For the GOP, it's Dial "S" for Suicide, or not

Politico has a doggone good roundup of all the mooing, bleating and baying coming from Mitt's ornery herd. Most of the complaints are familiar. Not being a Twitter addict, I had not heard this one though:

Two prominent GOP strategists who have worked for Romney in the past, Alex Castellanos and Mike Murphy, have thrown up their hands on Twitter with apparent frustration at the trajectory of the Republican’s campaign. When Romney’s team put out a memo Monday urging reporters not to make too much of Obama’s post-convention poling numbers, Castellanos judged it “a bit weak."

Alex must want to squeeze a few more consulting dollars out of Romney Inc. Because the memo wasn't "weak." It was idiotic.

I have only one major regret--which I'll reiterate for the hundredth time--about this fireballing fiasco of a GOP presidential campaign: Mitt Romney is going to receive all the party's blame; yep, he wasn't "conservative" enough. When it's invariably pointed out by whatever wise, Grand Old men and women are left in the party that Romney could not have been more conservative than he was--or for that matter than anyone could have been--the party will dismiss this monumental truism just as facilely as it now dismisses man-made climate change or evolution. The GOP base glories in ignorance and revels in blind rage. And, as others have observed, you can't fix stupid.

The only unknowns are threaded into the above. How many wise men will be left, and how many who still care enough to speak up? Enough to revive what is unmistakably a dying political party? And revive it through whom and through what?

The only plausible course that would seem to be open to a larger electorate is a slightly slower pace of Democratic policies--in other words, a return to Eisenhower Republicanism. The GOP would undoubtedly lose its hardcore crackpots to newly erected fringe parties, but only through such a moderation will the party ever reacquire Reagan Democrats and reestablish an equilibrium among women and pick up some of the mushrooming Latino vote and reconnect with the admittedly minuscule bloc of black conservatism.

The GOP can either finish its increasingly passionate 30-year fling with extremism or it can finish itself. Post-2012, it'll be a rather straighforward case of choosing one ... or the other.

Comments

[Peter G]

And yet that memo had a seed of truth in it. The fundamentals had not changed. The Romney campaign was just as doomed as it ever was.

[Robert Lipscomb]

I have no regret about their denial. It will be a ncessary pallative. At this point, the GOP is only capable of two actions: Make Romney the scapegoat or quietly expunge their principles of any real fealty to the principles of the culture war (especially the Religious Right). No, they will not unceremonious dump the RR; they just won't call any more.

But that would leave the trickle-down wing of Reaganism fully in control of an albeit minority party with the RR still coming over for a "booty call" when asked at every election.

That's when the real fun will begin.

As we fans of the tour de France call "carnage', "Epic Carnage!".

[Turgidson]

I mean, this post seems like it should be a no-brainer.

But...2010. That bullshit can easily happen again. The party could radicalize even further after Obama wins a 2nd term, and an extrinsic shock, say the Eurozone craterinng, could set back our recovery just in time for low-turnout midterms. And they could pile up another midterm win and become STILL FURTHER convinced that "real conservatives" win elections.

Every time this regressive, destructive party hits a point where it seems inevitable that they take an honest look in the mirror, rehab, and come out the other side more reasonable, they find a way to go on another bender. I've given up predicting the end of this cycle.

[Robert Lipscomb]

@Turgidson: That is why I hope for a scenario that leads to a death-match civil war.