whatever the Dmeocrats have pushed or are pushing. I’ll be very happy to be wrong in that prediction, but it’s too qualitative to bet tacos on.

Your O’Rourke theory is interesting. I don’t really buy it, but it does have a good air of plausibility. Nice work.

Not intentionally, of course, but through his success. His flip style not only caught on, but it was COOL, so every conservative youngster aspired to be the next O’Rourke instead of another Kirk or Weaver, because that involves a lot of hard work and won’t get you chicks. Those who did manage to work, could never quite master O’Rourke’s flexibility and light touch (at least in his earlier works), so they came out sounding shrill or oafish. I have to say I was guilty of all this until I figured out that I’d never make a living writing.

In a way it’s going to be hard to decide which way to go until you see what it is the electorate really wants. Are they going to accept the Demcrats’ agenda? If so, then the argument’s going to be much different than if the public sours on what the left offers up in the next year or two.

Politics is the art of the possible, and I don’t think anyone knows what possible with the public, especially the public.

The relentless harping on voter fraud is definitely negatively affecting the GOP this year. This is the one lesson the GOP should be taking to heart. All the leading voices of the GOP decry the situation, and by tone, inflection, implication and inference, the mainstream of the electorate in the U.S. takes away the message that the people targeted by ACORN, et. al. for registration should not be given the opportunity to vote. That is the crux of the problem for the GOP. Their very talking points lead the bulk of America to believe that we don’t deserve the vote. The GOP will continue to be seen as the party of old white men until they resolve this. I read a comment thread on RedState (less nutjob and more mainstream than freerupublic) talking about how McCain has a chance in California because Hispanics don’t like African-Americans. Several posts were made in support of this. The inference to be drawn is that the GOP is more interested in the Dems not getting the Hispanic vote than they are in getting it themselves.

Sorry to ramble. I now return you to your regulalry scheduled commentary…

I read Teh Corner occasionally, for comic relief, so I hadn’t really noticed the change in tone. But, as I’ve often had a hard time distinguishing some of their writers from charlatans like Coulter or Hannity, this is no surprise.

I didn’t realize Lessing was an Obama advisor. Interesting.

In addition, yet another excuse for defeat will only defer the much needed reassessment of the party goals and future.

1. A stupid and unpopular war.
2. Excessive sub-prime mortgagees
3. Unregulated derivatives market.
4. Running Bob Dole against a young, charismatic opponent.

I agree with everything you just said. Wow. Be afraid. However, I do detect a certain increased hysteria to what we will still humorously call “mainstream conservatism”….For instance if you, like I, enjoy reading Teh Corner I think you will find a sudden interest in Hawaiian birth certificates and bizarre conspiracy theories that wasn’t there 30 days ago. As goes the frontal lobe, so too the cerebellum. But it is really quite tragic to see NR go down. Or any once great mag, for that matter.

As someone who has an immense interest in IP law, I certainly wish the Republicans would address the uglier side of “creative destruction”.Oddly, Obama is the only one who has acknowledged it, at least to the extent of using using copyright gadfly Lawrence Lessig as an advisor.

I haven’t really noticed mainstream conservatism turning in the last month or so. They’ve been conspiratorial for a while. Even when ascendant, a lot of mainstream conservative pundits whined about liberal media bias, political correctness, election fraud, and so on. The recent spate of yelping is nothing new. My bet is that they nurse their sense of victimhood for the next few years, looking to place blame on external forces rather than own up to the paucity of their own philosophies, such as they are.

I can’t say that I consider mainstream “conservatives” to be conservative in any real sense of the word, as most are not willing to take a serious look at the either destructive side of the “free” market forces they allegedly celebrate or the pernicious effects of global capitalism and the concentration of so much economic power in so few hands. Any conservatism worthy of its name has to deal realistically with these forces and the dead end culture of consumption they promote to offer a genuine alternative worthy of consideration.

Now, I am a least a nominal democrat so these issues don’t cause me to be as elfshot as some (though having gone down the drug benefit road the Republicans should have just swallowed the whole enchilada). But I am quite sure they are eroding the ties that many used to feel to the Republican sect. Every day brings either another defection or another exile…..yesterday, Kathleen Parker got exiled (A. Sullivan had a very good post on this) and Charles Fried defected. Charles Fried. Is anyone -anyone! – going to say that his conservative credentials aren’t in order? It’s like having Trotsky say he’d got it all wrong and was going to start a necktie factory in Ossining. When Fried splits and Larison, Frum, Sullivan, Dreher, Will, Douthat, et al start looking at the lifeboats out of the corners of their eyes, it’s supposed to be warning sign saying “This Way Whigs”. Instead, the party faithful react with denial, inarticulate rage, and the purge instinct. On their current track, unless the so-called elites prevail, I suspect that the Republican party will end up a pitifully regional party, based in those regions with the lowest education, the worst health care, and the least number of electoral votes. I’m from Oklahoma, so I know wherof I speak.

Now, I am old enough to remember the currently non-existent Civil Liberty wing of the Democratic party (hard to believe that Bush The First ever accused a Democratic opponent of being “a card carrying member of the ACLU” .I don’t think we’ll see that again). The Democrats died as a coherent entity in the wake of the Vietnam debacle (yes, there were other reasons as well, but that was the proximate cause). They never came back, not even now, which is one reason why McCain’s ludicrous “socialist” attack isn’t hitting paydirt. This can happen to the Republicans too, as you are all about to see. With no real Demmycrats and no real Republicans where do we all go? These are serious times, and some real debates are in order regarding core assumptions of our various idealogues. But how can that debate occur in this Versailles-like hothouse of courtiers?

Sorry for the screed.

Do you believe that, if the GOP as a party had taken the right lessons to heart after its 2006 losses, then the party might be poised to win the White House and regain its Congressional majority in 2008? I do not believe it. I believe that the GOP is losing in 2008 for almost purely cyclical reasons.

Political cycles exist, they are real, they are inevitable, and they have consequences.

I want the Republican party to learn the same lessons you want it to learn, with little variation; but I see no reason to believe that its failure to learn these lessons is what may cost it this election.

Howard

I am a Democrat, but I respect the philosophy of limited government conservatism. It is sad to see it die. Today’s Republican party has more in common with European nationalist parties than with any true party of limited government.