finn said:
Quote:You continue to want to elevate Coulter to height of influence that she doesn't actually hold. You don't keep photos of her in a black leather mountie uniform under your mattress do you?
More accurate anti-McCain media triads, in terms of influence, would be Limbaugh/Hannity/Levin or Limbaugh/Hannity/Ingles
Anti-McCain political triads: Delay/Dobson/Santorum
There's more to this roil than ideology.
There's no pure way to categorize the Republican stalwarts. For example, the most popular metaphor used to fit this task presently (used mainly by the right) is the 'three legged stool'...social conservatives, fiscal conservatvies and security conservatives.
But my interest is particularly related to their presence in media and in that sphere the two influential groups are the neoconservatives and the red-meat 'populists' of radio (and increasingly, tv, particularly Fox). They have quite distinct and different historical roots in american culture (the establishment intellectual vs the rural practical man) and the members of each group rise out of different educational and class/cultural backgrounds, more commonly at odds with each other than aligned.
Quote:McCain has not only not kow-towed to the Roarers on the Right, he's flipped them off from time to time.
If McCain takes control of the GOP (and he will if wins the election) some of these people will find themselves out in the cold.
I agree. The red-meat populists (if you'll forgive my accurate label) appear to have much more to lose with a McCain presidency. They set themselves in loud opposition to McCain since his contest with Bush in the presidential nomination run, then grew louder as McCain violated doctrinal certainties. They are out on a limb. And that out-on-a-limb extremism which they avow (it is the proof of their conservative purity bona fides) makes course corrections embarrassing or impossible.
To the degree that they are perceived as 'paper tigers' or as extremists by their listeners/readers, to that degree they lose everything...power, status, money. They become merely oddballs. But that's the eventual fate of extremists, isn't it? Perhaps we might think of Coulter's or Schlafley's attempts to resurrect Joseph McCarthy as a personally hopeful enterprise.
It is the ironies and ahistorical parts of this story which are finally rising to the surface and causing some large part of the cognitive dissonance in your party now. Representing a species of american populism, these people ought to be
much more at home with McCain (war hero, independent-minded, doesn't take guff and fists at the ready) than with Romney for god sakes or even with spoiled rich kid establishment Bush. But McCain has committed the conservative movement's biggest sin...the heresey of actual independence. Now, unfortunately, he's committing the independents' biggest sin...brown-nosing the doctrinal gate-keepers. Shakespeare could do something with this tragic star-crossed tale.
Another irony related to these two components of your modern republican party relates to militarism. While both the neoconservative community and the Limbaugh/Coulter/Hannity etc preen in the glow of their 'bring it on' militarism, neither group have found it necessary to be personally involved in the real enterprise itself. And that's a problem, again of cognitive dissoance, which is showing up in statistics on who the military families are increasingly supporting in this coming election. Not the Republican Party. It's a significant shift in loyalty and in thinking. But it makes sense if you consider that the volunteer military is perhaps the most diverse and (in one sense) most democratic institution in America. A real populist leader or spokesman, one whom the body of this military might identify with as one of the best of their own, would have their loyalty. And then you have Rush, pumped into the Green Zone twice a day, suggesting that McCain, of all people, is bad for America.
Quote:The Radio Roarers have incredibly high opinions of themselves, and they want to be king-makers. In addition, their ratings climb when they are at the center of a storm.
While I'm sure McCain and his campaign crew would love for the Roarers to just shut up (the hell with endorsing him), I don't think they are inflicting irreparable harm. Ditto-heads and the like might sit home if their heroes have not finally come around for McCain, but most Americans are just not following this stuff as closely as we are, and if there is anything that is sticking it's probably a positive impression. I doubt too many people who will seriously weigh McCain as a possible choice over either of the Democrats are going to turned off by the fact that the Roarers of The Right don't love McCain. More likely the opposite.
I don't agree, finn. There is measurable harm being done to the McCain candidacy evidenced by the current primaries and caucuses. It is a consequence of this decline in party/movement unity and loyalty arising out of the stuff I've just talked about and the disasters of the last seven years.
Quote:This is a bizarre election. We have conservatives saying they will vote for a Democrat if McCain wins the nod, and liberals saying they will vote for McCain if the super delegates decide the nomination. It's fascinating.
Yes it is. And the consequences of this election are seriously important in a whole range of directions. Voter turnout suggests this is quite broadly recognized.
Quote:If I wasn't so sure that an Obama or Clinton presidency will, overall, be detrimental to the best interests of America, I could enjoy this thing a lot more.
I'm not a huge fan of Brooks, but I will take Kristol/McCain/Brooks over Limbaugh/Hannity/Coulter any day. Of course I will take Limbaugh/Hannity/Coulter over any liberal triad too.
I think that only time passing (and perhaps a broader reading regimen) will temper your fears.
