Before you liberals get too cocky, you might want to look to Canada where the Conservative Party took an unbelievable shellacking in 1993. Take a guess which party controls their government now.

I'll say... they stink on ice

Yep, the right does consider moderates revolting.

mikemoto: Before you liberals get too cocky, you might want to look to Canada where the Conservative Party took an unbelievable shellacking in 1993. Take a guess which party controls their government now.

Candian conservatives aren't equatable to US Conservatives. Not by a long shot.

Canadian conservatives are equatable to US Blue dogs at WORST.

Of course moderate Republicans are revolting. That's why they call them RINOS. They smell like the Rhino pen at the zoo, what with their gay brothers and sisters, their "black friends", their insistance on foolishlessness like "making jobs", or "a living wage" or worse yet, "buy America" and "bring our boys home alive".

If they were in charge, you'd get nothing but "liberalism lite". Moderate Republicans agree with centrists and liberals on almost everything except how much to tax moderate Republicans.

No they won't.

They'll fall in line like they always do. If they really wanted to revolt, they'd leave and become blue dogs or start their own center right party.

mikemoto: Before you liberals get too cocky, you might want to look to Canada where the Conservative Party took an unbelievable shellacking in 1993. Take a guess which party controls their government now.

I don't want your newsletter.

mikemoto: Before you liberals get too cocky, you might want to look to Canada where the Conservative Party took an unbelievable shellacking in 1993. Take a guess which party controls their government now.

Canadian conservatives think the GOP is batshiate insane. Canadian conservatives could not get elected in the US South

Headline randomly grabbed from Free Republic: "Boehner Tells House G.O.P. to Fall in Line (Time for Conservatives to divorce the GOP)"

And within that thread, this pic:



This is going to be delicious.

mikemoto: Before you liberals get too cocky, you might want to look to Canada where the Conservative Party took an unbelievable shellacking in 1993. Take a guess which party controls their government now.

The Progressive Conservative Party that went down is not the same party that came back from the grave. It's like when somebody is bitten by a vampire and comes back. They are not the same loved one you buried. They are a blood-sucking demon in human form.

The same thing happened to the Republican Party--it was once the party of Lincoln and the abolitionists (far to the left of him). It was once a centrist party, with liberal and moderate wings keeping it stable and close to the people of small town, middle class America.

But it was taken over from within like a caterpillar being devoured by wasp larvae.

Today's Conservatives are basically the Northern wing of the Republicans. They are fundamentalist Christians, anti-tax suburbanites and ass-kissers of the Oil Patch and the Super Rich Tories of Toronto.

To give you an idea, the two surviving Members of Parliament after the crash were Elsie Wayne (a right-winger from Saint John, New Brunswick, whose opinions are often unreconstructed and whose language and methods are "colourful" even by right-wing New Brunswick standards, and Jean Charest, who is still he Liberal Prime Minister (or Premier) of Quebec.

Jean Charest is more to the left than a Massachusetts Republican and Elsie, God Bless Her, is a flake who is prone to wearing Christmas sweaters that light up more than her latest anti-gay statement.

The Conservative Party died. It is just the reanimated corpse that is walking the Earth. The New Conservatives, like their neo-Con and libertarian American counterparts, are no more centrist, moderate, liberal, or sane than the Reverend Bumfackus of the Super-Church of Jesus Christ of Backwoods, Nigeria is a Universalist Christian.

he vampire or zombie analogy is a sound one. The old name covers a skin full of new sins and very, very old cons.

Harper is a cunning player but his only "real" job as a trained economist was to shill for rich Tories on every anti-tax, anti-environment, and anti-liberal con job that came down the tubes from the ultra-right think tansks.

The Conservative Party was weak when it merged with the Reform Party, and neither of those two parties really survive in the present-day Conservative Party. A revolution has taken place, using the right wing peasantry and working class reactionaries as cannon fodder, but the only result of the revolution was o place the revolutionaries at the top. Not unlike the Mexican Revolution, the French Revoluition, the Russian Revolution, the American Revolution, etc.

Remember your horror movies: what you get back from the grave is not what you buried.

Aarontology: No they won't.

They'll fall in line like they always do. If they really wanted to revolt, they'd leave and become blue dogs or start their own center right party.

Why do we need another center right party, we already have Democrats.

propasaurus: Aarontology: No they won't.

They'll fall in line like they always do. If they really wanted to revolt, they'd leave and become blue dogs or start their own center right party.

Why do we need another center right party, we already have Democrats.

Well, center right compared to the current GOP, I mean.

brantgoose: mikemoto: Before you liberals get too cocky, you might want to look to Canada where the Conservative Party took an unbelievable shellacking in 1993. Take a guess which party controls their government now.

The Progressive Conservative Party that went down is not the same party that came back from the grave. It's like when somebody is bitten by a vampire and comes back. They are not the same loved one you buried. They are a blood-sucking demon in human form.

The same thing happened to the Republican Party--it was once the party of Lincoln and the abolitionists (far to the left of him). It was once a centrist party, with liberal and moderate wings keeping it stable and close to the people of small town, middle class America.

