Best Birthday Present Ever
I have said in the past that I dread somewhat a John McCain candidacy in the general election, especially if Clinton wins the blue nomination, because of his (somewhat mysterious) appeal among swing voters and moderate Republicans. However, there is a possible silver lining here insofar as this embrace by moderates has corresponded to a firm rejection by the further right (and even, of all things, a declaration by Coultergeist that against McCain, she would support Clinton). Now this to some extent mostly seemed like it would affect the primaries, if anything at all.
However, we have now gotten our first sign that this may have some positive effects for Democratic politics in the general election: James Dobson of the horrific Focus on the Family - and seen by some as the "Most Influential" of all the Evangelical crazies in our fair country- has declared that he will not vote in the general election if McCain is the GOP's candidate.
Now, it remains to be seen how much this one statement will be followed by other similar crazy types, or indeed if the media will pick up on the story at all. But if these do follow, the GOP's chances in the general will take a spectacular nosedive, and I will be a happy camper.
However, we have now gotten our first sign that this may have some positive effects for Democratic politics in the general election: James Dobson of the horrific Focus on the Family - and seen by some as the "Most Influential" of all the Evangelical crazies in our fair country- has declared that he will not vote in the general election if McCain is the GOP's candidate.
Now, it remains to be seen how much this one statement will be followed by other similar crazy types, or indeed if the media will pick up on the story at all. But if these do follow, the GOP's chances in the general will take a spectacular nosedive, and I will be a happy camper.
Labels: politics
posted by Mephisto at 12:00 PM
1 Comments:
I think people of the lefty persuasion have a hard time realizing how much conservatives don't like John McCain. In a lot of ways, he's the John Kerry of their side. You might even say he's like the old-new-al-gore of 2000's election, who lost a great deal of votes from his base because he didn't seem very different from Bush at the time (can you believe we thought that?!?).
We have major advantages over the republicans in the general election. Yes, it will be a hard-fought battle, and they'll definitely throw everything at us they can, and unearth any and all skeletons that haven't already been found in our candidates' closets (undoubtedly we'll learn a lot about Obama that we haven't yet gotten from his his short political history thus far), but they've got huge factors working against them.
First, George W Bush has totally screwed their party's image. Secondly, the party has splintered apart, for the first time in a long while. They're basically having the same problems that the Democrats have had the past decade or so. The primaries for them are more about voting against candidates than voting for them. The evangelicals, the fiscal conservatives, and the more independent-libertarian-reform types all have their own camps, whereas they used to all agree to support Bush.
Check out exit polling during the primaries. Democrats have been breaking turnout records in every state, and while democratic voters seem almost exactly divided between Hillary and Obama, all polls show that they are happy with all the candidates, and will support whoever goes to the general election. On the republican side, we see basically the opposite. Not to mention the primaries have been much more heated and snippy on the republican side, whereas the democrats (aside from a few cheap shots) have been pretty civil, all things considered.
Honestly, this may be the election that we take back the south.
That's all I got to say.
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