Posted on 11/09/2008 3:37:09 AM PST by gusopol3
Head Strong: Ignoring suburbs doomed the GOP To win Pa., it must appeal to moderates. By Michael Smerconish - Inquirer
Inquirer Currents Columnist
If retail politicking alone determined the election outcome in Pennsylvania, McCain-Palin would have won in a landslide. Speaking on MSNBC election night, Gov. Rendell joked that the GOP ticket had spent so much time in the state that he was thinking of assessing them with a state income tax.
(Excerpt) Read more at philly.com ...
Levin's on 680 (WBMC?) in Baltimore at 7 PM . Harrisburg stations come into MD pretty well sometimes. Oh well with the Fairness Doctrine, we'll be listening on XM soon enough and won't be having these problems.
They got exactly the candidate they wanted. They got exactly the party platform they demanded. The campaign was run exactly the way they insisted it be run.
How'd that end up working out for us, again...?
They actually managed to lose to a one-term Senate Marxist with open and unapologetic terrorist ties. The ONLY thing I want to hear from Team McCain or any of its shrill little online apologists, from this day forward, is a meek and contrite: "We're sorry."
They have nothing else worthwhile what. so. EVER. to contribute to any meaningful discussion, re: either conservatism or winning electoral strategies.
Smerconish is very wrong in something that Obama-Ayers are right on. Polarization. Ayers, Alinsky, Obama and the Chicago school of politics (which I, myself, was taught in school by a Marxist) are proponents of polarization. Moderation does not win over political power. Radicalization, polarization -- the same thing. Alinsky noted the "freeze your opponent" aspect of it. In engineering it is like a dynamic system with poles and zeros -- the North and South of magnet. Everything orients along the politic field lines. The Alinsky freeze creates a politcal pole, you then drive the electorate into the field lines and orient them towards YOUR pole opposite. Also it is like cell mitosis.
When I learned the Chicago-style I also saw it was something I was opposed to. It is why Chicago is poor, and NYC is rich. NYC politics defies Alinky-a-zation. DC seems to have fallen to the Chicago model.
In Chicago-style you personalize ideas, assign them to people as examples, you freeze the idea onto the person. You are always working for polarization. That's like cancer -- the cells are always dividing, never performing, never growing, just dividing and dividing.
In NYC model, you argue the IDEAS, not the people. Not "Party" politics.
then the primary selection process is the first thing needing revision, or we’re going to repeat ‘08 in ‘12, where big state “moderates” from states unlikely to vote Republican choose the nominee.
G Gordon Liddy had a show two-three days ago where he interviewed an expert on the Fairness Doctrine. The expert said that BOTH satellite radio and internet broadband would likely be brought under the doctrine if it came back.
His mother’s name is Florence (Flo), a real estate agent in central Bucks County, mostly the Doyleston area, where Michael grew up.
I was a loyal listener of Michael’s until about 2 years ago when his attitude began to change, and then only listened occasionally until he turned completely. It was disgusting, and now I can barely stomach hearing his voice.
Listening to him do a joint broadcast with the WIP sports guys during Phillies parade day was painful!
Bill Bennett has indeed been the recipient of many of Smerky’s former listeners.
Freeper LS had a similar experience in his Ohio district. Very high turnout in deep red precincts. This seemed to indicate a win for our side. When they tallied the votes in the evening, the ones counting votes were dumbfounded: people voted for repubicans on the bottom half or the ticket, but chose the One for President. It seems the "Obamican" phenomenon was real.
Strange that these voters would vote republican at the local level and vote for Obama at the presidential level. It seems to flow out of a desire to punish the party and Bush. There's a lot of disillusionment about the war in Iraq, the big spending, and the scandals. The Bush admin has often given the impression of general ineptitude. Very poor leadership. Bush had his positives, but the last three years have been....crappy.
In any case, I hope these "republicans" get over their mania to punish the country on account of Bush. Yes, we got the judges we wanted and he was great after 9/11. The pro-life measures were good for the most part. It's sad that he was a such big spender and couldn't make a bettere case for himself.
thanks.
They may very well have saved the GOP. The behavior of the McCain staff towards Palin, and the fact that these very same people would have made of the core of McCain's administration, show that a McCain presidency may very well have put an end to the Republican Party for good.
Yes it sucks that Obama is in the White House, but at least the GOP lives to fight another day.
the polls were tied until the weekend Lehmann went down. Eveything after that slid to obama with a little recovery the last week before the election, when at least some gigantic financial institution wasn't going bankrupt every day. With the oncoming recession, I'm afraid with BO blaming Bush over the next two years, and then possibly recovery about the time of the '10 elections, blaming Bush is going to be more of a feature than it would have been prior to mid -September.
Both my husband and I called three local Republican offices to volunteer -- more than once -- and we called for yard signs. No one called us back at all. We ended up phone banking through a website -- not our local offices. They were as useless as tits on a boar, as far as i am concerned. It's almost as if McCain (or the local GOP machine) didn't WANT to work to win.
somebody up the thread made the point of only solidifying the base late, after Palin’s pick, thereby limiting the availabilty of volunteers. Certainly makes sense from your experience. I’m in DE, and if you want to see a devastated Republican party, look here. They had at least numeric control of the state House for decades, now down something like 15-25. The gubernatorial candidate got 25%. Biden won re-election to the Senate by about the same margin as Obama won the Presidency, well up into mid-60’s. The RINO Castle won handily though as this is a name recognition state.
If Republicans want to win, they have to be CONSERVATIVE!!If Bush had been on all subjects as opposed to just taxes and the WOT, and had we run a REAL conservative, WE’D be looking at super majorities AND the WH.
how's it happening, I didn't hear . So much local Philly content, how's it going to work?
Yes, McCain/Palin were surging after the conventions. That celebrity ad ("He's the biggest celebrity in the world") was brilliant. It took Obama down a notch in a humorous way while highlighting Obama's lack of depth. The selection of Palin finally energized a sizable portion of the base. The campaign had found its answer to the "Obama Phenomenon": it was the "Sarah Phenomenon."
Sadly, McCain's natural instincts kicked in when the financial crisis hit. He headed back to D.C. to play the "aisle-crosser" and mediate "compromise." His principled decision to suspend the campaign came off as grandstanding. Maybe it was. He had his chance to show leadership and he blew it. Obambi was a deer caught in the headlights. He didn't know what to do, but soldiered on. This response came off as level-headed leadership. Oh well!
The hurdles to overcome would have been formidable for any republican this election. You can scarcely keep all of them in your head at once: republicans held the White House for the previous two terms, the current president is unbelievably unpopular and despised, republican economic policies seem to be failing, poor leadership at the top, corruption; add in Obama's media advantage, his 9:1 fundraising advantage, demographic shifts, the wrong-track numbers and I'm amazed McCain came as close as he did.
Lest I forget, the candidate was his own worst enemy.
The “appeal” to moderates in blue and tumbled-down states like PA IS the conservative message (that McCain didn’t deliver). He and Palin could have said:
“There are many states that are much, much better off than yours, even in these hard times. Your taxes are too high, your state spending is too high and you’re chasing business and industry away. The only thing Obama has promised is to take to Washington the same kind of tax-and-spend policies that make your state so much worse off than others.”
Or a flat tax.
Oh look, an enemy giving advice.
But, of course, anyone on FR who didn't insist that PA was in play was flamed by the Ostrich Brigade as a liberal troll.
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