Oh, hell no, will all the Tea Partiers fall in with the Repubs, just because they are angry with the Dems! In my experience, they are about equally PO's with both, and any Repub strategist who is rubbing his hands gleefully at the thought of all those fresh new political activists falling into lock-step with them has got another think coming!

The Tea Party movement is the only new and refreshing thing to come along in a long time. Perhaps that explains the frenzied attempts by these far right organizations to glom onto the Tea Parties as if they own them.

(Naturally, these attempts to claim credit also play into the hands of those who accuse the Tea Parties of being astroturfed.)

but do they seriously believe that the reason McCain lost -- to Barack Obama -- was because he was too far to the left?
Yes.
Conservatives stayed home in droves.
Their domestic policies didn't look all that different in the campaign. Recall that they were just spending the first billions from Bush's bailout. They differed, at least rhetorically, only on foreign policy, and the war was not the biggest issue last election.

And that therefore someone more to the right would have won?

That's a tougher one, look at the huge boost McCain got from Palin. Then look at how he muzzled her and then let the press define her. When she gave a speech, she was praised, but when she got with "journalists", they got the best of her. She wasn't expecting that much dishonesty I figure.
A genuinely conservative candidate could have done something.
McCain ran against "My friend", he didn't run against an opponent.

Obama and his crew, in the media, entertainment and in politics, had no such compunctions when dealing with that senile, angry old man.

I should say, I took a lot of crap from conservatives for defending Bush's handling of Iraq and Afghanistan.
I took a lot of crap from different conservatives for not defending, and often attacking, his domestic policy and handling of China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Terrortories.

As I have to say every now and then, my job isn't getting Republicans elected, their job is getting me to vote for them.

Yes, some stayed home. But was it enough to have mattered?

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/2008_voter_turnout_same_as_2004_/

Compared to 2004, Republican turnout declined by 1.3 percentage points to 28.7 percent, while Democratic turnout increased by 2.6 points from 28.7 percent in 2004 to 31.3 percent in 2008.

If we assume that the missing 1.3 percent are the conservatives who stayed home, even if they had voted, it would not have been enough to alter Obama's margin (53% to 46%).

There's also an assumption that, say, Romney or Huckabee would have not only brought in these conservatives, but kept the rest of McCain's votes. Is that warranted?

I'm just curious, why do you mention Mitt, "I've been a conservative for about a minute" Romney and Mike, "Christian Socialist" Huckabee when we're talking about conservative candidates?

The effect of "They're the same" also affected your average American who doesn't pay any attention until about 5 minutes before the election.
Most people just tune it all out. Americans can ignore our gov't because it's mostly the same, it goes one way, it goes another. Eh. As long as football's on and taxes aren't too high, things are cool.

The last election was ridiculous. Anybody who looked at it in a desultory manner saw all crazy people. All unbelievably crazy people.

So when it's the choice of the crotchety old man and the thrill of a black president, both of whom were mostly the same otherwise, well, lots of people were also swept up in the historic angle.

If there had been a candidate who wasn't just haggling over how much the gov't was taking over, well, Americans would have had a choice of positions instead of skin color.

Why?

I don't know. I was probably unduly influenced by Laura Ingraham, and I might have imagined she was speaking for, um, conservatives.

http://www.classicalvalues.com/archives/2008/02/conservative_pu.html

Not saying I'm a conservative, mind you. Just trying to figure this shit out, then as now.

It's a whole lot easier to put together a coalition AGAINST someone than it is FOR someone. Barry Hussein held together anti-Bush coalition that coalesced for the '06 midterms. Now that he's governing, the Bush supporters and the Bush-haters that don't like the Big O's can hold hands and sing kumbaya -- until the R's win an election and the cycle of creative destruction begins anew.

Enjoy the circus. The cycles of American politics have been this way since Jefferson. Only now, the cycles are accelerating. It's like the old joke about not liking the weather in Oklahoma. Wait a minute (or a year) and the political weather will change.

I was a liberal until a few months after 9/11, when a fellow liberal asked me what I thought of the war; and I was a conservative until a conservative asked me what I thought of abortion (then, all hell broke loose). Now, I am an independent with a strong states' rights streak who supports candidates, not parties.

With that said, I've never understood why the Libertarian Party has wasted its time and resources fielding presidential candidates. If libertarianism is to become an influential movement, it needs to do so from the bottom up. We don't need the Presidency or the Senate -- state offices and the House ought to be our target.

Heh, I've tried to watch her when she guest hosts O'Reilly, I can't take her.

Isn't she like Hannity, just a shill for the GOP?

They're Republicans first, conservatives second.

Rush is more of a free agent (I don't listen to him either), so is Beck and, of course, Neil Boortz.

Boortz endorsed the Huckster, but that's because Huckabee claimed he was for the Fair Tax. I didn't believe him, Huckabee not Boortz.

Eh, I was rooting for a Benito Giuliani/Newt ticket first and then a Fred ticket.

The people who organized the original Boston Tea Party weren't just angry. They were angry at something specific, the Tea Tax. When I watch people on TV talking at these new Tea Parties, they are clearly angry, but they are angry about all sorts of different things. Many don't seem to know what they are angry about, and many are angry about things that aren't real, like Obama's so-called Death Courts or Death Panels. That's a fantasy.

Did you think that up yourself or did someone have to give you an off-topic annoyance for you to cut and paste in inappropriate posts?

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