But it was taken over from within like a caterpillar being devoured by wasp larvae.

Today's Conservatives are basically the Northern wing of the Republicans. They are fundamentalist Christians, anti-tax suburbanites and ass-kissers of the Oil Patch and the Super Rich Tories of Toronto.

To give you an idea, the two surviving Members of Parliament after the crash were Elsie Wayne (a right-winger from Saint John, New Brunswick, whose opinions are often unreconstructed and whose language and methods are "colourful" even by right-wing New Brunswick standards, and Jean Charest, who is still he Liberal Prime Minister (or Premier) of Quebec.

Jean Charest is more to the left than a Massachusetts Republican and Elsie, God Bless Her, is a flake who is prone to wearing Christmas sweaters that light up more than her latest anti-gay statement.

The Conservative Party died. It is just the reanimated corpse that is walking the Earth. The New Conservatives, like their neo-Con and libertarian American counterparts, are no more centrist, moderate, liberal, or sane than the Reverend Bumfackus of the Super-Church of Jesus Christ of Backwoods, Nigeria is a Universalist Christian.

he vampire or zombie analogy is a sound one. The old name covers a skin full of new ...

I'm totally confused here. Others are saying the Conservatives in Canada are to the left of the US Republican Party. You seem to be saying the opposite.

GAT_00: The GOP will not fall apart.

Hm. What odds would you want to give for a wager on that? Specifically, with you paying out if more than 20% of the current House GOP membership OR more than half the Senate GOP membership leave the GOP before election day 2014, whether defecting to the Democrats or establishing a new party.

Though a more interesting question might be what odds Nate Silver would give....

mikemoto: Before you liberals get too cocky, you might want to look to Canada where the Conservative Party took an unbelievable shellacking in 1993. Take a guess which party controls their government now.

So, 20 years of sanity? I'm ok with that.

Boehner must be a librul plant, right?

Kittypie070: Boehner must be a librul plant, right?

Of course, I've seen him golfing with the enemy.

Honestly, aren't most liberal Republicans essentially moderate Democrats? The Democratic Party has shifted so far to the right (though one could argue that it's just more heterogeneous and thus covers both liberal and moderate strands), that I'm not really sure a socially moderate, fiscally conservative, national security hawk Republican would feel SO uncomfortable there.

Kittypie070: Boehner must be a librul plant, right?

I read Robert Draper's "Do Not Ask What Good We Do" over the summer. From that analysis, Boehner appeared to be a conservative Republican, but also a quintessential party man. In other words, he would prefer to make deals and keep the Republican party viable electorally rather than stick to pure right-wing ideology. That's one reason he's had a hard time getting votes from the rancorous Tea Partiers that won in 2010 and have made his life hell. Well, Paul Ryan and Eric Cantor have as well, but they are also in that ideological stream. It will be interesting to see if he can keep his majority in check this time around.

Ambivalence: mikemoto: Before you liberals get too cocky, you might want to look to Canada where the Conservative Party took an unbelievable shellacking in 1993. Take a guess which party controls their government now.

Candian conservatives aren't equatable to US Conservatives. Not by a long shot.

Canadian conservatives are equatable to US Blue dogs at WORST.

Yep. The Democratic party would qualify as conservative pretty must anywhere outside of the US. The GOP would be a far right party.

GAT_00: People are blowing this out of proportion again. I swear articles are being rerun from 2008 at this point. The GOP will not fall apart.

No, but it will change.

Another thing to ponder. After 1964, you could easily have written this same article. Goldwater lost far more convincingly than Romney had and where were we 4 years after that? Also, one would assume Hillary is the frontrunner for 2016. Don't be so sure that she's a lock to win the presidency.

Ambivalence: mikemoto: Before you liberals get too cocky, you might want to look to Canada where the Conservative Party took an unbelievable shellacking in 1993. Take a guess which party controls their government now.

Candian conservatives aren't equatable to US Conservatives. Not by a long shot.

Canadian conservatives are equatable to US Blue dogs at WORST.

Eh... dammit. You're probably right. I'm rusty on my understanding of current Canadian politics since I stopped going over the border on a monthly basis and moved out of the CBC broadcast range. I still kind of hate Harper, though.

Then again, I got to high-five multiple Canadians at a show last night because Michigan voted against Mr. Burns.
So in that spirit of camaraderie even Harper gets a pass for the time being.



brantgoose: Remember your horror movies: what you get back from the grave is not what you buried. 

Oh, I am totally going to have to steal that from you for future use.

mikemoto: Another thing to ponder. After 1964, you could easily have written this same article. Goldwater lost far more convincingly than Romney had and where were we 4 years after that? Also, one would assume Hillary is the frontrunner for 2016. Don't be so sure that she's a lock to win the presidency.

Who is assuming that? If she was, I don't know if she's be stepping down as Secretary of State. I could see her as VP nominee, possibly, but she's getting on in years. She'd be almost 70 if she ran in 2016 IIRC.

StreetlightInTheGhetto: Who is assuming that?

