Saturday, November 22, 2008

Great Conservative Pundit Hand-Wringing of 2008

I think what Tom Tomorrow is saying here is that the death of the GOP is greatly exaggerated, just as the death of the Democrats was greatly exaggerated in 2004, and just as claims like "dot-coms have redefined the fundamental principles of economics" were hopelessly myopic in 1997... which is basically my position on the Great Conservative Pundit Hand-Wringing of 2008. To be successful a political party needs to have a strong activist base plus a compelling issue or set of issues to woo swing voters. Despite all its problems, the GOP still enjoys a huge, pretty reliable block of one-issue (abortion) voters and a good issue (taxes) to go after swing voters. (The GOP has somewhat fucked up its advantage on taxes by defending, out of stupidity or principle, Bush's tax cuts for the rich instead of proposing new cuts for the middle class; and by being victims of its own success -- you can only cut taxes so much before you can no longer get any leverage out of the issue. But until Democrats can convince the public to re-envision government spending as "investment" the GOP's structural advantage on taxes will remain intact.) In other words, the GOP needs to do some tweaking around the edges but ultimately it will be just fine.
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