McCain was actually the most electable of the republicans in 2008... Romney was the next closest, and Obama would have smoked him, and ruined his shot for 2012...
AAAintheBeltway... I was not so much saying that the Republicans cannot win with conservative candidates...that have actual ideas, but it will be an uphill battle. It will take conservatives that can appeal to a large amount of middle of the road voters...people who may be fiscally conservative, but are not rascist and or do not have a natural deep seated hatred of Obama. Its like many Republicans have actually given up on the arguments for limited government and fiscal restraint. The focus is now on all these bizarre side issues. It seems that bankruptcy of the Republic is a real concern... a tangible issue, yet it is seldom made. A future where income taxes have to be at 45%... just to keep the nation from going insolvent, should scare everyone. Can the hard right within the Republican party restrain themselves from destroying candidates with crossover appeal, during the primaries? As a seperate issue I was pointing out that even if the Republicans won back complete control of the govt after 2012, unless they actually began to make huge cuts in govt (which are going to be unpopular) they will be back in the same position that they were after the last 8 years of President Bush. It is not enough to slow the growth of govt, it needs to be cut (if you are preaching smaller govt as your main platform). Bush was able to win elections, but he did not fight to cut govt when he won power. The Democrats believe in larger government and when they get power they go for it everytime. The Republicans preach smaller govt yet they still enable government to grow when they get power. This seems to stem from the fact that the Republicans are not ready to expend political capital to push hard for the things they say they believe in.
We're pretty much in agreement I think, but I'm going to come at this from a different perspective. Who is more likely to push for actual cuts in government, a mushy middle of the road consensus-seeker or a hard right conservative? Also, who were the candidates with crossover appeal that the hard right destroyed? Certainly not McCain, as even Optional said he had the broadest appeal. What I saw happening was that candidates who could actually make a race of it against Obama ended up splitting the primary vote and letting MCain slide in. I don't share the concern about social issues either. I think the radical gay agenda is very unpopular with voters. Ditto abortion on demand and late term abortion. There is no reason a republican candidate can't put the democrats on the spot defending those issues. With McCain we got a guy whose campaign manager, wife and daughter favor gay marriage and who was a big supporter of amnesty for illegals. He was used to winning races in arizona based on being "John McCain", so his natural approach is to be Mr. Nice Guy and avoid controversy. That didn't cut it when the national media was cheerleading his opponent, we were in a national crisis and people were looking for leadership. Like a football team, they chose to go with the unproven yet promising rookie over the mediocre vet on the downside of his career.