No one. I don't even want to hear about 2016. Can we have 6 months to digest this whole nightmare?

Wait a minute, Lindsey Graham, Bill Kristol and Saxby Chambliss are the moderates in the party now?

mikemoto: Before you liberals get too cocky, you might want to look to Canada where the Conservative Party took an unbelievable shellacking in 1993. Take a guess which party controls their government now.

Which means absolutely nothing.

A bath , a haircut and a tuxedo can work wonders.

NewportBarGuy: StreetlightInTheGhetto: Who is assuming that?

No one. I don't even want to hear about 2016. Can we have 6 months to digest this whole nightmare?

I'm not making any assumptions. I just try to debunk stupid ones as a public service.

I really, really hate that the 2014 House campaigns are probably going to be starting up soon though.

vpb: Ambivalence: mikemoto: Before you liberals get too cocky, you might want to look to Canada where the Conservative Party took an unbelievable shellacking in 1993. Take a guess which party controls their government now.

Candian conservatives aren't equatable to US Conservatives. Not by a long shot.

Canadian conservatives are equatable to US Blue dogs at WORST.

Yep. The Democratic party would qualify as conservative pretty must anywhere outside of the US. The GOP would be a far right party.

I really more wish people would understand this. The nearest thing the UK has to the current GOP is the National Front. Read their policy positions -- the NF, which is considered a far-right nationalist group in the UK, is actually more liberal than the current GOP. The only thing more "radical" that the NF does is they actually acknowledge their white-supremacist position, where the GOP deals in dog whistles and euphemisms about "real Americans".

GAT_00: vpb: GAT_00: People are blowing this out of proportion again. I swear articles are being rerun from 2008 at this point. The GOP will not fall apart.

No, but it will change.

Yep, it's going to go further right.

And the further right it goes the smaller and more irrelevant it will become.

mikemoto: Before you liberals get too cocky, you might want to look to Canada where the Conservative Party took an unbelievable shellacking in 1993. Take a guess which party controls their government now.


Politics, it works like a pendulum. Who would have guessed?

Hannity and Co. are embracing the Dem stance on immigration. Bill Kristol is giving the OK to raise taxes on the rich. This election is already having major effects on the future of the US, and it hasn't even been a full week.

Krymson Tyde: And the further right it goes the smaller and more irrelevant it will become.

Until it's so small you can drown it in a bathtub.

vpb: GAT_00: People are blowing this out of proportion again. I swear articles are being rerun from 2008 at this point. The GOP will not fall apart.

No, but it will change.

Everything changes all the time. The question is whether the GOP will change for the better or worse.

NFA: mikemoto: Before you liberals get too cocky, you might want to look to Canada where the Conservative Party took an unbelievable shellacking in 1993. Take a guess which party controls their government now.


Politics, it works like a pendulum. Who would have guessed?

In 2004 there were at least as many stories about the impending collapse of the Democratic party. In 1996 there were the same stories about the collapse of the Republican party. 1984? You would have thought Ronald Reagan had slaughtered the Democratic party itself. Any time a President wins a second term the press treats it like it was unexpected instead of the usual pattern in national elections.

The Reactionaries have not bolted to Virgil Goode and the Constitution Party. When they do, then we'll see some changes. Until that happens, there will be no breakdown of the Republican Party.

Mentat: Wait a minute, Lindsey Graham, Bill Kristol and Saxby Chambliss are the moderates in the party now?

I'm surprised about Chambliss. But Kristol and Graham are Dick Cheney/Paul Wolfowitz neoconservatives and have been for a long time. They have not historically cared very much for Grover Norquist and the rabid anti-tax wing. They have no inherent problem with deficit spending.

GAT_00: People are blowing this out of proportion again. I swear articles are being rerun from 2008 at this point. The GOP will not fall apart.

The fact is that if you take the evangelicals out of this election, Mitt Romney is President.

The GOP is dying and every facet of the party knows that it's dead without an expansion of the base. The only question is how the GOP tries to achieve it. Do they drop the social issues and stay tight on fiscal and small government issues to capture the stable middle class and upper middle class? Or do they do the opposite in the hopes of mobilizing the Latino vote?

They can't do both, and it leaves at least one of the facets of the party out in the cold.

Lsherm: NFA: mikemoto: Before you liberals get too cocky, you might want to look to Canada where the Conservative Party took an unbelievable shellacking in 1993. Take a guess which party controls their government now.


Politics, it works like a pendulum. Who would have guessed?

In 2004 there were at least as many stories about the impending collapse of the Democratic party. In 1996 there were the same stories about the collapse of the Republican party. 1984? You would have thought Ronald Reagan had slaughtered the Democratic party itself. Any time a President wins a second term the press treats it like it was unexpected instead of the usual pattern in national elections.

This country is ruled by the moderate middle. If either side goes too far to the extremes, the moderate middle grabs them by the throat and yanks them back. Sometimes, an event like 9/11 allows one side to get away with more than usual, but they always overreach. That said, there's nothing that says either political party has a right to survive. The labels may change, but that's all the Republican Party is.

Well, they're mostly just rude.