Complete this: "The Republicans did this to themselves, by ___________________."

[begin_within]

[Arugula Latte]

1. acting like total douchebags for three decades.

[Hissyspit]

2. being Republicans.

[begin_within]

13. good one

how Zen

[OneGrassRoot]

3. letting fundies, neocons, and Limbaugh-Hannity-type idiots take over. n/t

[texastoast]

4. Getting greedy and allowing neocons to take over their party

Blech.

[EFerrari]

5. appeasing the extremists and ignoring the moderates. They are math impaired.

[DrToast]

6. ...paling around with agents of intolerance. n/t

[Wapsie B]

7. Courting the idolaters of the conservative fundamentalists and the neocons.

[dcindian]

8. Making Christian extremist their base.

Hate can only take you so far. Then boom Society has enough and just says no.

[depakid]

9. embracing Milton Friedman

[EastTennesseeDem]

10. being in the same party as George Walker Bush

[RoadRage]

11. voting for George Bush

and then putting his twin (Palin) on the ticket as the VP candidate.

[justiceischeap]

12. buying their own hype. nt

[RagAss]

14. Palination !

[Moody]

15. talking nonstop about 9/11 and terrorists.

[SKKY]

16. sucking so bad.

[paregdem]

17. Creating a self-serving Republican agenda that excludes the majority

[abumbyanyothername]

18. Idolizing Reagan.

If I had to make it short.

Reagan brought together three factions that don't really belong together and empowered them. There is no real connecting thread between the Religious Right, the Libertarians and quasi-Libertarians (fiscal conservatives/small government) and the War Hawks. Reagan had the personality and communication skills to make all three of these groups think that each was his favorite.

What happened in the Republican primary was that these three groups split more or less evenly, with McCain edging up toward 40% when it was still a race. But in no real contested primary did McCain ever top 50% . . . in his own party!

Then the race was called early and there was no apparent need to build a ground game in many states. And the McCain slobs (no one is more incompetent than Steve Schmidt and Rick Davis) sat on their butts and did nothing. They thought the old red state blue state game would be played, even though one of Barack's first speeches was the "United States" speech.

They simply underestimated the opposition and were busy slapping themselves on the back because the Dems were going to have a knock down drag out primary. Which happened. And guess what? It left the winning Dem ticket with an amazingly strong organization in pretty close to all 50 states.

Then the losing candidate on the Dem side got on board with the winner in a way that has never happened in the history of Presidential politics. At least 95% of the losers supporters support the chosen candidate, and many of them (yours truly included) are more than just voters -- they donate and volunteer.

Support for McCain was never more than lukewarm even in his own party, and his stunt (Palin) effort to fire up his base disgusted another one-third of the party.

I suspect that the Libertarians will take over as the second party within the next 10 years, and that will leave the wackos out in the desert as far as government goes. The war hawks will be much weaker also. And all told the nation will be stronger for it.

[remember2000forever]

19. Picking Palin!!!!!!!

[geekgrrl]

endless, relentless, and nonsensical FEARMONGERING nt

[La Lioness Priyanka]

20. electing george bush a second time

[Mike 03]

21. Having nothing but intolerant, sheer contempt for the majority

of the population of this country.

They forgot to notice that most of us have entirely different priorities, concerns, difficulties and values.

They openly and pridefully disregard and disrespect the Constitution and everything that it stands for.

They glory in distortion.

This self-immolation by McCain is just one spark in a forest fire of ignorance that has slowly burned the Republican Party into something almost unrecognizable.

And they can all go to hell for all I care. I'm finished trying to "empathize" or compromise or anything with them. They can screw off.

[PBS Poll-435]

22. Rickrolling the American people one too many times