Results tagged “GOP” from ElectionObsession

And while on Frum's pages, his prior post is titled 'Can this marriage be saved?' The 'marriage' to which he refers is the post-Reagan GOP coalition of religious Christianist idealogues and small-government economic conservatives, which has at the very least won the last two elections for the Republicans.

It's a good question, and it's a complicated marriage. The question I would ask in reply is, "Has this been a marriage of convenience or convergence?" That is to say, did this coalition form because there's significant overlap between Team Values and Team Taxcut? Or did the coalition form because each of these two sides, with little in common, used the other to achieve its goals?

I don't know the answer to that question. What I do know is that if Frum's "Reader A" and, say, Andrew Sullivan are any indication, Team Taxcut has started to treat this as an open marriage.

And that doesn't bode well for McCain. You can see evidence of this in the fact that the GOP "base" that was "electrified" by the choice of Sarah Palin for VP consisted largely of Team Values. Team Taxcut? Not so much.

Somebody clearly trained Sarah Palin to stop saying nook-ya-ler since Friday.

The tone of the coverage about her has changed overnight since her speech - even on the BBC this morning, I'd say there's about 90% less skepticism about her candidacy. And as for any illusions about Palin dropping out, I'd say you can kiss them goodbye. She's not going anywhere. Most of the lefty coverage focuses on the GOP giving up on issues altogether and turning this into 2004 again. It may work, and it may not, but barring some kind of smoking gun evidence that she committed a crime or had an abortion, McCain is going to stick with her. And why shouldn't he? She might be his most formidable weapon. McCain's threshold for VP has changed from "ready to be President on day one" to "ready to be attack dog on day one." Maybe he's a more astute evaluator of political talent than anybody gave him credit for.

They've basically dared the media to bring it on and try to find something disqualifying about her. And they've clearly made the calculation that nothing that's emerged thus far is disqualifying, at least to the extent that they'd be willing to take the hit of her withdrawal. I doubt anything disqualifying will emerge.

We're going to be seeing a lot of what we saw last night over the next 2 months. "Community organizer" is the new black. They'll run against Obama as if he's a lightweight, and they'll run against Bush as if he were a Democrat for the last 8 years. And make no mistake about it: Palin is precisely the right candidate to help him run that race.

I'll reiterate the Tracey Flick thing - I couldn't stop thinking about it throughout her entire speech. She's fueled by ambition, she's Machiavellian - she even has the same accent and verbal/facial tic.

Even if the Republicans don't win this election, Democrats have much to fear from Mrs. Palin in the future.

The question: Have the winds started blowing permanently in McCain's favor until the election?

The answer: No, it won't go unchanged until November. But what I find really shocking is the complete air of confidence coming from the Obama camp - they are not punching back in any coordinated fashion. Further complicating the matter is the fact that, since the conventions are back-to-back, it's likely that polling after the GOP convention will reflect a modest but real bounce for McCain.

The real question about this Reuters poll is - is it an outlier? Obama has consistently polled between 45-47% in the vast majority of polls. Even the Battleground poll that came out today, showing McCain with a 1-point lead, puts Obama at 46%. If other polls start to show him at 41%, that means that his own support is ebbing, rather than McCain winning short-term battles for the preference of wavering undecideds. And if that turns out to be the case, Mr. Obama is in serious, serious trouble. We can go into election day with Obama at 46-47% and hoping undecideds break his way - that's a plausible scenario. We cannot go into election day with Obama polling at 41% and have any reasonable hope he'll win.