In my years on the county Republican central committee, I’ve learned that those who whine “Stop the bickering!” are fools who quickly surrender their votes to RINOs and backbiters. (The McCain campaign insiders whispering snarky snot to the press about Sarah Palin now aren’t the GOP’s conservative base now, are they?)
A lesson of this election is that squish can’t win. (Why does this lesson have to be repeated soooo often?) Democrat voters already have a party they’re happy with ask any PUMA how she cast her vote when she stood in the voting booth and decision time came for real. In any election between a Democrat and a Democrat-lite, significant numbers of center-right moderates stay home — so do a few “but I don’t want any spa-, uh, socialism!” members of the GOP base. Whaddya know, that’s exactly what happened this election.
This election also repeated another lesson: “Politics ain’t bean bag.” Sen. McCain put the inexperienced, gaffe-prone, dissembling, Africa-is-a-country-with-57-states Chicago political operator named Obama into the White House the same way Bruce Hershenson elevated Barbara Boxer to a Senate seat from California, by forgetting that lesson and trying to run a campaign the way their seventh-grade civics textbooks said campaigns are run. Sheesh!
