Why will the G.O.P. become more, not less, extreme?

Speaking of history, it was noted by a pundit that the only Republican tickets to win the presidency after the Great Depression are the tickets with a Bush or a Nixon

Perhaps an in-depth study of changing party coalitions through the ages might help. Perhaps a review of this book might help us gain insight:

Changing Party Coalitions: The Mystery of the Red State - Blue State Alignment.

To use a different analogy I think Palin (and perhaps Joe the Plumber too) appeal to the brainstem of conservatism, where the most primitive and persistent impulses are registered, even as the areas of higher reasoning and cognition (frontal lobes and all that) are flat-lining or tracking into oblivion.

Even a week or so back a poll of Republicans found that Palin came in third behind Romney and Huckabee in their choice for a 2012 nominee.

The conventional wisdom seems to be that only the conservative 'intellectuals' have a beef with Palin. But I'm pretty sure the post-election view is going to seem very different. The chatter out of the McCain campaign only confirms what her two months on the public stage has made painfully clear. Palin wasn't simply unprepared for intense scrutiny of a national campaign. The woman is an ignoramus of almost unprecedented magnitude in the annals of national politics. It's not just that virtually every-non-Republican has a negative view of her. I just don't see a national party getting behind someone like that. And before you snark, "What about George Bush?" Sorry but there's no comparison. Whatever else I think of him, he's not a moron. And while he appears to be astoundingly incurious, there's simply no comparison to Palin.

I guess I could imagine a rump Republican party nominating Palin. It could be Palin with perhaps Mark Levin as veep to nail down the all important angry, middle-aged DC Jewish male, right-wing ravanchist vote and Joe the Plumber to run her Phalangist paramilitary. But my strong hunch is that if McCain loses tomorrow that will be the end of Sarah Palin's national political career even if there are some persistent twitches and jerks over the coming months.

The former Reagan economic adviser Bruce Bartlett predicts, indeed, that the Republican primaries will turn into a Palin/Gingrich steel-cage death match (from his lips to God’s ears, I say).

I thought Hank Jr was a tad smarter than that.

I find it difficult to imagine these people [i.e., talk radio demagogues] shifting because extremism is their language and their reason for being.

I suspect it would take a while for conservatives to adjust, simply because they've been steeped in the extremism, and the hysteria and the hate for so long now. But trust to it, if the party center begins to shift, the commercial interests, such as talk radio hosts, will respond as quickly or more quickly than any other part of the group.

You may be right, but i suspect that most of them, if not including Limbaugh, will trim their sails to wind that blows.

Well, Republicans were saying before the election that if Obama/Biden won and McCain/Palin lost, things were going to get ugly:

Quote:

Jim Nuzzo, a White House aide to the first President Bush, dismissed Mrs Palin's critics as "cocktail party conservatives" who "give aid and comfort to the enemy".

He told The Sunday Telegraph: "There's going to be a bloodbath. A lot of people are going to be excommunicated. David Brooks and David Frum and Peggy Noonan are dead people in the Republican Party. The litmus test will be: where did you stand on Palin?"

Sure enough:

Quote:

RedState is pleased to announce it is engaging in a special project: Operation Leper.

We're tracking down all the people from the McCain campaign now whispering smears against Governor Palin to Carl Cameron and others. Michelle Malkin has the details.

We intend to constantly remind the base about these people, monitor who they are working for, and, when 2012 rolls around, see which candidates hire them. Naturally then, you'll see us go to war against those candidates.

It is our expressed intention to make these few people political lepers.

Robert Farley has it about right:

Quote:

I expect that the effort will make Palin more toxic to anyone who's not in the Republican base, but won't touch her position within the base. Sarah Palin is too big to fail. Bill Kristol has staked his prestige on Palin's future, and the simple fact that she thought Africa was a country isn't going to make he and his back down. He's too deeply invested in her, and everyone else in the conservative punditariat is too deeply invested in him. If she crashes, everyone goes down. I foresee two possible futures; in one, Kristol starts walking everyone back from the brink in a year or two, and Palin's future Presidential candidacy goes down the memory tube. In the other, we get Sarah! 2012, and a Goldwater style annihilation next time around. I'm guessing door #2.

Couldn't happen to a more deserving bunch.

The fracturing of the movement is going to cause problems for people like Limbaugh. They can (they will) trim their sails as Thomas suggests but it will not be at all clear in which direction they're better off trimming towards.